Chapter 4 Results
4.4 Content
4.4.2 The content in prohibitions
example of prosocial action in directives when H was at 2;7. The mother asked the child to pick up the remote control in Line 3, and this behavior conforms to that of a prosocial action which benefits another person or provides for mutual benefit.
(17) M asks H to pick up the remote control.
Example (18) is to illustrate the content of cognitive/play in directives at H 3;1.
In this example, the content is about playing with bottles, so this belongs to the
content of cognitive/play. The mother asked the child to use a ball to knock the bottles down in Line 2.
(18) M and H are playing with bottles.
1. %sit: H 用手將其他瓶子打倒.
Æ 2. M: 你用球啊!
3. M: 你不要用手嘛 -: !
%sit: H uses his hand to knock down the other bottles.
M: You should use a ball.
M: You shouldn’t use your hand.
4.4.2 The content in prohibitions
The contents in prohibitions by H’s ages are shown in Table 8. Based on the results in Table 8, there were 73 contents in prohibitions. Among them, competent action occupied 11 (15.1%), appropriate behavior 31 (42.5%), and caretaking 31 (42.5%). The frequency suggests that the highest frequency of content in prohibitions belongs to appropriate behavior and caretaking.
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The content in prohibitions by H’s ages
Competent action Appropriate
behavior Caretaking (PRA: prosocial action, COP: cognitive/play, SOR: social regulation, UOO: use of objects, PHC: physical care, MON: monitoring)
As shown in Table 8, appropriate behavior and caretaking are mostly occupied at H’s four ages. At H 2;1, the use of objects (57.1%) gets the highest frequency.
Monitoring is respectively the highest frequency at 2;7 (46.7%) and 3;1 (61.9%).
Social regulation (62.5%) is mostly expressed at H 3;7. Example 19 displays the content of use of objects in prohibitions at H 2;1.
(19) M helps H to take a bath.
1. %sit: H 把他手裡的玩具鴨朝玻璃牆撞擊.
Æ 2. M: 喔喔喔玻璃會破掉不可以.
3. M: 要輕輕的 Eddie.
%sit: H bangs the toy duck in his hand against the glass wall.
M: Oh. The glass will be broken. You can’t do that.
M: Softly, Eddie.
The mother asked the child not to bang the toy duck against the glass wall in Line 2. In Line 3, the mother asked the child to bang softly. The mother wanted to protect the glass wall from being broken due to the child’s inappropriate behavior.
Thus, the content belongs to use of objects.
Example (20) demonstrates the content of monitoring in prohibitions at H 2;7.
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The mother warned the child not to fall down in Line 2. The mother focused on her child’s safety, so this example fits the content of monitoring.
(20) M and H are playing with a bamboo dragonfly.
1. %sit: H 把竹蜻蜓拿給媽媽.
Æ 2. M: 你不要跌碰碰喔.
%sit: H gives the bamboo dragonfly to his mother.
M: Don’t fall down.
Example (21) shows the content of social regulation in prohibitions at H 3;7. The mother asked the child not to jump (Line 1), or someone would ring the bell to warn the child not to jump (Line 2).
(21) H is jumping.
Æ 1. M: 你真的不要蹦蹦跳跳.
2. M: 等一下會有人來按電鈴.
3. M: 我已經跟你講了.
M: You really can’t jump.
M: Someone will ring the bell later.
M: Don’t fall down.
4.4.3 Summary
In this Section, we have looked for relation between two control acts and their content. The findings shows that competent action more often occurs in directives, and this finding is consistent with Kuczynski and Kochanska’s (1995) findings in their review of the literature. In addition, we also discovered that the content in
prohibitions belongs to appropriate behavior and caretaking.
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Chapter 5 Discussion
The analysis of syntactic directness in Chapter 4 shows that the imperative is the type of sentence preferred by the Mandarin mother to regulate the child’s behavior as shown in the use of directives and the prohibitions. In Section 5.1, we would discuss the preferred sentence type of imperative from the perspective of the child’s cognitive development. In addition to the child’s cognitive development, the culture factors which would determine the preferred sentence type are discussed in Section 5.2.
Finally, the findings for semantic modifications in Chapter 4 are that bald and minimization are two dominant semantic modifications, and, therefore, we will discuss politeness in maternal regulatory language in Section 5.3.
