國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
are thus perceived as impolite. The child’s refusal strategies at 2; 7 were direct and impolite from a conversational perspective.
4.2 The child’s refusals at 3; 1
The frequency of the child’s refusal response decreased at 3; 1. Only 23 refusal responses were identified at this time point. Table 2 shows the child’s refusals at 3; 1.
Table 2. The realization of the child’s refusals at 3; 1
Strategy Number of token Percentage (%)
Direct refusal 8 34.8
Unrelated answer 2 8.7
Insistence 5 21.7
Reason 3 13.0
Alternative 4 17.4
Negated ability 1 4.3
Total 23 99.9
As shown in Table 2, the child preferred employing direct refusal as his refusal strategy. However, the percentage has dropped obviously (78.9%34.8%). Besides,
there is a major change in the linguistic form of direct refusal. At 2; 7, as we discussed in the previous section, the child refused with 不要 buyao which implicates his own desire and willingness. However, at 3; 1, the child did not refuse with buyao, instead, he used another linguistic form 不行 buxing. The lexical term buxing is more
‧
objective than the term buyao since buxing does not refer to the speaker’s own desire as obviously as buyao. Consider Example 9.
Example 9
In Example 9, the mother wanted the child to give the toy car to her, while the child refused with a direct refusal buxing ‘No’. As we discussed in the previous section, the major linguistic form of direct refusal is buyao which shows the child’s unwillingness directly. However, at 3; 1, the child expressed his non-compliance with the more objective lexical form buxing, which still implicated his willingness, but not as apparently as buyao. The child at 3; 1 still relied on using the direct way to refuse.
The change of lexical forms from buyao to buxing in terms of direct refusal revealed that the child at 3; 1 didn’t concern his desire first. The use of a more objective form, buxing, may implicate that the child at 3; 1 started to consider other’s face and
adopted another lexicon which didn’t refer openly to his own willingness or desire.
Insistence and Unrelated answer adopted at 2; 7 are still manipulated at 3; 1. In addition, the child has started to adopt other strategies when making refusals. Such strategies are more indirect and persuasive than just saying ‘No’, and they include using an alternative, a reason and showing his inability (negated ability).
‧
Alternative (17.4%): Providing an alternative in a refusal is considered more indirect and persuasive since it supplies an alternative resolution. Chen et al. (1995) pointed out that providing an alternative in refusals implicates the influence of the notion of “respectfulness” since the speaker had considered the hearer’s need and come up with an alternative. Alternative thus softens the face-threatening power of refusals. According to the data collected at 3; 1, the child adopted alternative in certain contexts. Consider the following example.
Example 10
In Example 10, the mother wanted to take the ball back (Line 1). The child refused to give the ball back and he negotiated with his mother by giving her another ball back, instead (Line 2). In addition to the imperative ‘Give me the ball’, the mother also use body language—grabbing the ball to reinforce her request. When the child perceived the strengthened power of his mother’s request, he offered a ball other than the one that she had requested. As Garvey (1974; 45) stated, there are four basic conditions which together underlie a sincere request. The mother’s grabbing of the ball emphasized her desire and the power of her request and simultaneously
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
strengthened the assumption that speaker wants hearer to do act as in Garvey’s first condition. The child’s use of alternative mirrors his attempt to satisfy his mother’s desire although he was not willing to comply with his mother’s request.
Reason (13%): The child came up with reasons for non-compliance. Consider Example 10. The mother wanted the child to pick up his toy car. The child refused with a reason for his non-compliance 我在工作啊 ‘I am working.’
Example 11
1.MOT: 有沒有收車車?
‘Did you pick up your toy car?’
2.CHI: 恩#我在工作啊.
‘Um, I am working.’
Eisenberg and Garvey (1981) claimed that providing a reason played an important role in children’s conflict talk since reason provides the interlocutor with a basis for further negotiation. The provision of a reason also reflects the child’s awareness of the conditions in which a sincere request takes place (Wang, 2008). In Example 11, the child’s reason for non-compliance is concerned with Garvey’s third condition, that is, he was not willing to put the toy car back since he was working at that time. Because of the fact that he was working, the requested action—picking up the car cannot be performed. The reason ‘I am working’ queries the mother’s assumption that the child is willing to pick the car, and thus is an example of a successful refusal.
