漢語學齡前兒童敘事中評論語言之發展

Abstract

評論是敘事中不可或缺的一環，評論語言透露敘事者對該事件所抱持的態度、想法，並凸顯出事件主旨及其可資報導的理由。是以，兒童在發展其敘事能力時，必須學會針對不同類型的敘事活動，適切地使用評論語言，以傳達其看法及事件的重點。儘管近年來文獻上對兒童敘事能力的發展多有著墨，我們對兒童敘事中評論語言的使用與發展仍所知有限。實則上，研究觀察指出兒童敘事中評論語言的使用頗為頻繁。鑑於此，本研究旨在探討漢語學齡前兒童敘事中評論語言的發展，以期對兒童敘事能力之進展有深一層的認識。 本研究觀察的對象為十二位學齡前兒童，其中六位男童、六位女童。研究者在孩童平均年齡5;5, 5;8以及5;11時進行觀察採樣。我們以長期觀察的語料為據，將評論語言加以分類，剖析不同類別的評論語言其各自的發展軌跡；此外，隨孩童年齡的逐漸成長，我們試圖找出評論語言在整體敘事語言中所佔比例的消長，以縱觀其整體發展趨勢。我們以年齡、性別與敘事活動類型為獨立變項，除檢驗各獨立變項對評論語言發展的影響，並觀察各變項間的互動，以剖析評論語言發展過程的各種樣貌。 研究發現分為質、量兩方面。量的方面，我們觀察到隨兒童年齡成長，其評論語言使用的總量與多樣性均呈增加的趨勢。在各類評論語彙中，僅兩種評論機制(CAS, SOM)呈現年齡主效應；僅一項評論機制(PAR)顯現性別主效應。兒童使用評論語彙時，會參酌敘事活動之類型而做調整，此亦反映出他們已認知到不同類型的敘事活動間之差異。一如我們所臆測的，年齡、性別與敘事活動類型等變因，會影響兒童對某些評論語彙之倚重程度。此外，諸受試孩童其評論語言的發展模式可概分成兩類，這兩種模式均呈成長趨勢，其間的差異僅限於成長速率之不同。 質的方面，我們觀察到兒童使用評論語言上的三項變化。首先，兒童的敘事由針對圖片中單項事物的靜態描述，進展到對事件的動態敘事。尤其在兒童進入動態敘事的階段後，愈見其使用評論語彙以傳達看法。第二項變化在於「心智語言」的驅策力，由源於當下場景進展到源自整體故事主軸。第三項變化係指兒童的敘事由早期僅針對單一事件之處理，進展至能掌握相關事件間的關係脈絡。 除此之外，我們的語料亦捕捉到Berman & Slobin (1994)所提出「敘事發展進程」中的前三階段。同時，這些語料顯現出敘事發展過程中，對由上而下整體敘事架構的掌握，與自下而上語言精緻度間的消長互動。藉此，我們亦思索表情達意的語言能力，與對事件關聯性的推論能力，這兩種能力在發展上是可分離的。本研究之結果不僅讓我們對漢語學齡前兒童其評論語言的發展有進一步認識，同時亦呈現出兒童敘事能力萌芽過程中的變異性與豐富樣貌。

Evaluative language plays an important part in the production of a narrative, which consists of the non-factual, perspective-building linguistic expressions referring to emotion, attitude, belief and affect. It not only expresses the narrator’s attitude, provides clues to help the listener to interpret the story, but makes the story more engaging and vivid. Thus, while developing narrative competence, children need to acquire the ability to use evaluative language appropriately within various narrative activities. Despite widespread interest in emerging narrative competence, however, we lack information on how young children develop evaluative language skills. As a matter of fact, children’s narratives bristle with evaluation. Therefore, the present work tries to explore how Mandarin-speaking children develop their evaluative language skills in narration, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Twelve Mandarin-speaking preschoolers, six boys and six girls, participate in the present study. The narrative data are collected when the subjects are of mean ages 5;5, 5;8, and 5;11. We divide evaluative language into several sub-types and analyze the developmental trajectory of each sub-type. Three independent factors are considered in this work: age, gender, and narrative task. Their main effects and interactional effects on the development of evaluative language are assessed. The quantitative findings suggest that preschoolers employ increasing amount and variety of evaluative devices over time. Among various evaluative devices, merely two evaluative devices, CAS and SOM, display Age main effect; only one device shows Gender main effect. Regarding Task effect, we note that preschoolers use evaluative devices differently in different narrative tasks, which implies that they are aware of task difference in their early life. As hypothesized, the preference for each evaluative device changes over time, and varies between genders and between narrative tasks. We also note that preschoolers tend to use lexical devices such as INT and EVA more often than other types of devices. Moreover, two developmental patterns for preschoolers’ use of evaluative devices emerge. Both patterns reveal ascending trends; the difference between them lies in the rate of increase rather than the general tendency. The qualitative analyses suggest three developmental shifts for preschoolers’ use of evaluative devices. First of all, preschoolers’ narratives progress from static picture description to dynamic event narration. Once children evolve into the event-oriented stage, they more and more rely on evaluative expressions to emphasize their viewpoints. The second developmental shift is that the precursor for children’s references to ‘frames of mind’ progresses from local event to global story plotline. The third shift is children’s progression from handling individual events to relating event complex. In addition to the documentation of three developmental shifts, our samples of narratives exemplify the first three stages of the continuum for narrative development identified by Berman and Slobin (1994). Moreover, our data suggest the trade-off between top-down organization and bottom-up lexical elaboration in narrative development, and lead us to speculate the dissociation in abilities for providing linguistic expressions and for inferring relations between events. The results of the research not only advance our understanding of preschoolers’ development of evaluative language, but also exhibit developmental differences in young children’s emerging narrative skills.