兒童同儕互動中的人稱指涉詞

Abstract

漢語有省略論元的特徵。在漢語中若指涉對象可從語境中瞭解，外顯指涉詞通常可以省略 (Huang, 1994, 2000; Li & Thompson, 1981)。通常指涉說話者及聽話者的指涉詞是最容易被省略的，因為指涉對象很容易就能從互動語境中瞭解。如果語境就能幫助瞭解省略的第一人稱及第二人稱指涉詞，本研究的目的是要探討促使兒童在同儕互動中選擇使用外顯指涉詞的因素。本研究的假設是漢語兒童使用第一人稱及第二人稱的外顯指涉詞與特定的溝通意圖或語用功能有關。 過去探討兒童人稱指涉詞的語用研究中多著重在自我指涉詞的研究。雖然少數的研究 (e.g., Imbens-Baily & Pan, 1998; Huang, 2012) 亦分析了第二人稱指涉詞，但這些研究在其語料中只發現少量的第二人稱指涉詞。這可能跟這些研究採用的語料有關。過去的研究主要著重在三歲以下幼童的人稱指涉，而這些幼童在指涉聽話者的能力上似乎仍然有限。另外，過去的研究主要分析成人與兒童的對話，而成人與兒童互動的特質是在權力、能力及知識上的不對稱。這樣的特質有可能會限制了兒童第二人稱指涉詞的使用。 為了對兒童人稱指涉詞的語用有更完整的瞭解，本研究的目的在探討說漢語的學齡前兒童在同儕互動中使用外顯第一人稱及第二人稱指涉詞的語用功能。誠如過去研究指出，同儕互動是一個能讓兒童共同建構其社會世界及發展其語用能力的重要場域 (Cekaite, et al., 2014)。因為這樣的互動會產生特定類型的同儕合作及言談語體，我們認為同儕互動可能會產生較多讓兒童指涉他人的機會。本研究另一個特點是：除了分析兒童的自我指涉及他人指涉外，也將分析共同指涉，也就是指涉對象為自我及同儕雙方。藉由探討兒童在同儕互動中的自我指涉、他人指涉、以及共同指涉，我們不僅能更深入地瞭解兒童使用人稱指涉的語用功能，也能更加瞭解兒童在他們所共同建構的社會世界中如何定位自我及他人。

It is well-known that Mandarin permits omitted arguments. In Mandarin, overt reference forms can be omitted provided that the referent can be understood from the context (Huang, 1994, 2000; Li & Thompson, 1981). It is commonly argued that reference forms for referring to the speaker and the recipient are most readily omitted because they are easily retrievable from the physical interactional context. Given the availability of discourse context to disambiguate implicit self/other reference, the purpose of this study is to investigate what might provide the impetus for Mandarin-speaking children to attempt overt reference to the self and the recipient in peer interaction. We hypothesize that Mandarin-speaking children’s overt reference is related to the speech act or pragmatic function they choose to use. Previous research which examined the pragmatic aspects of children’s person reference has focused mainly on children’s self-reference. Although a few studies (e.g., Imbens-Baily & Pan, 1998; Huang, 2012) also included other-reference in their investigation, these studies found only a small number of occurrences of other-reference in their data. This may have to do with the type of data examined. Previous studies have focused mainly on children under three years of age, who appear to have only limited ability to refer to the present other. In addition, previous studies have examined mainly adult-child discourse, which is characterized by the asymmetry in power, skills and knowledge. It is possible that the characteristic of adult-child interaction may restrict children’s use of other-reference. To have a more complete picture of the pragmatics of children’s person reference, the present study aims to investigate the communicative functions associated with Mandarin-speaking preschoolers’ overt reference to self and other in their interaction with peers. As pointed out by previous studies, peer interaction can serve both as a locus for the co-construction of children’s social worlds and as an arena for the development of pragmatic skills (Cekaite, et al., 2014). Such interaction allows for particular types of peer collaboration and discursive genres, which, we suspect, will foster more chances for children to refer to other. In addition, this study is unique in examining not only children’s self- and other-reference but also their joint-reference, i.e., cases in which children refer to both the self and other jointly. By examining children’s self-reference, other-reference, and joint-reference in peer interaction, we can better understand not only how children use person reference to serve pragmatic functions but also how they position themselves and others in their co-constructed social worlds.