Chapter 4 Results
4.2 Children’s negation by gender
4.2.2 Meaning-strategy mappings of each gender
nonexistence, non-occurrence showed no difference between genders statistically.
In a previous study investigating children’s language use in pretend play, it is verified that male children use prohibition five times more than female children did (Sachs, 1987). Though in our data, prohibition in male children’s data occurred slightly more than with female children, the statistics showed no difference among boys and girls.
Among these negation meanings, the amount of denial and inability showed the largest disparity between female and male, and the gap between genders was also wide in nonexistence. Besides, male children expressed more rejection than female children while female children expressed more epistemic negation than male children.
As for prohibition and non-occurrence, no gender differences were found based on statistics.
4.2.2 Meaning-strategy mappings of each gender
In section 4.1.2, we presented that children may deliver their negation using one to three strategies at once, and Table 13 displays the number of strategies of each gender.
Table 13. Frequency of the number of strategies in one response of negation by gender Gender
We can see that single strategy was still the majority of both genders to express their
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negation. Young (2004) reported that elementary girls use more refusal strategies than elementary boys did in refusing people of high, equal, and low social status. Yet, in our observation, the number of males using a combination of strategies was slightly more than females. Note that this marginal difference between strategy numbers of each gender showed no difference in the verification of statistics (p < .05).
4.2.2.1 Mappings between meanings and single strategy in gender
Single strategy was predominant in children’s negation no matter what gender, but which strategy they utilized did differ greatly. Table 14 shows the differences between female and male children on the directness of their single strategy. Male children used direct strategy to negate their mother significantly more often than female children did, and female children used indirect strategy significantly more often than male children to negate their mother.
Table 14. The distribution of each gender’s direct and indirect strategy
Types Male Female
Direct strategy*** 214 58.95 % 121 37.69 % Indirect strategy*** 149 41.05 % 200 62.31 %
Total 363 100 % 321 100 %
. Difference between female and male is significant at p < .1
* Difference between female and male is significant at p < .05.
** Difference between female and male is significant at p < .01.
*** Difference between female and male is significant at p < .001.
The following table unveils the exact single strategy each gender applied.
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Table 15. The single strategy applied by each gender Gender
. Difference between female and male is significant at p < .1
* Difference between female and male is significant at p < .05.
** Difference between female and male is significant at p < .01.
*** Difference between female and male is significant at p < .001.
Male children used both direct strategies, direct negation and insistence,
significantly more than female children did, especially insistence. Direct negation was the majority of female children’s strategy as well, but they rarely applied insistence when they negate. Insistence only supports the same speaker’s utterance with his/ her own wants and need. The focus is self- centered and ‘reflects a proactive tendency rather than a reactive one’ (Bales, 1950). It is also universally admit to be quite direct for stating only one’s intent without giving the addressee the right of refusal
(Eisenberg, 1992). Previous study had proven that insistence is prone to lead mutual opposition (Eisenberg and Garvey 1981 and Eisenberg 1992, for example), and such
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circle had been found in our data as well, especially in male children’s data. See excerpt 13 on page 50 for example.
On the other hand, the majority of using indirect strategy was female children.
They used more nonverbal, account, correction, challenge, appealing, and partial agreement than male. Among these strategies, we regarded that to avoid negating the interlocutor verbally, give reason and explanation while negating, ask for help, and not to negate completely are less threatening to the face of the interlocutor. For example, strategies such as supplying a reason as a negation strategy lead the opponent to take one’s position into account, influencing another to act or to believe (Eisenberg, 1992). We might be able to conclude that female children at this age negate their mother in a more adult-like way. Nevertheless, they not only were indirect and reasonable when they negate, they also corrected or challenged their mother more often than male children did. In discourse analysis, researcher found that adult speakers try to avoid explicit correction most of the time (Brown & Levinson, 1978; Labov & Fanshel, 1977; Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sachs 1977), and we observed that such strategies are quite face-threatening. The reason why male children used less correction and challenge than female children might have something to do with the different attitude of the mother’s response towards daughter and son. When it comes to children expressing impatience, the mother may show greater tolerance to her daughter, while appealing to right and respect to their son. Excerpt 26 (extracted from female’s data) and excerpt 27 (extracted from male’s data) provide a possible clue of the mother’s different degree of tolerance towards their daughter and son when facing their impatient expression. In excerpt 26, the mother was reminding the girl to take tissues out of her pocket before she sent it to the laundry, or the machine would tear it to shreds sticking to clothes that hard to be scrubbed away. The girl did not take the mother’s explanation but answered her mother back. The mother gave a simple
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answer as a reply to her backchat, and then the girl replied even more defiantly to her mother. However, the mother did not say anything but kept doing the housework.
