Five-year-old Westly hears the sentence, "Westly, quit clowning around." He knows all the other words, but he has never heard the word "clowning" before. The fact that he understands that the word "clowning" must be referring to what he is currently doing is best explained as involving cues.

Sentence

Explanation:

In psychology, Sentence cues refers to  words that can be used to influence the action or behavior of another person.

In order for the message using sentence cues to be successful, both the giver and the receiver of the cues must understand the meaning of the word and the expectation that the giver has by saying that cue.

In the example above, Westly most likely wouldn't change his actions/behaviors. This happen because Westly does not understand the meaning of the words and cannot decipher what his mother wants from him.