Chapter 2 Literature review
2.4 Children’s acquisition of discourse markers
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alignment and coherence of discourse. Hao serves as a positive response to requests, suggestions, plans and proposals to agree with previous speaker’s act or move. Dui, on the other hand, confirms the truthfulness of the previous speaker’s assessment or information and as a result indicates the speakers’ agreement. Furthermore, dui indicates not only shared knowledge between interlocutors but also shared orientation toward that information. It thus can sometimes co-occur with contrastive markers such as danshi/keshi/buguo ‘but’ to express weak disagreement. Moreover, hao and dui can both combine with discourse particles to express a wider range of interactional functions. For example, as a topic transition marker in the ideational structure, hao with particle le indicates the speaker’s intention to close the current topic while dui le sets up an expectation that a new but unrelated topic is to begin.
Both dui and hao are used by Mandarin speakers to show their involvement in the conversation, and therefore build up the alignment and coherence of discourse (Wang et al., 2010).
Although earlier studies have discussed the various functions of hao and dui in Mandarin conversations, little has been done in the contexts of child discourse. Since hao and dui are two frequently used discourse markers in adult conversations, it would be beneficial to investigate Mandarin children’s use of these markers in order to understand the functions of the markers more thoroughly.
2.4 Children’s acquisition of discourse markers
Children’s acquisition of discourse markers has come into focus of many studies in the fields of cognitive science and sociolinguistics. Earlier research suggested that children’s uses of discourse markers reflect their ability to differentiate levels of
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discourse. These studies have revealed children’s understanding of discourse levels and their abilities to represent local and global relations. Moreover, they have shown that there were developmental and contextual differences in children’s uses of discourse markers (Andersen et al., 1999; Huang, 2000; Kyratzis & Ervin-Tripp, 1999; Sprott, 1992). Earlier findings have shown that there is a developmental shift from the action to the more ideational uses of discourse markers in children’s production (Kyratzis et al., 1990; Kyratzis & Ervin-Tripp, 1999). Researchers believed that the persuasive uses of languages were more frequently used in the young children’s practical lives because they are more useful for the children to achieve their conversational goals. According to Bamberg (1987) and Berman and Slobin (1994), the ability to take perspectives and orientations of their addressees emerged relatively late in children’s narratives. Researchers therefore expected that the function of boundary marking of discourse markers would also appear later in children’s development (Kyratzis & Ervin-Tripp, 1999). Earlier investigation has proved that the uses at the action level indeed appeared earlier than those at the ideational or descriptive level in child discourse.
Some cross-linguistic research has also been done on children’s acquisition of the textual uses of discourse markers in English, French and Hebrew (Andersen et al., 1999; Berman, 1996; Jisa, 1984; Kyratzis & Ervin-Tripp, 1999; Sprott, 1992). Sprott (1992) investigated English-speaking children’s use of discourse markers in verbal disputes. He included children from 2;7 to 9;6 in his study and investigated their uses of five discourse markers, because, so, and, but, and well, in terms of their textual functions. He analyzed these markers according to a cline of the interactional to ideational functions, in other words, from the exchange functions, the action functions, the local ideational functions to the global ideational functions. The result showed that
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children used these discourse markers differently as they grew up. Young children’s uses of discourse markers were first limited on local levels that index the action structure or the exchange structure. Functions of the ideational structure appeared later in children’s development and the ideational uses at the global level were the latest developed. Children organized discourse coherence mainly at the local level when they were 3;6 to 4;0. After that, they started to construct the global level relations all the way to adulthood. As children started to mark relations at the global level, because and but were the first ones children used in verbal disputes since they present reasons and contradictions which are the important parts of disputes. Sprott claimed that as children grow up, the markers are used either to express more functions or they may lose the primary functions and fulfill other functions.
Kyratzis and Ervin-Tripp (1999) investigated English-speaking children’s acquisition of discourse markers when they interacted with peers. They collected data from both 4- and 7-year-old best-friend dyads involving in a doll play situation and story re-telling. Schiffrin’s (1987) model was adopted in their study, which includes the exchange structure, the action structure, the ideational structure, and the participation frameworks. Discourse markers because, but, so, well, ok and now were identified and coded in terms of their functions. The results showed that there were age differences and contextual differences in children’s use of discourse markers.
Children’s use of three makers, okay, now and so changed from the local to the global level. The meanings of but and because in child conversation underwent a shift from the action structure to the ideational structure. Furthermore, Kyratzis and Ervin-Tripp’s results suggested that younger children, especially boys, marked the discourse relations in the action structure while older children tended to mark them in the ideational structure and the participation frameworks. Moreover, older children
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tended to mark more global relations rather than only local ones. In other words, young children predominately used discourse markers in the action structure and the exchange structure. They seldom marked relations in the ideational structure and the global level. The contextual differences were found in children’s choices of the types of markers and the discourse structures they operated in. Different contexts prompted different discourse markers. In the doll-play section, English children used more action level and participation markers when negotiating with their partners. All the four types of discourse uses, including the action level, the ideation level, boundary markers and participation frameworks, operated in emplotment/enactment in doll play.
