學習泰雅語動態事件編碼:以新竹某國小族語學習為例

Learning to encode motion events in Atayal: A case study of heritage language learning in an elementary school in HsinChu

鄭綉蓉(Hsiu-Jung Cheng)

指導教授 ： 宋麗梅 ； 張顯達

國立臺灣大學/文學院/語言學研究所/碩士(2012年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2012.02783

摘要

本研究旨在探討泰雅語族語學習者如何運用泰雅語描述故事中的動態事件，以及他們是否會受到泰雅語本身語言類型特性的影響 (Huang & Tanangkingsing, 2005)，而偏向於使用動態事件中的路徑動詞編碼。此外，本文亦會探索語言經驗對於泰雅語族語學習者在泰雅語動態事件編碼上的影響性。
本研究共包含三個作業，以及一語言背景調查。在實驗一（敘事作業），總共有５７位來自新竹某國小二到四年級的學童參與實驗作業，在實驗之前先進行為期四週關於泰雅語動態事件的教學課程。再者，於敘事作業中透過無字圖畫書「青蛙，你在哪裡？」（Frog, Where are you？）（Mayer, 1969），受試者必須描述一個關於尋找青蛙的故事。雖然大部分的受試者未能以泰雅語描述整個故事經過，但我們仍發現：當受試者使用泰雅語描述動態事件時，較多的受試者會使用路徑動詞。
實驗二則包括了兩個理解作業：一為聽力理解作業(listening comprehension task)，另一則為玩偶演出作業(act-out task）。總共有５２位來自四年級到六年級的受試者參與實驗二的作業。在理解作業中，主要為了測試小朋友在理解上是否受到泰雅語本身語言類型特性的影響。結果發現比起方式動詞(manner verb),受試者較能理解包含路徑動詞(path verb)的句子。這兩個實驗結果均顯示：泰雅語族語學習者在泰雅語描述故事中的動態事件會受到其本身語言類型特性的影響(Ozcalişkan & Slobin, 1999)。
從語言背景調查中，我們亦發現──不管是居家，或是在學校的泰雅語使用，都會影響受試者的泰雅語表現。若將這些語言經驗因素放在一起探究時，越早在學校學習泰雅語，以及居家會使用泰雅語的受試者，在泰雅語表達方面的整體表現越佳。因此不管是來自學校、家庭，或是社區的語言經驗，都是學童成功學習族語的關鍵。

關鍵字

動態事件 ； 族語學習 ； 原住民語言 ； 語言經驗 ； 敘事

並列摘要

The present research aims (1) to investigate how the heritage language learners of Atayal (HLLs) encode and understand motion events in Atayal, a path-salient language (Huang & Tanangkingsing, 2005) and whether HLLs encode motion events in a language-specific manner, i.e. showing a preference in encoding path elements in Atayal and (2) to examine the influence of language experience on these heritage language learners’ motion event knowledge. Three experimental tasks were conducted to assess the HLL’s production and comprehension of motion events in Atayal and a language background survey was also implemented to investigate the relation between the language experiences and the task performances of Atayal.
The heritage language learners of Atayal were recruited from an elementary school in HsinChu. In the first experiment, fifty-seven students from the second grade to the fourth grade received four classes of teaching on Atayal motion events in four consecutive weeks. Afterwards, they were required to narrate the story ‘Frog, where are you?’ (Mayer, 1969) in Atayal. Even though most of the subjects were still not competent enough to tell the entire story in Atayal, when they encoded motion events in Atayal, more subjects made use of path verbs than manner verbs in the narratives. Due to the limited data collected from the narration task, a second study, containing a listening comprehension and an act-out task, were then implemented to examine subjects’ comprehension of motion events in Atayal. In the listening comprehension task and the act-out task, fifty-two students from the fourth grade to the sixth grade were assessed with their comprehension of sentences with path verbs and sentences with manner verbs. The findings showed that the subjects had better comprehension of sentences with path verbs in both comprehension tasks. The results in the two studies demonstrated that the heritage language learners of Atayal had a better understanding of path verbs in motion event encoding in Atayal, a path-salient language, thus supporting the view that the encoding of motion events is language-specific (Ozcalişkan & Slobin, 1999). When we examined factor by factor in the language background survey, the general analyses on the subjects’ language background and task performances revealed that the subjects’ performances in Atayal were associated with their use of Atayal both in family and at school. When taking two factors together into consideration, two factors concerning the time when students started to learn Atayal at school and their use of Atayal at home were together more influential and therefore might be better predictors of their performance in the heritage language.

並列關鍵字

motion event ； heritage language learning ； indigenous language ； language experience ； narrative

參考文獻

Tai, James, H.-Y. (2003). Cognitive relativism: Resultative construction in Chinese. Language and Linguistics, 4, 301-316.

Berman, R., & Slobin, D. (1994). Relating events in narrative: A cross-linguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Chen, S. C. (2006). Simultaneous promotion of indigenization and internationalization: New Language-in-Education Policy in Taiwan. Language and Education: An International Journal, 20(4), 322-337.

natural partitioning. In S. A. Kuczaj (Ed.), Language development: Vol. 2. Language, thought, and culture, (pp. 301-334). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Hickmann, M., & Hendriks, H. (2010). Typological constraints on the acquisition of spatial language in French and English. Cognitive Linguistic 21(2), 189-215.