‧
can be perceived as violating the mother’s assumption of the third condition, since buyao directly projects the unwillingness of the child to perform the requested action . At 3; 1, the child still denied the mother’s assumption of the third condition to perform his refusal, but in different way. He used a more persuasive strategy—providing a reason for his non-compliance and thus indirectly breaking the assumption of the third condition in his refusal. It could be inferred that the child at 3;1 has started to use different utterance types (direct refusal and reason) for the same function, i.e., to break the assumption behind the mother’s request.
Negated ability (4.3%): the child also provided the reason that his non-compliance was due to his inability. Example 12 shows how he refused with a reference to his negated ability.
Example 12
1.CHI: 還有誰要?
‘Does anyone want this car?’
2.CHI: 舉手.
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
7.MOT: 我
‘Me.’
8.CHI: 不能太多啦.
‘(I) can’t give too many cars’
In Example 12, the child and his mother were acting out a role play. The child was a teacher, while the mother was the student. The child was asking who wanted the cars (Line 1) and said that they were to raise their hands (Line 2). The mother replied that everyone wanted the car (Line 3) and repeated ‘I’ to get the car. The child refused with 不能太多啦 ‘(I) can’t give (away) too many cars at one time’ (Line 8). The child’s inability to perform the requested action breaks the assumption that he can do it in Garvey’s second condition and thus he refused his mother’s request accordingly.
From the aforementioned two examples above, the use of reason and negated ability in the child’s refusal indicated that he applied his knowledge of a sincere request to deny his interlocutor’s assumptions, and thus refused successfully.
According to Garvey (1974; 45), these four conditions constitute the domain of relevance of a request. Speaker and hearer share a mutual understanding of these conditions. They apply their understanding of the conditions in making requests and also in making refusals. The child’s skill in negotiation and his attempt to meet the desire of his mother in performing an action are revealed in his argument and obviously he succeeded. The choice of an alternative implies sensitivity to feedback from the previous utterance. In addition, according to the data collected at 3; 1, the
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
child often adopted an alternative in certain contexts. The more powerful the imposition of the request, the more possible it is that the child will adopt alternative to refuse it. In Example12, the mother’s body language, that of grabbing the ball, reinforced the power of her request; and the first condition, i.e., the assumption that S wants H to do A was emphasized, too. When faced with such imposition, the child attempted to satisfy his mother and brought forth an alternative. The usage of alternative under such specific context provides further evidence further that the child was aware of a set of specific interpersonal conditions and adopted different strategies based on different contexts.
It was assumed that children’s level of competence is reflected in their use of the strategies which were available to them. They may adopt different refusal strategies to perform the same function, i.e., deny the conditions of a sincere request. This ability is attributed to the children’s mutual understanding of the meanings which constitute a request. Garvey (1974) indicated that children are aware of the interpersonal conditions on which the request speech act is based. That awareness is also implied in children’s refusals.
As we mentioned in the previous section, there are two types of arguments, self-oriented and other-oriented. At 2; 7, the child adopted self-oriented argument to refuse. At 3; 1, the child offered an alternative to trade-off with his mother and
‧
國立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
explained the reason for non-compliance or showed his negated ability in a refusal.
These strategies belong to other-oriented arguments. We adopted these two types of arguments to examine the child’s refusal responses and some findings were as the following. First, there is a strategy shift from 2; 7 to 3; 1. At 2; 7, in addition to the great amount of direct refusals, the child also manipulated self-oriented arguments to present his refusal such as insisting on continuing in the performance of his current activity. At 3; 1, he started to apply other-oriented arguments to refuse such as giving an alternative or a reason. According to Fyre & Moore (1991); Perner (1991) and Wellman (1990), there are major developmental changes between the age of 3 and 5 in children’s grasp of other’s inner states. It could be inferred that a preliminary understanding of another’s inner state has influenced the child’s in determining the way to refuse and that this could be reflected in his use of arguments as refusal strategies.