Chapter 5 Discussion
5.3 The comparison of children’s motion event expressions in conversation
This section discusses the extent to which genre affects children’s motion expressions. It was suggested that the language-specific characteristics related to typology would not be affected by genre difference. It was found that the language-specific patterns in the usage of verb types and motion constructions remained the same in both genres. Children’s usage of types of Manner verbs were more than Path verbs, and MPD was the most productive construction. These characteristics conformed to what previous studies suggested when referring to Mandarin’s motion typology (Chen, 2004; Guo & Chen, 2009). In other words, the rhetorical style of equipollantly-framed language could be found in both conversation and narration data.
The result whereby Manner frequency is similar to Path frequency was the same in both genres; however, the pattern did not present typical characteristics of Mandarin (i.e. Manner frequency should be higher than Path frequency). It seemed that even if children’s verb token usage deviated from the language-specific patterns, this kind of verb token usage could still be found in both genres. This means that even if typological characteristics were not revealed in children’s motion expressions, genre difference still could not account for the difference. Instead, it was suspected that age factor or cognitive factor were better explanations for the differences, as mention in section 5.2.
It seems that the patterns in verb type, verb token and construction were found to remain the same regardless of genre can support Slobin’s (1996) “thinking for
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speaking” theory. According to the theory, language provides a set of encodable grammatical structure that is accessed and mobilized when we speak. The readily encodable objects in language then allow speakers to take on certain perspective on the event. In the case of Mandarin, in terms of verb type, Mandarin speakers paid more attention to different types of Manner verbs and talked about them, because Manner lexicon is larger in the language. Next, in terms of verb token, speakers use both Manner and Path verb with high frequency, since the grammar of Mandarin allows Manner and Path be easily encodable. Last, with the frequent use of Manner and Path, the MPD construction, which allows Manner and Path be encoded simultaneously, was consequently widely found in children’s motion expressions.
Most importantly, children learned to “think for speaking” which is not limited to one single genre. Slobin (2000) also found the evidence of children’s motion verb type usage in various genres. The current study supported children’s “thinking for speaking” with the evidence of not only motion verb types, but also motion verb tokens and motion constructions.
However, does this mean that genre could not influence children’s attention on motion events at all? Our results suggested that it was not necessarily true. Genre difference did affect children’s motion expressions to some degree. The influence can be found in two aspects. The first was verb type. The number of types of Manner verbs was found more in conversation than in narration in the current study. This result conformed to Selimis and Katis' (2010) study, in which they found that children of V- and S-framed languages both used more types of Manner lexeme in
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conversation than in narration. Base on the result of verb types, Selimis and Katis proposed that Manner was more salient in conversation for children.
Noted that this claim of Manner salience in conversation for children was confined in the aspects of verb type usage, since current study found that Manner salience was not found in the usage of verb token. The current study found that children’s tokens of Manner verbs in conversation did not exceed those in narration.
The way of measuring Manner salience can be done through measuring the size (i.e.
frequency) and diversity (i.e. type) of Manner expressions (Pourcel, 2004).
Therefore, what Selimis and Katis (2010) suggested on Manner salience in conversation may need some refinement. It is proposed in the current study that the factor of genre difference on Manner salience was only reflected in verb type, but not in verb token.
The other aspect in which the influence of genre can be found was in the number of verbs in motion constructions. In narration, three-verb constructions were used the most in all age groups, while in conversation one-verb constructions were the most common. This means that children constructed more complex motion constructions in narration, and less in conversation. The results were similar to what previous studies found that children’s speech in narration is more complex than in conversation, such as MLU and the number of morphemes they used (Dollaghan et al., 1990; Leadholm & Miller, 1992). It seemed that the degree of complexity of children’s speech could also be found in motion expressions. Furthermore, the number of verbs in motion constructions implies how much semantic information was provided in such construction. It showed that children tended to provide more
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semantic information in narration than in conversation. They tended to mentioned two or three semantic elements in one motion clause, such as the combination of MP, PD, or even MPD. However, children preferred mentioning merely one semantic element, either M, P or D, in one motion clause. The results can be accounted by the difference in communication responsibility in different genres. Previous study suggested that communication responsibility is heavier in narration than in conversation (Logan et al, 2011). Children might feel compelled to mention more semantic components in narration when no other interlocutors would help them construct motion events. Therefore, motion constructions in narration were found more complex.