Excerpt 26. (MOT: the mother, LEE: the daughter)
*MOT: 這樣子髒髒的就洗不起來了 /ne/ .
‘ If your clothes get dirty then the stain can’t be scrubbed away. ’
*LEE: 有差嗎?
‘ Does that make any difference? ’
*MOT: 有啊.
‘ Yes. ‘
*LEE: 誰跟你說有差 [= clinching her hands and approaching her face to MOT]?
‘ Who told you that? ‘
%sit: MOT keeping silence and folding clothes
Examples of male children expressing impatience to their mother were also found, but the mother seemed to be firm instead of compromising. In the following excerpt, the mother was skimming a toy sale catalog and deliberately asking the boy if the water gun shooting game is not that fun. The boy answered aloud, and then the mother immediately corrected him with the social rule of respecting parents.
Excerpt 27. (MOT: the mother, QIN: the son)
*MOT: 不太好玩對不對.
Among eight indirect strategies, temporizing and countering move were the only two indirect strategies that male children used more than female children did.
Table 16 further showed these strategic differences in negation meanings
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Table 16. Single strategy in negation meanings of each gender Meaning
(DEN: denial, REJ: rejection, PRO: prohibition. Strategies: EPI: epistemic negation, INA: inability, NOC: non-occurrence, NEX: nonexistence.)
From table 12 we have learned that males deny their mother significantly more often than females do. Table 16 tells us that male children mainly used direct negation, insistence, countering move, and correction to express their denial, and the gap
between genders was large in using direct negation and insistence in denial, especially direct negation in denial. Male children’s direct negation was unusually grouped in denial, and they mainly used this strategy to arbitrarily negate their mother’s
proposition or suggestion and deny their mother even on facts that their mother was certain of, as we demonstrated in excerpt 20 on page 62-63.
On the other hand, female children express their denial mainly with correction, direct negation, nonverbal, and challenge. In these strategies, they used more
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nonverbal and challenge than male children when they disagree with their mother. It appeared that in female children’s data, they always shake their head to answer their mother’s Yes/ No interrogatives. Over all negation meanings, female children
significantly used challenge more than male children to express their negation, and it was centralized in denial. Challenge in denial played an important role in
mother-daughter interaction, because it inferred a narrower gap between mother and daughter than mother and son in family social status. We have found that the scenario in which female children used a challenge to deny their mother looked familiar with peer’s fighting, and sometimes female children even talked like their mother. In the following excerpt, KUO and her mother were dressing dolls together. Since there were only high heels in the doll’s wardrobe, the mother judged that the doll only likes to wear high heels. The girl then countercharged that her mother was the same. After her mother clarified it’s no longer true, the girl emphasized again and accused her mother for overbuying high heels, and her mother did not refute but keep dressing for the doll. This kind of behavior of accusing had been found in male’s data as well, but male children only received them and never give any.
Excerpt 28.
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Rejection is another category that seemed to have higher frequency in male’s negation. They mainly rejected their mother with insistence (n= 31), while female rarely did (n= 4). In our data, male children always refused their mother by repeating their direct negation or emphasizing their own wants and needs, and their appeal using this strategy were rarely accepted. The mother usually answered insistence from their son with either strong means like insistence and threat or tactful umeans like
explanation or distraction. Also, some mutual rejection circles were found in data where male children used insistence to express rejection. However, when we looked up the data where female children used insistence to reject their mother, we found that none of the insistence went into mutual rejection circle, no matter the mother
compromised or not. Girls’ insistence in rejection was different from boys’ in that it would not lead to conflict or dispute with the effort from both sides. When it occurred, either the mother would give the girl another choice or the girl would give up her insistence after her mother explained. Direct negation is a common strategy in children’s rejection, and it showed less gender difference in this negation meaning.