On the other hand, story re-telling consisted more of the uses at the ideational level, participation frameworks and global boundary markers. Kyratzis and Ervin-Tripp proposed that negotiation yielded predominately action-level uses of discourse markers may result from the facts that the proposal of one speaker has been challenged and therefore the speaker needs to give reasons for the challenge. Based on the finding that younger children only had the narrative-like uses of discourse markers in emplotment rather than in story re-telling, Kyratzis and Ervin-Tripp argued that emplotment may be a scaffold for children to acquire these narrative-like uses of markers. They further suggested that communicative functions of discourse markers emerged earlier than pure representative ones. Communicative functions of these markers, such as the action-level uses and the ideational uses in emplotment, were better understood by young children.
Previous research has also demonstrated that children learned textual functions of discourse markers earlier than their registered functions. According to Kyratzis and Ervin-Tripp (1993), English-speaking children acquired the textual uses of discourse markers well before age five or six, which is the time they first began to use the
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sociolinguistic functions of these discourse markers. The studies of the acquisition of French discourse markers showed similar results. Jisa (1984, 1987) also found that young French-speaking children at first used the connective et puis ‘and then’ for all purposes. As they grow up, they then limited their use of et puis when they acquired other connectors, such as alors ‘then’.
Andersen and colleagues (1999) have conducted a cross-linguistic study about early acquisition of discourse markers and how these markers function as markers of social relation. They compared earlier findings of 4 to 7 years old American English, Lyonnais French (Andersen, 1990, 1996) and Chicago Spanish-speaking children in a puppet role-play section in terms of the acquisition process of discourse markers as registered variables. They analyzed the children’s usage of discourse markers signaling the relations between the interlocutors on the participation frameworks based on Schiffrin’s (1987) model. The results revealed developmental differences in all the three groups. The frequency of discourse markers children used increased with age. Their results also indicated that there were cross-linguistic similarities when children used discourse markers to convey social meanings and to manipulate social power relations before such relations have established. Linguistic parallels were found between the three groups in terms of the frequency of discourse markers in different roles, the distribution of both lexical and non-lexical markers and the use of stacking.
Children at age six or seven in all groups used “place holders” or “boundary markers”
such as well, okay, now, um, oh and uh more frequently in high status roles. Moreover, they chose more lexical markers when playing high status roles while non-lexical boundary markers in low status ones. Furthermore, when children acted as the high status roles, they tend to combine some discourse markers together, or so-called
“stacking”. For English-speaking children at age six, they acquired a fair number of
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discourse markers and understood how to use them to convey status asymmetry depends on various roles and situations. In other words, they chose certain discourse markers when playing specific roles. They knew how to manipulate social relations by using discourse markers before these relations were established. The use of different discourse markers when playing various roles reflected the children’s understanding and abilities to establish social relations.
Kyratzis (2005) investigated how English children used because as a marker of collaborative stance in peer interaction. Her findings showed that children used because in the participation frameworks to mark solidarity or collaboration. They used because in three situations: (1) to continue a participant’s idea cross turns, (2) to justify the speaker’s agreement with the other’s proposal, (3) to justify the speaker’s elaboration of the other’s proposal in his/her own turn. The results also demonstrated gender differences in children’s usage of because. When justifying their moves, girls tended to validate their thoughts while boys preferred oppositional justifications.
Besides, girls used more marking on justification with because. In both girls and boys data, validating justifications received more because marking than the other two types.
Huang (2000) conducted a developmental study about Mandarin children’s acquisition of discourse marker hao. He divided sixty 3-5 year old Mandarin-speaking children into three age groups and investigated their casual conversations with both adults and peers. His results suggested that there is a developmental process of Mandarin-speaking children’s use of hao as a discourse marker. Older children had the ability to use more functions of hao. The three-year-old children used hao mostly in the action and the exchange structures of discourse. They used hao to mark closures of physical actions and complaints of other people. Besides, they also used hao to acknowledge assertions in request-compliance pairs. Mandarin-speaking
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children started to use hao in the ideational structure at around age four. Hao in 4 year olds’ production can mark the termination of a hesitation pause. This function acknowledged the children’s ability to organize and manage their information states (cognitive states). Both 4- and 5-year-old children had the ability to manipulate hao as a turning-grabbing marker. They used hao in the exchange structure to grab the turns from other interlocutors. The evidence came from the increased frequency of overlapping in their conversations. Moreover, Mandarin speaking children at age four and five used hao to initiate elaboration questions in the information state.
Furthermore, the 5 year olds had shown the ability to manipulate two more functions of hao in the ideational structure, which were topic shifting and linking of two phases.
Generally speaking, Mandarin-speaking 3 and 4 year olds used hao mostly at the local level (i.e. the action structure and the exchange structure) while 5 year olds have shown the ability to use hao at the global level (i.e. the ideational structure).
Cross-linguistic studies have been carried out on children’s acquisition of discourse markers (Andersen et al., 1999; Berman, 1996; Jisa, 1984, 1987; Kyratzis &
Ervin-Tripp, 1999; Sprott, 1992). However, relatively less research has focused on Mandarin-speaking children’s use of discourse markers, not to mention those concerning the various functions of Mandarin discourse markers. The thesis therefore aims to investigate Mandarin-speaking children’s use of the multifunction of discourse markers in order to examine their communicative skills.