空間用語與空間認知：探討中文母語者英語空間處所介係詞之學習

Spatial Terms and Spatial Cognition: On the Learning of English Locative Prepositions by Native Chinese Speakers

林慧麗(Hui-Li Lin)

指導教授 ： 張顯達 ； 張欣戊

國立臺灣大學/理學院/心理學研究所/博士(2004年)

https://doi.org/10.6342/NTU.2004.00759

摘要

本研究旨在探討學習外語空間處所用語發生困難的原因。為彰顯學習外語空間用語的動態特質，本研究採取了發展的觀點。本研究包含四個實驗，實驗一至三著重於中文母語人士使用與學習英語空間處所介係詞的情況，第四個實驗為輔助性質，探索英語母語人士學習中文空間用語的現象。
實驗一採用二十張手繪圖片(自然物件)，五十八名以中文為母語、且具中英文雙語能力之大學生參與本實驗，並以三種方式描述這些圖中主題與背景之間的空間關係。此三種方式為：中文自由描述、英文自由描述以及英文選擇題。其後並測量受試者之一般英語嬝玫

關鍵字

認知通則 ； 空間處所用語 ； 第二語言學習 ； 第一語言轉移 ； 中文後介詞 ； 英語介係詞

並列摘要

This paper investigates why learning a foreign language locative system is difficult. A developmental view has been taken on in examining the dynamic phenomenon of learning foreign locative terms. Four experiments were conducted. The first three experiments focused on Chinese speakers’ use and learning of English locative prepositions. A supplementary experiment studied English speakers’ use of Chinese locative expressions.
In Experiment 1, 20 hand-drawn pictures containing natural scenes were presented to 58 Chinese-English bilingual college students, who depicted the same set of pictures in three ways (Chinese free production, English free production and English multiple choice). General English reading capabilities were also assessed. Experiment 1’s finding indicates that the Chinese speakers’ performance on use of English locative terms cannot be completely accounted for by their general English reading capabilities. In addition, although some of their errors may reflect the cross-cutting relationship between Chinese and English locative terms (e.g. some usages of “on” and “over” being translated into the same Chinese term, “zai.. shang”), native Chinese speakers’ learning patterns of English locative prepositions cannot be explained merely by first language transfer. Cognitive universals may play a fundamental role. Besides, our Chinese subjects’ errors show asymmetrical patterns, in which “on” were more likely to be used when “in” or “over” were needed than the other way around.
Experiment 2 and 3 aim to determine the presumed causal relationship (from cognitive universals to the use of locative terms) by directing one’s attention to the spatial relationship between Figure and Ground that are key to selecting English prepositions. In Exp.2, two groups of native Chinese-speaking adults were trained on two pairs of contrasts (“in” versus “on”: N = 18; “over” vs. “on”: N = 17) with pseudo-named artificial novel objects. Two groups of children were trained also on the two pairs of contrasts in Exp.3 (“in” versus “on”: N = 18; “over” vs. “on”: N = 19). It was found that the limited training significantly enhanced our subjects’ performance on depicting natural scenes with English locative terms, except for the child “in” vs. “on” group. In addition, the asymmetrical error patterns observed in Exp.1 with natural scenes were replicated in these two experiments with scenes containing novel objects.
The supplementary experiment tested native English speakers with the same set of pictures used in Exp. 1. Eight native English-speaking English-Chinese bilinguals volunteered for this study. Our English subjects’ written response scored fairly well in terms of locative term selection, which mirrors the asymmetrically crosscutting relationship between the tested Chinese and English locative terms. The difficulty of learning Chinese locative expressions, however, arises from sentence structure. Native English-speaking subjects sometimes missed a Chinese locative postposition when it was obligatory in the sentence.
Overall results support the role of typicality in spatial relationship being core and initial spatial concept, which is not affected by secondary linguistic factors. First language transfer occurs only when there are semantic or structural ambiguities. Two possible types of prototypical static spatial relationship, simple contact and containment, have been proposed.

並列關鍵字

first language transfer ； second language learning ； cognitive universals ； spatial locative terms ； English prepositions ； Chinese postpositions

參考文獻

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