詞彙特指性與詞彙習得之探討

Lexical Specificity and Lexical Acquisition

陳素玫(SU-MEI CHEN)

指導教授 ： 張顯達

國立臺灣大學/文學院/語言學研究所/碩士(2009年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2009.02507

摘要

本研究旨在探索詞彙語意上的特指性是否影響動詞習得。Tardif (2006)曾指出中文動詞比起英文動詞，因其語意特指性較高而較易習得。中文的動詞是否較特指尚無定論，本研究要檢驗的則是，以一般新詞學習歷程而言，特指性較高的動詞是否較易習得；主要關注當語言對於不同動作給予命名上的對比（即給予特指性高的詞彙），是否因此促進詞彙學習；另外，本研究也檢視學習不同語意特質詞彙的幼兒，是否發展出不同延伸新詞到其他情境上(extension)的策略。
本研究藉由對於相同視覺刺激的給予不同命名方式，來操控新詞的語意特指性。本研究採用快速對應作業（fast-mapping task），受試者需要將聽到的新詞與看到的動作作對應。在訓練階段，受試者會看到實驗者現場示範數次新動作，並從指導語中聽到新詞，實驗組別分為特指組與泛指組。不同組別之間，語言刺激的次數及動作示範次數皆相同；兩組主要的分別在於對動作之命名的差異性。在特指組中，兩個不同的動作，會被對應到兩個新詞；而在泛指組中，這兩個動作會被對應到同一個新詞。訓練與測試分為四個階段，第一階段兩組幼兒都聽到同一詞彙對應到同一動作；第二階段進行兩組幼兒的前測，作為比較的控制組；第三階段兩組幼兒都看到另一個類似的動作，泛指組幼兒會聽到與第一階段相同的新詞去指稱，而特指組幼兒則聽到另一個不同的新詞去指稱該動作；第四階段為後測，檢驗第三階段兩組別中不同的命名方式是否對幼兒表現造成影響。測驗包含理解測驗與說話測驗，以影片方式進行；理解測驗要求受試者選出與命名相配合的影片，說話測驗則要求受試者回答該段影片的主角做了什麼。
本研究受試者包含六十個平均年齡約四歲半的幼兒。結果顯示，即使特指組幼兒在訓練階段聽到比泛指組幼兒聽到較多新詞，但不見得能夠因此在適當情境說出較多的詞彙；說話測驗的結果顯示，特指組幼兒對原詞彙的表現，在後測階段的表現比前測階段顯著退步，而泛指組幼兒則表現穩定。雖然特指組幼兒對語意已有初步認識，但大多無法區辨兩個新詞的語意範圍。另一方面，本研究也發現泛指組的訓練促進了新詞延伸，而特指組則不然，同時，施測順序以及幼兒詞彙量對於新詞延伸策略亦有影響，若幼兒先受過特指性高動詞的訓練或擁有較大詞彙量，延伸新詞的比例較低。另外，我們也探討了詞彙量、音韻工作記憶的個別差異及施測順序，如何影響幼兒在本實驗的理解作業的表現，我們發現在泛指組中詞彙量較高的幼兒表現顯著優於詞彙量較低的幼兒，音韻工作記憶的個別差異並未造成表現上顯著的差別。總結來說，本研究支持幼兒對詞彙語意的習得是一個動態的過程，幼兒對語意的假設，不斷受到語言經驗的影響及型塑。

關鍵字

語意特指性 ； 語意分類 ； 詞彙習得 ； 詞彙發展 ； 動詞習得 ； 快速對應

並列摘要

This present study aims to explore the impact of specificity on Mandarin-speaking children’s verb learning process. Tardif (2006) proposed that the typologically higher specificity of Mandarin verbs contributes to the ease of learning and thus leads to higher proportion of Mandarin verbs in early vocabulary. It remains unclear whether Mandarin verbs are more typologically specific, while this study examined the role of specificity in the general mechanism of lexical acquisition. This study aims to explore whether providing children with an additional label to mark a semantic distinction facilitates word learning. In addition, it was also examined whether different labeling patterns would contribute to different strategies for extending novel words.
This study manipulated specificity of novel words by providing different labeling patterns for the same visual stimuli. Specificity was thus defined as the presence of labels marking the distinction between two different actions in contrast with a single label for both actions. The experimental conditions included the General Condition and the Specific Condition. In the General Condition, two actions were mapped onto one word whereas in the Specific Condition these actions were mapped onto two words. The main experiment for testing specificity effect can be divided into four phases: (1) the baseline training, (2) the pre-conditioning-training test, (3) the reinforcing conditioning training, and (4) the post-conditioning-training test. In the first phase, all the participants were shown an action labeled by a novel word. In the second phase, they were tested with the aid of video clips. Then came the third phase in which the children were shown with a different but similar action that was labeled by either the same label (in the General Condition) or a different label (in the Specific Condition). Finally, in the fourth phase, the participants were tested for their production and comprehension of the novel words.
Children’s production, understanding about semantic distinctions, and the pattern of extending uses of novel words were examined. Sixty 4.5-year-old Mandarin-speaking children participated in this study. Results indicated that children under the Specific Condition were not significantly more likely to produce an additional target word although they heard more words in the training session. They performed poorer on the baseline verb in the post-test than in the pre-test whereas this retrogress was not found in the General Condition. Although children had a robust understanding about specific words, most of them failed to make correct distinction between these specific words. As for extending uses of novel words, results revealed that the training of a general word facilitated extension, yet the training of specific words did not. Additionally, an influence of vocabulary size and order effects were found in the extension task: Children with larger vocabulary and children exposed with a prior training of specific verbs were much less likely to extend novel words to other novel actions. Also, we examined how individual differences affected children’s performance in this particular novel word learning task. Results showed that children with larger vocabulary performed significantly better in the comprehension task than children with smaller vocabulary when learning a general word whereas the difference did not exist when children were presented with specific words. Taken all together, our results supported the view that word learning is a dynamic process in which the semantic boundaries are shaped by children’s language experience.

並列關鍵字

semantic specificity ； semantic category ； lexical acquisition ； lexical development ； verb learning ； fast mapping

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