This proposal is organized as follows. In Chapter Two, some theoretical studies on the pronominal renjia along with several empirical studies on the pronominal acquisition are reviewed. The findings and the limitations of previous studies are also discussed. Then, according to the properties of the pronominal renjia discussed in the previous studies, a new
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classification is presented regarding different interpretation patterns, referential directions, and referent types. In Chapter Three, the research design is reported. Chapter Four presents the results and discussion of the experiments. Finally, Chapter Five summarizes the major findings of the present study.
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Chapter Two
Literature Review and a New Classification of the Pronominal Renjia in Chinese
In this chapter, several theoretical studies of the pronominal renjia in Mandarin Chinese are reviewed in Section 2.1. In Section 2.2, some empirical studies on the acquisition of referential expressions are discussed, and a new classification of the pronominal renjia is presented in Section 2.3. Finally, Section 2.4 is a summary of this chapter.
2.1 The Theoretical Studies of the pronominal renjia in Chinese
This section recapitulates four theoretical studies of the pronominal renjia in Chinese.
Chiu (2000) and Wang (2006) make a general description of different functions and interpretations of renjia and analyze it from the perspectives of semantics and pragmatics;
however Liu (2001) analyzes the interpretations of renjia from the syntactic perspective.
Huang’s (2004) research is more related to the pragmatic functions of the pronominal renjia in the face-to-face conversations.
2.1.1 Chiu (2000)
Chiu (2000) suggests that renjia should be a unique term in Chinese. The data she collected are mainly written texts like The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (Xiao-Ao-Jiang-Hu).
From the semantic perspective, renjia is a polysemy, which has at least ten interpretations such as a house, the family status, an identity, a husband, an indefinite person, a third-person singular pronoun ‘s/he,’ a third-person plural pronoun ‘they,’ a first-person pronoun ‘I,’ a first-person plural pronoun ‘we,’, and a discourse marker. The ‘linguistic context’ can only help to disambiguate five interpretations including a house, the family status, an identity, a husband and a discourse marker. When renjia serves as a pronominal in the isolated sentence,
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its interpretation is unclear, resulting in referential ambiguity. Therefore, Chiu argues that the referential ambiguity of renjia can be attributed to its unspecific property in isolated sentences, which is called ‘syntactic vagueness,’ as in (1).
(1) Shi yingxiong hao-han, jiu yinggai zhen-dao-zhen-qiang, be hero good_man just should real_knife_real_gun zai renjia bei-hou tou-xi, suan sheme renwu?
at RENJIA back_behind sneak_attack count what figure
‘If you are a man, you should confront people hand-on. Sneaking behind RENJIA’s back is not what a decent man would do.’ (Chiu, 2000: 67)
In (1), the pronominal renjia can refer to the speaker himself, a third-person pronouns or an indefinite person if the contextual information is not sufficient. In order to reduce the referential ambiguity of renjia, not only the contextual cues but also the ‘pragmatic context’
should be taken into consideration. For instance, if the addressee has already known who suffered a sneak attack in the discourse context, the intended referent in (1) would be clear to him.
‘Come here! I must tell you that you should not be fooled by others.’ (Chiu, 2000:
77)
In (2), the speaker actually does not have a particular referent in mind and s/he just makes a conjecture that the addressee may be fooled. Thus, in the situation without clear evidence, the use of renjia instead of a specific pronoun can avoid possible offences.
In addition, Chiu (2000) discusses the interpretations of the pronominal renjia from the
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pragmatic perspective. Following Leech’s (1983) ‘politeness principle,’ she suggests that when renjia is used to refer to a third-person pronoun, it should satisfy the ‘approbation’ and
‘tact’ maxims, which can prevent from dispraising others, as in (3).