In conclusion, similarities and differences were both found in children’s motion expressions in two different genres. The similarities include that types of Manner verbs were more than those of Path verbs, Manner frequency was similar to Path frequency, and MPD construction was the most productive construction. The similarities of the usage of verb types and motion constructions found in both data can also be found in adults’ motion expressions, which means that certain equipollantely-framed characteristics of Mandarin remain unchanged in different genres. Even though the similarity of verb token usage did not present the equipollantely-framed patterns, genre was still not a factor. On the other hand, the differences found in children’s motion expressions in different genres include that Manner types were used more in conversation than in narration, and that one-verb constructions appeared more in conversation. These results suggested that genre
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difference can influence children's motion encoding to some degree, but not to the extent that changes the rhetorical style of an equipollently-framed language.
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Chapter 6 Conclusion
This current study aims at discussing children’s expressions of motion events in conversation and in narration, and further discussing the role of genre in affecting children’s motion event encoding. It was expected that under each genre, children’s motion expressions would start to resemble some language-specific patterns related to Mandarin’s typology observed in adults’ speech, and these patterns would become more obvious with age. The language-specific patterns of Mandarin include 1) verb type: types of Manner verbs are more than those of Path, 2) verb token: Manner tokens are more than Path tokens, and 3) motion construction: MPD is the most common type of motion construction. The comparison of children’s motion expressions in conversation and narration to Mandarin’s language-specific patterns is shown in Table 12. In conversation, the language-specific patterns were found in accordance with 1) and 3). In narration, the language-specific patterns were also found similar to 1) and 3). The results in both genres all showed that children started to encode motion in accordance with language-specific ways in certain aspects, namely motion verb types and motion constructions.
However, children might not have learned the whole system of adults’ patterns just yet. For example, children’s verb token usage has not resembled language-specific patterns. In conversation, children’s motion token usage was different from the language-specific pattern 2); children used Manner, Path and Deixis with similar frequency. In narration, verb token usage did not show similarity to pattern 2) either:
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children in narration used Manner and Path with similar frequency while Deixis was used with the lowest frequency. Furthermore, the development of motion expressions were not obvious for 3- to 5-year-olds in the current study. It was speculated that the development might happen in later stages.
The comparison of the results collected from conversational data and narrative data presented some similarities and some differences, and the results are presented in Table 13. There are certain aspects in children’s speech that remained similar in both genres. Similarities were found in all three aspects of verb type, verb token, and motion construction. In terms of verb type, types of Manner verbs were more and those of Path verbs. In terms of verb token, Manner tokens were similar to Path tokens. In terms of constructions, MPD was the most common construction. This means that even in different genres, certain characteristics remained unchanged. It also suggests that the language-specific patterns shown in children’s speech are not close to the patterns of either V-framed or S-framed languages. Instead, children’s
Table 12. The comparison of children’s motion expressions in conversation and narration to Mandarin’s language-specific patterns
Verb type Verb token Motion
construction
Mandarin’s patterns M>P M>P MPD is the most
Children’s patterns in
Conversation M>P M=P=D MPD is the most
Children’s patterns in
Narration M>P M=P>D MPD is the most
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motion expressions certainly share some core characteristics with the equipollently-framed languages.
On the other hand, differences were also found in the two genres. The first difference was that Manner type usage was more diverse in narration. Second, Path is more than Deixis in frequency in narration. Third, one-verb constructions were more prominent in conversation. The differences possibly resulted from the different characters of the two genres. For one, topic in conversation is more diverse, while in narration it is more limited due to the material used in collecting data from narration.
In other words, children’s manipulation of motion verb lexicon is easier to be observed in conversation. For another, communication responsibility is different in the two genres. Children provided more complex motion constructions and more motion information in narration where communication responsibility was higher.
The study provides certain implications that future studies could take into account when different types of data are used to examine children’s motion expressions. It is implied that although the research on children’s motion expressions
Table 13. The comparison between children’s motion expressions in conversation and narration
Verb type Verb token Motion construction
Cmparison Similarity Difference Similarity Difference similarity difference
Conversation
using different data might reveal some variations, such as the diversity of the use of verb type, the complexity of motion construction, or the semantic weight in children’s motion expressions, the language-specific patterns should correspond to each other. As such, future studies on adults’ expressions of motion events would be highly beneficial to providing stronger evidence on the effect that genre has on motion expressions. Such studies would also be constructive in making the comparisons between adults’ and children’s motion expressions more accurate.
