以中文為母語的兒童頻率副詞詮釋之實證研究

An Empirical Study of Children’s Interpretations of Frequency Adverbs in Mandarin

鄭羽辰(Cheng Yu-Chen)

指導教授 ： 陳純音

國立臺灣師範大學/文學院/英語學系/碩士(2017年)

https://doi.org/10.6345/NTNU202202935

摘要

本研究旨在探討以中文為母語之兒童頻率副詞詮釋的發展。本研究主要包含兩階段理解測驗：第一階段為辨認與排序測驗，可得知兒童對於頻率副詞的理解差異；第二階段為接受度測驗，可觀察兒童對於頻率副詞修飾動詞事件種類的接受程度是否有別，語境效應亦融入此階段測驗中。兩階段測驗皆探討年齡效應。研究對象包含實驗組的八十位兒童，依其就讀年級分為四組：幼兒園大班、小學二年級、四年級、六年級，每組各二十位，以及對照組的成人二十位。
研究結果顯示，頻率副詞之習得隨著年齡增長，理解能力逐漸與成人趨向一致。典型頻率副詞的語意較非典型頻率副詞模糊，因此兒童較難理解典型頻率副詞，六年級兒童亦尚未具備成人母語者理解典型頻率副詞的能力，但四年級兒童已可正確理解非典型頻率副詞。關於頻率副詞用於修飾的動詞事件方面，除了大班兒童外，其他組兒童皆對於頻率副詞修飾有界動詞事件的接受度遠高於頻率副詞修飾無界動詞。而且，四年級、六年級兒童及成人組對於頻率副詞修飾有界動詞事件的次類型有相似的接受度。由於四年級兒童已具備理解非典型頻率副詞意思的能力，亦能依頻率副詞能修飾的事件區分出有界與無界動詞事件，對於有界動詞的各項次分類，亦皆能接受其被頻率副詞修飾，因此，四年級是習得中文頻率副詞的關鍵期。最後，語境效應在本研究呈現負面效果，受試者在提供語境的試題中，對句子的接受度普遍降低。

關鍵字

頻率副詞 ； 第一語言習得 ； 理解 ； 中文

並列摘要

The present empirical study aims at investigating children’s interpretations of Chinese frequency adverbs. Two phases were designed to elicit the child subjects’ interpretations. In Phase 1, the children’s interpretations of frequency adverbs were obtained from the identification and the ordering tasks. Similarly, in Phase 2, the children’s acceptability of various kinds of event types was investigated by the acceptability task. A comparison between a context-free task and a context-provided task was also explored in this phase. Age differences were examined in the both phases. A total of eighty children studying in an elementary school in New Taipei City were recruited and further divided into four experimental groups according to their grades (i.e., the kindergartners, Grades 2, 4 and 6). Moreover, twenty adults were recruited as the control group.
The results indicated an age-related pattern in the acquisition of Chinese frequency adverbs. It was found that Grade 4 was able to interpret atypical frequency adverbs. However, even Grade 6 had not yet acquired adult-like interpretations of typical frequency adverbs. Therefore, typical frequency adverbs were more challenging for the subjects to interpret than atypical ones because typical frequency adverbs were vaguer in meaning than atypical ones. As for the events modified by frequency adverbs, it was found that telic events were more acceptable than atelic ones. All the groups, except for the kindergartners, accepted frequency adverbs when they were used to modify telic events in a higher degree than those used to modify atelic events. Moreover, the subtypes of telic events displayed a similar degree of acceptability when they were modified by frequency adverbs for the older children (Grades 4 and 6) and the control group but not for the younger children (the kindergartners and Grade 2). Because Grade 4 was able to interpret atypical frequency adverbs, differentiate telic from atelic events and accept frequency adverbs when they were used to modify the subtypes of telic events in a similar degree, it was concluded that Grade 4 was a critical period for the acquisition of Chinese frequency adverbs. Finally, it was found that contextual clues showed a negative effect on the interpretations of frequency adverbs. The subjects generally gave lower acceptability ratings to the context-provided task than the context-fee task.

並列關鍵字

frequency adverbs ； first language acquisition ； interpretations ； Mandarin Chinese

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