(3) Ni shi dushu ren, dangran zhidao da zhangfu you be study person of_course know big husband
you-suo-bu-wei, renjia bi wo shahai Qu-Yang, have_location_not_do RENJIA force I kill Qu-Yang ci shi wan- wan- bu- neng.
this thing ten thousand- ten thousand-not-can
‘You are an educated man, so you should be able to judge what an educated man should do. If s/he (or they) forces me to kill Qu-Yang, I will never do it.’ (Chiu, 2000: 92)
In (3), the speaker in fact can identify the referent, namely the person who forces him to kill Qu-Yang. However, in order to obey the ‘pointiness principles,’ the speaker uses renjia to escape from degrading the referent in his mind.
When renjia is used to refer to the first person ‘I,’ it can follow the ‘tact’, ‘generosity’
and ‘sympathy’ maxims, labeling the speaker as inferior to the addressee in order to get sympathy or comfort from him, as in (4).
(4) Die-die, ni hai zai quxiao renjia.
dadddy you still at laugh RENJIA
‘Daddy, how could you keep laughing at me?’ (Chiu, 2000: 103)
Furthermore, when renjia is used to refer to the second-person pronoun ‘you,’ the
‘agreement’ and ‘sympathy’ maxim can be satisfied. In this way, the speaker shows agreement and sympathy to the address about the situation, as in (5).
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‘You’ve already had a good wife and cute children. As a mere existence threaded in the world like me, why do I need to sabotage your happiness?’ (Chiu, 2000: 104)
In conclusion, Chiu (2000) points out different interpretations of renjia. However, her study is insufficient to provide a clear categorization from the acquisitional perspective.
Although she puts great emphasis on the importance of the ‘pragmatic context’ that influences the interpretations of the pronominal renjia, the ‘linguistic context’ such as analyzing it from the syntactic perspective receives less attention. In addition, some politeness principles that account for the use of renjia seem far-fetched such as the
‘approbation’ maxim as in (3) and the ‘generosity’ maxims as in (4). Moreover, the semantic and pragmatic analyses of the use of renjia seem to overlap with each other. Finally, most of the data in her study are taken from written texts, which may not represent all the interpretations of renjia.
2.1.2 Liu (2001)
Liu (2001) proposes that the pronominal renjia with a specific interpretation should be differentiated from that with a non-specific interpretation in sentences. When the pronominal renjia has a specific interpretation, it may take some identifiable individual(s) as a referent.
He compares the pronominal renjia with a specific interpretation, the bare reflexive ziji as well as the third-person pronoun ta ‘s/he,’ and argues for the following syntactic constraints on renjia.
First, a specific referential renjia cannot refer to a clausemate subject as an antecedent.
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(6) Lisii juedui bu hui piping renjia*i. Lisi absolutely not will criticize RENJIA
‘Absolutely, Lisi will not criticize my humble self (i.e., the external speaker) or some identifiable or unidentifiable individual(s) other than the speaker, the addressee or Lisi.’ (Liu, 2001: 311)
In (6), the pronominal renjia can refer to the external speaker of the proposition, some identifiable or unidentifiable individual(s) other than the speaker and addressee. It is impossible for renjia to refer to Lisi in the subject position.
Second, when renjia is embedded in an attitudinal predicate as in (7), it cannot refer to the matrix subject.
(7) Zhangsani shuo [Lisij juedui bu hui piping renjia*i/*j].
Zhangsan say [Lisi absolutely not will criticize RENJIA
‘Zhangsan said that Lisi absolutely would not criticize me (i.e., the external speaker) or some identifiable or unidentifiable individual(s) other than the external speaker, the addressee, Zhangsan or Lisi.’ (Liu, 2001: 312)
Moreover, a specific referential renjia disallows a matrix subject as a referent when it is embedded in the subject position, as in (8):
(8) Zhangsani shuo renjia*i zui congming.
Zhangsan say RENJIA most smart
‘Zhangsan says that I (the external speaker)/some identifiable or unidentifiable individual(s) other than the external speaker, Zhangsan or the addressee is the smartest.’ (Liu, 2001: 313)
In (8), the coreference between the matrix subject Zhangsan and the embedded subject renjia is restricted.