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Appendix I
Types of Motion verbs Types of Manner in conversation:
zou ⾛走 “walk”, pa 爬 “crawl”, zuo 坐 “sit”, fei ⾶飛 “fly”, pao 跑 “run”, tiao 跳 “jump”, diu 丟 “throw”, shen 伸 “stretch”, luo 落 “fall”, diao 掉 “fall”, diao 吊 “hang”, boa 包
“wrap”, da 打 “hit”, shou 收 “put away”, xi 吸 “suck”, chui 吹 “blow”, nong 弄 “do, make”, zhau 找 “find”, zhua 抓 “catch, scrach”, bai 擺 “swing ”, zhe 折 “fold”, tai 抬
“lift”, chai 拆 “break”, la 拉 “pull”, ban 拌 “stir”, tuo 拖 “drag”, fang 放 “put”, ping 拼 “piece”, an 按 “press”, tiao 挑 “pick”, wa 挖 “dig”, dau 倒 “pour”, na 拿 “take with hand, hold”, gai 給 “give”, song 送 “give as a gift, send”, ji 寄 “send”, chuan 傳
“transit”, dui 堆 “pile”, die 疊 “pile, fold”, dai 帶 “take”, juan 捲 “roll”, jie 接 “catch”, ban 絆 “trip”, tuo 脫 “take off (clothes)”, cha 插 “insert”, tie 貼 “stick”, kai 開 “open”, kai 開 “drive”, liou 溜 “slip, glide”, guen 滾 “roll”, tiaowu 跳舞 “dance”, shuai 摔
“stumble”, gai 蓋 “cover”, si 撕 “tear”, ji 擠 “squeeze”, ca 擦“wipe”, duan 斷 “break, cut off”, rao 繞 “coil”, fan 翻 “flip”, zhuan 轉 “turn”, guan 關 “close”, bian 變
“change”, zuan 鑽 “drill”
Types of Manner in narration:
zou ⾛走 “walk”, pa 爬 “crawl”, zuo 坐 “sit”, fei ⾶飛 “fly”, pao 跑 “run”, tiao 跳 “jump”, diu 丟 “throw”, shen 伸 “stretch”, diao 掉 “fall”, dao 倒 “fall”, gou 勾 “hook”, yong
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⽤用 “make, do”, nong 弄 “do, make”, zhau 找 “find”, zhua 抓 “catch, scrach”, bao 抱
“hug”, ba 拔 “plug”, wan 玩 “play”, chuan 穿 “wear”, na 拿 “take with hand, hold”, zhan 站 “stand”, zhuai 追 “chase”, tao 逃 “flee”, dai 帶 “take”, gua 掛 “hang”, tuo 脫
“take off (clothes)”, ding 頂 “push with head”, die 跌 “stumble, trip”, sai 塞 “plug”, yao 搖 “shake”, ban 搬 “move something with hand”, duo 躲 “hide”, zai 載 “carry with vehicle”, shui 摔 “stumble, throw”, gan 趕 “rush, catch up”, zhuang 撞 “hit”, ju 舉
“raise with hand”, zuan 鑽 “drill”
Types of Path in conversation:
shan 上 “rise”, xia 下 “descend”, jing 進 “enter”, chu 出 “exit”, hui 回 “return”, zou ⾛走
“leave”, dao 到 “arrive”, dao 倒 “fall”, diao 掉 “fall”, qi 起 “rise”, ting 停 “stop”, dong 動 “move”, tong 通 “pass”, kai 開 “leave”, gen 跟 “follow”, guo 過 “pass”, panxuan 盤旋 “move around”
Types of Path in narration:
shan 上 “rise”, xia 下 “descend”, jing 進 “enter”, chu 出 “exit”, hui 回 “return”, zou ⾛走
“leave”, dao 到 “arrive”, diao 掉 “fall”, qi 起 “rise”, ting 停 “stop”, kai 開 “leave”, li 離 “leave”, guo 過 “pass”, wang 往 “move toward”, zai 在 “present”, chuxian 出現
“appear”, bujian 不⾒見 “disappear”
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Appendix II
Transcription conventions and gloss abbreviation Transcription conventions:
-: Lengthened +… Trailing off +, Self completion +//. Self-interruption
Gloss abbreviations
PRT Discourse particle PST Past
BA Ba construction CLF Classifier ADJ Adjetive PROG Progressive
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