以中文為母語的兒童詮釋稱代詞「人家」之 實證研究

Abstract

本研究旨在探討以中文為母語的兒童對稱代詞「人家」之第一語言習得。相較於中文的其它代名詞，「人家」的語意相對複雜，兒童在習得過程可能較為困難。本研究主要探討指涉歧義、指涉方向、指涉對象、題型及年齡是否會影響兒童對稱代詞「人家」的語意詮釋及表達。針對指涉歧義，本研究將句型分成兩大類：單指句與複指句。在這兩大類句型下，分別加入前指/後指，定指/非定指兩控制變因。為了避免潛在的實驗效應，本研究採用兩種測驗題型：圖片選擇測驗題與模仿測驗題。研究對象包含實驗組的八十位兒童，依平均年齡四歲到八歲分成五組，每組十六人，以及對照組的十六位成人。 實驗結果顯示，指涉歧異、指涉對象、指涉方向、題型、年齡皆會影響兒童對稱代詞「人家」之詮釋及表達。首先，受試者對於單指句表現優於複指句，印證了歧義句的困難度較高之假設。在指涉方向方面，研究對象皆能接受後指句，雖然兒童在前指句的表現仍優於後指句，但他們對後指句的理解與表達，隨著年齡而增長。在指涉對象方面，受試者在定指句表現得比非定指句好，呼應文獻中兒童對於名詞的認知發展為具體先於非具體。題型效應顯示，兒童在圖片選擇測驗的表現較模仿測驗佳，說明此稱代詞的習得是理解先於表達。此外，在模仿測驗的句型分析中，錯誤句型大多反映受試者對於複指、後指以及非定指句之理解度較低，因而使用省略或代替策略來完成表達。最後，在年齡效應方面發現，七歲兒童之整體表現優於四～五歲受試者，因此六至七歲期間應是兒童習得中文稱代詞「人家」的關鍵期。In Mandarin Chinese, renjia is frequently used as a pronominal. The pronominal renjia is more semantically complex compared with other pronominals since it exhibits many interpretations in different contexts. Although the referentiality of the pronominal renjia has been widely discussed in the literature, little research to date can be found to examine it from the aspect of first language acquisition. Thus, the present research attempts to provide a pioneering L1 study on Chinese children’s interpretations of this semantically complex pronominal by probing into different interpretation patterns, referential directions, and referent types. A comprehension task (i.e., a picture selection task) and a production task (i.e., an imitation task) were assigned to 80 Chinese children (aged 4-8) and 16 native controls. The children were further divided into five groups, each of which consisted of 16 subjects. The overall results showed that different interpretation patterns, referential directions, and referent types were all determining factors affecting children’s acquisition of the pronominal renjia. With regard to different interpretation patterns, the single-interpretation patterns were relatively easier than the multiple-interpretation patterns, due to a higher degree of learnability in the ambiguous sentences. Concerning the direction of the reference, the subjects were able to accept both forward and backward coreference. Although the younger children had more difficulty dealing with backward coreference, their performance increased with age. As for referent types, it was found that specificity of the referent in context played a predominant role in the children’s interpretations of this pronominal. The results revealed that the subjects performed better on those with specific interpretations, while the non-specific interpretations were more challenging for the children. Additionally, task effects were also found obvious in the present study. Our children significantly performed better on the picture selection task (the PS task) than the imitation task (the IM task), which supported the claim that children’s comprehension exceeds production in language acquisition. With respect to the production analysis, it was found that the children’s non-target productions were mostly derived from backward coreference and non-specific referents in the multiple-interpretation patterns. In addition, the younger children tended to omit the referent(s) with or without renjia, while the elder ones would keep the referent(s) without renjia or replace it with other pronominals. Finally, the age effects indicated that ages 6-7 were the critical period for the acquisition of the pronominal renjia, because in general the 7-year-olds performed better than the children aged 4-5.