5.1 The child’s cognitive development
The results for syntactic directness show that the imperative seems to be the preferred sentence type for the Mandarin mother to use to regulate the behavior of her child. The usage of the imperative may be explained by the stage of the cognitive development of the child. Piaget identified four stages in cognitive development (Rosen, 1989; Huitt & Hummel, 2003). They are the sensorimotor stage (viz. birth to two years), the preoperational stage (viz. two to seven years), the concrete operational stage (viz. seven to eleven years), and the formal operational stage (viz. above eleven years). In this study, the child's ages were 2;1, 2;7, 3;1, and 3;7, and all of the four
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ages belong to the preoperational stage. Furthermore, Piaget divided the
preoperational stage into two sub-stages. One is the preconceptual stage (viz. two to four years), and the other is the intuitive stage (viz. four to seven years). All four ages, 2;1, 2;7, 3;1, and 3;7, belong to the preconceptual stage. The child’s logic is based on transductive reasoning at the preconceptual stage, and such reasoning is neither inductive nor deductive but rather shifts from particular to particular. This means the child does not reason based on abstract notions of definitions, but on the accidental linking together of associations. Thus, thinking is done in a nonlogical way.
Mothers may understand the limitations to the level of their children’s logical and reasoning ability, so their speech to children may conform to the children’s comprehension abilities. Speech to younger children tends to be literal and
referentially explicit (Schneiderman, 1983) to ease the cognitive processing burden.
Therefore, the Mandarin mother would prefer to use the syntactically direct
imperative type of sentence, and the non-conventionally indirect tends to be the least preferred type.
5.2 The cultural factor
In this Section, we will try to discuss the relation between cultural factors and the preferred sentence type of imperatives used by the Mandarin mother. In the literature, some studies reveal that mothers from different cultures have their own preferred type of sentence to regulate their children. Estonian mothers like to use the imperative to regulate their children (Junefelt & Tulviste, 1997). However, American mothers use more indirect ways to regulate their children (Bellinger, 1979). The differences in language use may be explained by cultural factors.
Individualism and collectivism are the degree of distance in social relationships.
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Triandis (1993) suggests that individualism and collectivism are analyzed as cultural differences because evidence shows that the elements of subjective culture are organized around the individual or the collective. He mentions that the centrality of individualism is the autonomous individual; the centrality of collectivism is collective.
People likely think of groups and social relationships in collectivistic cultures, but people are likely to think of individuals in individualistic cultures (Triandis,
McCusker, & Hui, 1990). Thus, an interdependent self is linked to collectivism, but an independent self is linked to individualism (Triandis, 1993).
People in collectivistic cultures focus on status or power differences instead of distance more than those in individualistic cultures (Fukushima, 2000; Triandis, 1994:186), which is supported by studies on the speech act of request such as Bond et al’s (1985) study on Hong Kong Chinese (collectivism) vs. Americans (individualism).
That is, collectivist cultures are considered to be in high power distance and hierarchical position of unequals is identified. However, individualist cultures are considered to be low power distance nations and tend to de-emphasize power distance (Hofstede, 1980; Hofstede & Bond 1988).
In the literature, America belongs to an individualistic country (Hofstede, 1980;
Bond et al’s, 1985). Taiwan belongs to a collectivistic country (Triandis, 1993) by the influence of Confucianism and related philosophical systems (Hofsted & Bond 1988;
Forbes et al’s, 2009). For Taiwan, collectivism and high power distance are important cultural dimensions (Dorfman & Howell, 1988). Since power distance is important, people in Chinese collectivistic culture such as Taiwan would speak to another according to hierarchical relationship (Chen & Chung, 1994).
Tulviste and Raudsepp (1997) consider that Estonia is a collectivistic country
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and mothers in their country are likely to use imperative to regulate their children.
However, America is an individualistic country and mothers in America choose indirect forms. Our data were collected in Taiwan which is sorted as a collectivistic country like Estonia. After examining our results, the imperative form occupied the highest frequency of sentence type in both directives and prohibitions. The preferred sentence type of imperative for Taiwanese and Estonian mothers could be explained by the asymmetrical status and power relation between their mothers and children (Blum-Kulka, 1990). The hierarchical status relationship in Taiwanese and Estonian collectivistic countries would be revealed by the high frequency of imperative. On the other hand, America is a individualistic country and de de-emphasize the power distance, so probably it would be the reason why indirect forms instead of direct forms are found in Bellinger’s (1979) study.
Another culture differences could be found in different concepts for effectiveness.
According to Gao (1999), the use of imperatives is the most effective and appropriate way to regulate a child’s behavior in Chinese. However, the use of imperatives is considered the least efficient by users of English. Therefore, we found high frequency of imperative in our data because the Mandarin mother probably considers the use of imperatives as the most effective way.
5.3 Politeness in maternal regulatory language
Politeness reflects pragmatic knowledge because the principle Be polite is a part of adult pragmatic competence (Lakoff, 1973). Lakoff proposes that adults follow three rules of politeness, Don’t impose, Give options, and Make the addressee feel good. The three rules mean to avoid intruding/imposing upon the hearers, to give them options, and to make them feel good. Since the rules of politeness are part of
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pragmatic competence for adults, children will acquire the rules to achieve adults’
competence (James, 1978).
