中文隱喻用語之第一語言習得研究--以「死」字為例

Abstract

摘 要

本研究旨在探討與中文「死」字及其相關隱喻用法的母語習得情形,並針對五個議題—標誌理論、語言情境、生命效應、詞類效應、與年齡因素加以討論。本實驗包含兩個理解能力測驗:字詞單獨測驗(Words in Isolation),與字詞情境測驗(Words in Context)。受試者共有 144 位國小學生,依照年級分成 6 組,另有 24 位的以中文為母語之成人作為控制組。

研究結果顯示,非隱喻性用法、也就是無標誌用法,比隱喻性用法或有標誌用法來得容易習得。受試者在字詞情境測驗中表現比字詞單獨測驗好,顯示語境有助於受試者判別隱喻性意義。主詞的生命效應不只與動詞搭配有關,與隱喻意義的辨認亦有關連。此外,「死」字的詞類變化對意義辨認的難易有顯著影響,難易度可歸納出「動詞 > 形容詞 > 副詞」,與「死+動詞 > 死 > 動詞+死」,亦即詮釋「死」當動詞較「死」當形容詞或副詞來得容易,「死+動詞」的組合比單獨使用「死」和「動詞+死」來得簡單。同時,年齡仍是習得隱喻性用法、或者具備 後設語言能力的重要因素;四年級學童(也就是超過十歲的受試者)表現特別優異,顯示十歲極有可能是習得後設語言能力的重要里程碑。

The purpose of the present study is to examine the Chinese word si and first language acquisition of its metaphorical expressions. Five issues were discussed, i.e., Markedness Theory (Goodluck, 1991), context effects, animacy effects, categorical effects, and age effects. A total of 144 subjects from an elementary school were asked to participate in the study. They were further divided into six age groups (6;4, 7;7, 8;7, 9;7, 10;7, 11;6). Two comprehension tasks were employed: the Wordsin Isolation (WII) Task, and the Words in Context (WIC) Task.

The results showed that literal expressions of si phrases, which were unmarked (Goodluck, 1991), were easier for the children to comprehend than metaphorical and marked expressions. The children performed better on the WIC Task than that on the WII Task, and contextual clues were beneficial for the children especially in identifying the metaphorical phrases. It was found that the interpretation of si phrases was constrained by the animate feature of the subject NP. The difficulty of literal and metaphorical meanings of si, Verb > Adjective > Adverb, and si + V > V > V + si, was subject to its syntactic type, implying that considering si as a verb is easier than treating it as an adjective or adverb in interpreting its metaphorical use, and that interpreting the metaphorical meaning of the compound, si + V, is easier than interpreting that of si as a verb or the compound V + si. Last, age was found to play a dominant role in the development of metaphorical ability. The older children indeed performed better on both types of meanings, both tasks, and syntactic complicated phrases than younger children. Grade 4 (i.e., over 10 years old) seemed to be a milestone of children’s possessing comprehension ability of the figurative language.