中英雙語者之中文動態事件組裝探討：英語經驗的影響

Chinese Motion Event Packaging in Chinese-English Bilinguals: The Role of English Experience

吳佳霖(Jia-lin Wu)

指導教授 ： 張顯達

國立臺灣大學/文學院/語言學研究所/碩士(2008年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2008.01132

摘要

本研究旨在探索英語經驗對於中英雙語者在中文動態事件的編碼上，扮演如何的角色。過去文獻裡討論了中文和英文的動態事件在語言類型上的差別（例：Tai 2003, Slobin 2004），而本研究進而提出它們在動態事件的組裝上亦有所差異。在中文中，動態事件的元素之一：場所，可以組裝在一句動態描述的動詞前或動詞後的位置，但是在英文中，幾乎只有動後位置是可行的。本研究藉此動態事件組裝上的不同，來探索英語能力、作業影響和年齡這三種變因，是否會對中文使用者的動態事件描述造成影響。

本研究採用動態事件描述的作業，並且使用重複計量的設計。針對英語能力與年齡這兩個變項，四組不同背景的受試者參加本次實驗：成人英語程度高階、成人英語程度初階、兒童英語程度高階、兒童英語程度初階，共一百二十名受試者。成人組為大學生，兒童組則為十歲小學生。所有受試者都必須以中文描述兩組不同的動態事件影片，而兩組材料的差別在於，其中一組在正式的動態事件描述之前安插了一段英語的刺激，以英語句子閱讀以及仿說的方式呈現。受試者的描述則會以三個面向進行分析：首先，分析各組在場地元素的使用上，將其放置在動後位置的傾向；第二，動態事件結構；第三、動詞構詞。

實驗所得到的結果如下：（一）英語能力高的受試者，不論年齡，都較傾向將場地元素包裝於動後的位置。根據Kroll and de Groot (1997)所提出來的雙語產生模組，此種傾向可能來自於英語高階學習者在語言產生中，概念構成機制和第二語言之間有較強的連結。（二）兩組兒童組之間表現的差異較成人組之間的差異更為明顯，顯示年齡的確是重要的影響因素。與成人相比，英語高階兒童似乎在本身的中文系統上，受到英文更深並且更全面的影響。（三）實驗結果並沒有發現作業的影響，表示英語刺激並沒有效果。（四）在動態事件的結構上，不同背景的受試者表現出不同的喜好，並且結果發現，十歲的兒童還無法純熟地描述動態事件。

關鍵字

動態事件 ； 空間語言 ； 雙語習得 ； 語言處理

並列摘要

This study aims to investigate the role of English exposure in the encoding of Chinese motion event in Chinese-English bilingual speakers. Chinese and English have been suggested to belong to different typological families (e.g. Tai 2003, Slobin 2004) in motion events, and are also proposed in the present study to be different in motion element packaging styles. In Chinese, the Ground element (locative NP) in a motion event may be packaged either at the post-verbal position or at pre-verbal position, while in English it is the former that is the favorable package type. Using this construction difference as the testing ground, this study inspects the factors of English proficiency, task requirement and age to see if speakers of different backgrounds will package a motion differently.

This study adopts a motion elicitation task in a repeated-measures design. For the factors of English proficiency and age, four groups of participants are selected: Adults of high English proficiency (Adult Advanced), adults of low English proficiency (Adult Beginner), children of high English proficiency (Child Advanced), and children of low English proficiency (Child Beginner). A total of 120 participants are included in this study. The adults are college students, and the children are 10-year-old elementary school students. All participants were asked to describe two sets of motion animation clips in Chinese. The difference between these two sets is that one of them includes English input in the form of English sentence reading and repeating before the motion elicitation. Their responses are coded and analyzed through three perspectives: first, the tendency of post-verbal locative NP packaging; second, the motion event constructions; and third, lexicalized patterns of verbs.

The findings are: (1) Participants of both age groups show a preference toward post-verbal locative NP packaging if belong to the advanced English proficiency groups. Based on the bilingual production model of Kroll and de Groot (1997), this tendency may be accounted for by the advanced speakers’ stronger conceptual link between the conceptualizer and L2. (2) The two children groups distinct their performance from each other to a stronger degree than that between the adults. This finding indicates that the age factor is indeed at work and compared with the adults, advanced children’s language system is much more prevalently altered by English. (3) Little to none task effects of English are found, meaning an inutile English input. (4) Participants of different backgrounds show preference on different motion event constructions. Meanwhile, it is also found that children at 10 years old have not showed a complete mastery in encoding motion events.

並列關鍵字

motion event ； spatial language ； bilingual language acquisition ； language processing

參考文獻

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