Finally, a specific referential renjia cannot refer to an object antecedent Laowang, as in (9):
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(9) Zhangsani cong Laowangj nar tingshuo renjia*i/*j jintian Zhangsan from Laowang there hear RENJIA today bu shang xüe.
not up school
‘Zhangsan heard from Laowang that I/some identifiable or unidentifiable
individual(s) other than the speaker, the addressee, Zhangsan or Laowang will not go to school today.’ (Liu, 2001: 313)
The pronominal renjia with a non-specific reference, on the contrary, neither takes the speaker and the addressee, nor some identifiable individuals other than the speaker or the addressee as a referent, as in (10):
(10) Renjia shuo qing guan nan duan jia wu shi.
RENJIA say clear official hard judge home business affair
‘People other than the speaker or the addressee say that even an upright official finds it hard to settle a family quarrel.’ (Liu, 2001: 317)
In (10), the interpretation of the pronominal renjia is non-specific. It refers to unidentifiable individuals other than the speaker or the addressee(s).
Liu (2001) further argues that the specific referential renjia is indeed a sympathetic antilogophor, which is used to get the addressee’s sympathy. By using renjia to refer to the first-person ‘I,’ the speaker can avoid embarrassment when failing to appeal to the addressee’s sympathy. In addition, as noted by Liu (2001), it is easy for the speaker to get sympathy from the addressee by using renjia to refer to some external protagonists other than the speaker or the addressee.
To conclude, Liu (2001) discusses several syntactic constraints on the interpretations of the pronominal renjia, and he proposes that the interpretations of it can be classified into two types, specific and non-specific. However, he only focuses on the major categories of renjia, rather than the subtypes of it.
In addition, aside from the purpose of getting sympathy from the addressee(s), the
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specific referential renjia can also be used to sneer at someone, as in (11). The speaker carries a sarcastic tone to comment on the external protagonist.
(11) Renjia name shou, renjia ai chi sheme shi renjia-de RENJIA so thin RENJIA love eat what be RENJIA’s shi, bu guan women-de shi.
thing not about our thing
‘She is very thin, so eating whatever she likes is her business. It’s none of our business.’
Finally, although Liu (2001) points out the ambiguous interpretations of renjia in sentences, a clear classification of sentences with a single reading and a multiple reading may be better from the acquisitional perspective. In this way, developmental progress from single to multiple interpretations of the pronominal renjia in sentences can be obtained (cf. Huang, 2011; Wei 2001).
2.1.3 Huang (2004)
Different from Chiu (2000), who mainly collects data from written texts, Huang (2004) employs face-to-face conversations to explicate the pronominal renjia in Mandarin Chinese.
According to her, the 54 tokens of renjia in their corpus can be classified into four types based on Kitagawa and Lehrer’s (1990) and Bredel’s (2002) referencing functions of personal pronouns: referential, vague, impersonal, and self-positioning.
Referential renjia generally refers back to a person or some people who are specific and definite in the previous discourse, as in (12)1.
1 All the examples in Huang (2004) were transcribed into intonation units (IU), but the present study removes this part in order to reach the consistency of the examples. In addition, only parts of the dialogues in Huang’s data are presented in this study.
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‘A: She might have an appointment.’ (Huang, 2004: 78-79)
In (12), Speaker A uses renjia to refer to a particular person, Jiang Yi-cheng, mentioned in the discourse.
As remarked by Huang (2004), although the third-person pronoun ta ‘s/he’ or tamen
‘they’ has the same function as the referential renjia, the meaning of the referential renjia is not equal to ta/tamen, since the former further reveals the speaker’s ‘remote social distance’
with the intended referent. By using the referential renjia, the speaker can create two social groups in the discourse interactions: WE (the speaker and addressee) and THE OTHER (renjia).
Vague renjia refers to an individual or a group which is only specific in the speaker’s mind but is not identified to the addressee(s), as in (13).
(13) B: Eh women daodi yao-bu-yao jiao nage…
‘A: S/he deducted that (from our account).’