The results of semantic modification in Section 4.3 showed that bald and
minimization are two primary modifications which the Mandarin mother chose to use in two control acts, respectively. Brown and Levinson (1987) suggested that the use of bald is an appropriate strategy for a mother to use. In mother-child interaction, the mother is powerful and does not fear retaliation from the child. It is small for the mother to satisfy the child’s face (Brown and Levinson, 1987). Therefore, the use of the dominant semantic bald in the Mandarin mother’s regulatory language is
appropriate because the mother is much more powerful than the child.
Another semantic modification mainly used in this study is minimization.
Minimization belongs to mitigation, and mitigation is used to soften control acts which bring face threats. Since mitigation is used to mitigate face threats, it belongs to politeness (Blum-Bulka, 1989). In addition to politeness, mitigating one’s intention plays a large role in pragmatic competence (Brown & Levinson, 1987). The child will eventually acquire pragmatic competence in being polite as an adult. That process is what Snow, Perlmann, Gleason, and Hooshyar (1990) suggested that parents provide preschoolers a lot of data related pragmatics to acquire. In other words, we can find the Mandarin mother used bald for her power status and used mitigation, especially minimization, to let the child ultimately acquire the pragmatic competence of politeness.
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Chapter 6 Conclusion
In this chapter, the summary of this study is presented in Section 6.1. In addition, the limitations of this study and suggestions for future research are offered in Section 6.2.
6.1 Summary
This thesis aims to investigate how syntactic directness, semantic modification, and content are respectively realized in two maternal control acts, namely, directives and prohibitions, in Mandarin maternal regulatory language. The results revealed that the mother probably preferred to use the imperative, which belongs to the direct form, in both directives and prohibitions. Two possible explanations may be used to explain this finding. Firstly, the preference for the use of the imperative may be related to the child’s cognitive development. The mother understands that the child has a limited logical and reasoning ability, so she might choose to use a direct form to ease the cognitive processing burden. Secondly, the preference for the use of the imperative form may also be explained from the aspect of cultural factors. The Mandarin mother may tend to prefer to use the imperative form since the culture in Taiwan is
considered as a collectivistic culture in which power distance is identified. After analyzing the semantic modification in directives and prohibitions, the result indicated that the mother is inclined to use bald in directives and mitigation, especially
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minimization, in prohibitions. Additionally, bald and minimization are two primary modifications in both control acts after examining the data at each of child’s four ages.
The mother’s power status is higher than that of the child’s, so it is appropriate for her to choose bald. The use of minimization obviously belongs to politeness. Therefore, politeness is embedded in the Mandarin mother’s regulatory language, and the maternal input will help the child to ultimately acquire pragmatic competence in politeness. This study also discovered two major kinds of semantic combinations. One is minimization and repetition. The other is minimization and justification. Finally, the results of contents for control acts show that competent action often occurs in
directives. As for prohibitions, appropriate behavior and caretaking are most related.
Based on our findings, the Mandarin mother seems to favor the direct, imperative form of regulatory language, and semantic bald or minimization forms.
6.2 Limitations and suggestions
Although we have gained some findings about the Mandarin maternal
regulatory language, there are still limitations in this study. First, the results derived from this study may be influenced by an issue of individual differences, but this study would certainly shed some light on the Mandarin maternal regulatory language.
Second, the child’s cognitive development at four ages all belongs to the
preoperational stage, so the findings may be limited in application. It is suggested that future studies may investigate children at other cognitive stages, in order to see if their parents’ regulatory language changes with the growth of the comprehension abilities of the children. Third, the present study only focused on a boy with his mother. The sample is not big enough, so more research should be done with a larger sample.
Fourth, future research may investigate that either directive or prohibition would be
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the most effective way to regulate children. Next, some studies also have found variations in the regulatory language of parents when speaking to either their sons or their daughters (e.g., Gleason, Ely, Perlmann, and Narasimhan, 1996), so future research also might examine the maternal regulatory language used with children of different genders. Last, the use of more direct forms may elicit more compliance from children (e.g., Schaffer and Crook, 1980), so future research may investigate the relationship between compliance rate and form.
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Transcribing symbols
(Adopted from MacWhinney, Brian. 1995. The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.)
xxx unintelligible speech, not treated as a word xx unintelligible speech, treated as a word . period
? question
! exclamation
# pause
### extra long pause between words -: lengthening
+… trailing off
+^ quick uptake
[/] retracing without correction [//] retracing with correction
<> portion of utterances been overlapped [>][<] overlapping utterances +/. interruption
+, self-completion [= text] explanation
[=! text] paralinguistic material
%act: action tier
%sit: situation tier
%com: comments by investigator
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