兒童在同儕互動中的對立語言

Abstract

本篇論文旨在研究臺灣兒童於同儕互動間產生對立時的語言表達策略，及其與成人間的差異。文中語料來源為台北市某小學三十二位低年級學生，於課間活動的對話。參與觀察的兒童共使用四大類不同的語言策略以表達自身的反對立場，包括挑戰(Challenge)、言語攻擊(Verbal abuse)、拒絕(Refusal)及異議語(Disagreement)，這四大類語言策略可以更進一步細分為二十四種策略。兒童透過比較、挑戰、與批評以強調自身的優越；使用語言遊戲、禁忌語達成語言攻擊目的；拒絕和異議語則以不同的語用策略呈現。在質化與量化的比較下，語料分析結果顯示此年齡層的兒童跟成人同樣偏好使用強異議語，但相較於成人的表現，兒童表達不同意見的方式更為直接，不使用減弱詞來淡化其反對語言對與話者產生的面子威脅。從語言社會化的觀點來看，低年級的兒童在語言層面的使用上已有相當成熟的能力，能善用語言表達反對意見，但就其語用層面來看，仍無法充分使用符合華人社會所冀求的委婉、保全雙方顏面的表達方式。Opposition is prominent in children’s interaction, but a systematic analysis among Mandarin-Chinese speaking children in Taiwan is still lacking. This thesis aims to investigate children’s oppositional strategies in peer interaction and to compare children’s strategies with adults’. The analysis is based on the twenty-five hours of audio-and videotaped interactions in a public elementary school in Taipei. A total of 32 children in lower-grades (i.e., aged around 7 to 8) participated in the study. This study examines the data both quantitatively and qualitatively. On the basis of the spontaneous data, children’s opposition falls into four main types, including challenge, verbal abuse, refusal, and disagreement. Each type can be subdivided into various categories. Children may compare themselves with others, purposely challenge others’ courage, and criticize others’ performance and behavior in an attempt to show their superiority. Language play and taboo words/expressions are exploited as linguistic resources for verbal abuse. Refusal and disagreement are expressed by pragmatic strategies, including 10 refusal strategies (3 strong and 7 weak forms) and 9 disagreement strategies (5 strong and 4 weak forms). This study and previous research on adults’ opposition (Liao, 1994; Lin, 1999) suggests that both children and adults prefer aggressive strategies to passive ones. Nevertheless, children oppose more directly than adults with a great deal of minimal disagreement tokens. They seldom avoid confrontations. Different from adults, children rarely use downtoners, such as modals, contrast markers, and qualifiers. From the perspective of language socialization, it is suggested that lower-graders are linguistically competent but still learning to oppose in culturally appropriate ways since ‘saving face’ is highly valued in Chinese community.