B: Daoshihou mei jiao bei renjia gan chuqu.
till_then no pay BEI RENJIA chase out ‘B: I may be kicked out if I did not pay.’ (Huang, 2004: 78)
In (13), the pronominal renjia may refer to a group of people who are in charge of the accommodation fee in the school. Even though the speaker does not specify the referents, he
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expects the addressees to know whom s/he is talking about in the given context.
Impersonal renjia refers to a generic group of people outside the discourse. This is similar to the interpretation of bieren ‘others’ or existential you-ren ‘have-people, as in (14).
The speaker used the impersonal renjia to refer to anyone who is asking for help.
(14) Youdeshihou renjia lai wen wo, bifangshuo
‘Sometimes people come to me. For instance s/he says to me, ‘I cannot open the door.’’ (Huang, 2004: 77)
Self-positioning renjia refers to the speaker himself, that is, the first person ‘I’ in the conversation. Huang (2004) claims that when the speaker wants to make a request, a complaint or an apology to the addressee, the use of self-positioning renjia can avoid threatening the addressee’s face. The speaker also can mitigate face-to-face confrontation, making his request more indirect and less assertive, as in (15).
(15) A: Ni huibuhui pa laibuji?
You will_not_will be_afraid late
‘A: Are you afraid that you will be late?’
B: keshi zhege yin haishi yao lu a. Ni yijing but this voice still want record Par you already daying renjia.
promise RENJIA
‘B: But we still have to record the voice (conversation). You have promised me.’ (Huang, 2004: 84)
Huang (2004) also demonstrates the idea of perspectivization of renjia with Langacker’s (1990) and Traugott’s (1999) theories of subjectification and intersubjectivication. Based on
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these theories, the use of impersonal renjia can be seen as a strategy to express the speaker’s personal, subjective belief.
(16) Wo shi juede ta you yi-xie jingli, yinggai hui I be feel s/he have some experience suppose will rang renjia you yi-xie xiaxiang ba.
let RENJIA have some fancy Par
‘I think she has some experience, which makes others (implying me) draw some negative impression.’ (Huang, 2004: 83)
In (16), although the antecedent of renjia is ostensibly a generic group of people, the context in fact reveals a self-centered evaluation by the speaker.
To conclude, Huang (2004) uses face-to-face conversations to discuss different referencing functions of the pronominal renjia. She also focuses on pragmatic factors influencing its interpretations and perspective shifts in different contexts. However, with regard to the referential renjia in her classification adopted from Kitagawa and Lehrer (1990), it seems confusing in terms of her definition. A referential noun phrase in fact can be definite or indefinite (Li & Thompson, 1981). In addition, the vague renjia and the impersonal renjia only show subtle differences since both of them are non-specific. Therefore, from the acquisitional perspective, conflating them into one type will be more desirable.
2.1.4 Wang (2006)
Wang (2006) investigates the semantic, discourse and socio-pragmatic functions of personal pronouns in Mandarin Chinese. She starts with identifying the members of Mandarin personal pronouns and proposes that the so-called ‘indefinite pronouns’ such as dajia ‘everybody,’ renjia ‘others,’ bieren ‘others,’ ren ‘people,’ as well as the zero pronoun
should be regarded as parts of the system of personal pronouns.
Based on Wang, the indefinite pronouns do not have definite referents because they are
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quantitative, bearing universal or partitive properties. In addition, the referents of indefinite pronouns can be singular or plural, as in (17).
(17) Yong zhihui lai bang ren, na shi wuxian-de.
use wisdom come help people that be unlimited ‘It is unlimited to help people by using the wisdom.’(Wang, 2006: 39)
In (17), the indefinite pronoun ren ‘people’ in Wang’s classification can denote its partitive or universal meaning.
Wang (2006) further distinguishes the canonical uses and non-canonical uses of indefinite pronouns. The canonical uses are typically indefinite, while the non-canonical uses are definite in the immediate deictic domain. Take the pronominal renjia as an example, its canonical use is when it refers to indefinite individual(s) or a collective of people, as in (18).
