漢語高功能自閉症兒童敘事中指涉策略之運用: 形式與功能

Abstract

國內外自閉症敘事能力的研究均指出：自閉症患者之敘事較少運用心智語彙、指涉能力不足、及未能顧及聽者需求。這些觀察與患者心智理論能力的缺陷關析密切。Tager-Flusberg與Sullivan（1995）認為心智理論能力是敘事中不可或缺的工夫：因為成功的敘事者須符合言談溝通的條件，體認到聽眾的需求。心智理論能力和語言能力之間的關聯主要在言談語用的層面。在諸多語用議題中，指涉策略的運用與敘事表達的關係尤其密切。指涉運用能力關係到敘事者對言談中新、舊訊息的區分，對聽者所須信息量的推論，及對交談合作原則的掌握。因此，有關指涉運用的分析，可反映出敘事者對聽者需求的敏感程度。 鑒於指涉運用在言談語用研究上的重要性，及其與心智理論能力的關聯性，指涉運用能力成為國外自閉症研究的重要議題。然而國內於此針對自閉症敘事中指涉運用的分析甚為稀少；對於漢語零形詞（null forms）的特殊性亦未加以探討。漢語因無詞尾屈折變化，主詞、受詞均可省略，致容許零形詞的存在等特性，使漢語言談中的指涉運用深具跨語言比較的意義。 為驗證與檢視國外針對自閉症族群指涉能力的研究發現，本研究採語言形式與功能並重的取向，有系統地分析漢語自閉症兒童敘事中指涉之運用。我們以Frog, where are you?為語料根據。以自閉症兒童為實驗組，典型發展兒童為對照組；兩組兒童就生理年齡、性別、語言理解、語言表達、智商等基本能力指標配對。我們計算受試者之單位子句平均長度與不同語詞數等數據，作為其基本敘事能力的指標。除編碼量化指涉語詞的種類及分布，我們亦檢視指涉語詞與敘事言談功能之關係，進而比較兩組兒童指涉運用之異同，並探討敘事者的指涉運用與其他各項基本能力間的關係。 研究結果顯示：兩組兒童在初次介紹與再次引介故事人物時，均以使用名詞詞組為主。而敘事中須持續指稱同一人物時，兩組兒童則以零形詞為優先考量。除以零形詞為主外，自閉症兒童比典型發展兒童使用更多的代名詞作持續指稱；而典型發展兒童則多運用名詞詞組。依此研究發現，我們推論自閉症兒童對聽者需求仍有相當的敏感程度，而零形詞的凸顯則進一步呈現漢語結構上之特性。

ToM deficits were held as possible explanations for the impairments in referential use of pronouns, where the listener’s point of view was required, in individuals with ASD. There have been few detailed investigations about narrative abilities of Chinese-speaking children with ASD. However, we still lack of knowledge about how Chinese children with ASD use referential terms in narratives. Without case markers, Mandarin’s pronominal system is very simple; moreover, it allows null forms, the omission of arguments in both subject and object positions. While null forms might be unacceptable in many languages, they are used very frequently by Chinese speakers. Given this particular feature in Mandarin Chinese, the present study aims to investigate the referential choice in Chinese-speaking children with ASD. This study analyzed narratives from 16 Chinese-speaking children with ASD and 16 typically developing children matched on gender, linguistic and cognitive abilities. The narrative data were based on a wordless picture book Frog, where are you? Participant’s referential choice was examined. To this end, the subject and object arguments of children’s utterances were coded for the categories of referential forms and pragmatic functions. The referential forms included: (1) nominal forms, (2) pronominal forms, and (3) null forms. The pragmatic functions were examined when a referential form is used to (1) introduce, (2) maintain, or (3) reintroduce a character in the story. Given the putative ToM deficits in children with ASD, we predicted that, compared with the typical children, children with ASD would exhibit different referential preference. Our results indicated that, when matched on both linguistic and cognitive abilities, the participants exhibited no significant group differences regarding basic narrative measures. Both groups displayed a preference to introduce and to reintroduce story characters with nominal forms, though children with ASD used a significantly larger percentage of pronominal forms than typical controls did for the purpose of reintroduction. For maintaining reference, however, null forms were preferred by both groups, and the ASD group used significantly more pronominal forms than the controls did. The findings are discussed in relation to social-communicative deficits in ASD, and linguistic as well as cognitive factors in narrative construction.