In (18), the pronominal renjia is canonical since its referent(s) is indefinite.
(18) Renjia xuyao ni ti de zhengjian zai nail?
RENJIA need you propose DE political_view at where
‘Where are the politics people want you to propose?’ (Wang, 2006: 42)
The non-canonical use of the pronominal renjia, on the contrary, is generally definite and deictic, referring to a particular person, as in (19).
(19) Ni weisheme ba renjiai nong ku? Tai dou ku-le, you why BA RENJIA make cry She all cry-Asp ni hai bu chengren.
you still not commit
‘Why did you make her cry; She has already been crying, but you still have not committed it.’ (Wang, 2006: 41)
In (19), the pronominal renjia refers to the third-person pronoun ta ‘she’ in deictic
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domain.
In addition, Wang mentions renjia can have a ‘specific’ interpretation, as in (20), when the referent is known to the speaker but unknown to the addressee.
(20) A: Wo jintian bei renjia beipan.
‘A: It is because someone did not keep his words.’ (Wang, 2006: 41)
In general, Wang (2006) makes distinctions between the canonical and non-canonical uses of the pronominal renjia and especially discusses the ‘specific’ interpretation of it.
Nevertheless, a more detailed categorization is still needed.
2.1.5 Summary
In this section, four studies on the interpretations of the pronominal renjia have been reviewed. First, the pronominal renjia can be definite (Wang, 2006) and specific (Liu, 2001), referring to a first-person pronoun, a second-person singular pronoun2, or a third-person pronoun (Chiu, 2000; Huang, 2004; Liu, 2001; Wang, 2006). On the contrary, it also can have indefinite (Wang, 2006) and non-specific (Liu, 2001) interpretations. The vague and impersonal renjia discussed in Huang (2004) also presents indefinite or generic interpretations of it. However, it is challenging to adopt the above-mentioned classification to examine children’s comprehension and production of this pronominal, since their grammar is
2 Liu (2000) points out that the pronominal renjia seldom can be a second person pronoun. Although Chiu (2001) provides examples that renjia can refer to the addressee, the situations are rare in modern Chinese.
Therefore, the present study excludes the second person pronoun in the interpretations of the pronominal renjia.
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generally simple. Thus, in order to reduce the acquisition burden, a general explanatory categorization is necessary.
2.2 Previous Studies of Referential Expressions in Acquisition
How children acquire the intricate referential system has been the interest of linguists studying child language acquisition. In this section, two studies on the L1 acquisition of personal pronouns in English and French (Millogo, 2005; Schneider & Dubé, 1997) are reviewed; the study of the L1 acquisition on pronominal interpretations in Mandarin Chinese (Huang, 2011) and the research on the L2 acquisition of the pronominal renjia in Mandarin Chinese (Wei, 2001) are discussed as well.
2.2.1 Schneider & Dubé (1997)
Schneider & Dubé (1997) attempted to investigate the effects of pictorial versus oral story presentation of children’s referential adequacy. It has been generally reported that older children used a higher percentage of adequate referring expressions than younger children in terms of reference introduction and reference maintenance when they retell the stories.
They began with presenting three factors which were claimed to have influence on children’s mastery of referential expressions. Firstly, story complexity was a factor affecting children’s production of adequate reference. Simple stories were found easier than complex ones for children at a young age (Hickmann & Schneider, 1993). Even 7-8 aged children (Hickmann, 1982) or adolescents would find it difficult with complex stories (Schneider, 1984). The second factor was said to be mutual knowledge between the one telling the story and the one listening to it. Children performed better and used more correct references if they
They began with presenting three factors which were claimed to have influence on children’s mastery of referential expressions. Firstly, story complexity was a factor affecting children’s production of adequate reference. Simple stories were found easier than complex ones for children at a young age (Hickmann & Schneider, 1993). Even 7-8 aged children (Hickmann, 1982) or adolescents would find it difficult with complex stories (Schneider, 1984). The second factor was said to be mutual knowledge between the one telling the story and the one listening to it. Children performed better and used more correct references if they