Nevertheless, temporizing appeared to be similar to children’s insistence in negation.
In boys’ data, the mothers replied to temporizing with a countering move or direct negation that easily brought the conversation into a mutual rejection circle, while when girls’ temporizing appeared, the girl or the mother would either compromise or be obedient. In female children’s rejection, we also found that nonverbal occurred more than in male children’s rejection. The form of nonverbal in both genders were roughly the same that included whining and uncooperative actions, but girls used whining more often than boys, and that explained girls’ nonverbal in rejection was double of boys’. Girls also tended to give a reason when rejecting their mother, and most of the time, their reason was less self-centered and made more sense than that of boys’.
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To convey their lack of certain knowledge, children of both genders preferred direct negation. Boys used strategies other than direct negation only a few times, like appealing, account, temporizing, and partial agreement. Girls were more active to ask for the answer, and they were more willing to admit their lack of certain knowledge by shaking their head when they were being asked if they possessed certain
knowledge. Female children expressed their epistemic negation somewhat more than male children, and the gap between boys and girls in the amount of inability was even larger. When we looked up strategies each gender used for their inability, we found that boys almost used only direct negation. Girls mainly used direct negation for their epistemic negation as well, but they also asked for their mother’s help, gave the reason why they could not complete certain actions, emphasized they were able to do things other than what they encountered at that moment when they were facing difficulties.
Both girls and boys used direct strategies, direct negation and insistence, to stop their mother from bringing some unwanted action. They also used indirect strategy, account, for their prohibition. However, boys’ prohibition were quite physical in that they may pushed away their mother’s hand from bring some action, or refused
physical interference with challenged such as ( 這邊才對! ‘It should go THIS way!’ ).
Girls’ prohibition was more verbally that they told their mother what should be done in their perspective or used delaying tactics to stop their mother doing something immediately.
Girls expressed nonexistence treble times more than boys, but they roughly used similar strategies, such as direct negation and appealing. As for non-occurrence, not many gender differences in its amount or strategic type detected. We can only
conclude that girls were more detailed since they also used partial agreement to depict the non-occurrence scene.
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4.2.2.2 Mappings between meanings and combination in gender
In the previous section, we showed that the combination of a direct strategy with an indirect strategy and the combination of two indirect strategies could account for over 90% of children’s negation delivered with combination. The table below shows combination types in each gender’s negation.
Table 17. Combination types of female and male children
Combination types Male Female
N % N %
A direct strategy and an indirect strategy 43 66.15 38 71.70
Two indirect strategies 18 27.69 11 20.75
Two direct strategies 2 3.08 3 5.66
An indirect strategy and a direct strategy 2 3.08 1 1.89
TOTAL 65 100 53 100
According to this table, not many differences were found between girls’ and boys’
combination types, especially in the combination of two direct strategies and the combination of an indirect strategy and a direct strategy. Nevertheless, girls used combinations leading by direct negation more than boys did, and boys used
combinations leading by indirect negation more than girls did. Note that in table 14 we presented in last section, boys used significantly more direct negation than girls did when using single strategy to deliver their negation. That is to say, boys were more direct than girls when negating their mother with single strategy. But when it comes to combination, boys were more likely than girls to begin with indirect strategy.
The following table lists out diversities of each combination type.
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Table 18. Frequency of combinations of strategy in each gender Male Female A direct strategy and an indirect strategy
Direct negation + Account 15 22
Direct negation + Correction 18 13
Direct negation + Nonverbal 3 1
(Strategies: DIR: direct negation, NVB: nonverbal, ACC: account, INS: insistence, COR: correction, TEM: temporizing, COU: countering move, CHA: challenge, APP: appealing, PAR: partial
agreement. )
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and girls had five forms in common, and both gender mainly used direct negation with account and direct negation with correction. The combination type of twoindirect strategies contained more variety and we found 13 forms of it. Girls and boys only had three forms in common, and boys preferred correction with account than other combinations. As for the rest 10 forms in this combination type, girls’ and boys’
usage were in complementary distribution.
Since we mentioned that children only used few combinations (N=5) to deliver epistemic negation, inability, non-occurrence, and nonexistence in 4. 1. 2. 2, further analysis of combinations in negation meanings of each gender here would only include the other three negation meanings: denial, rejection, and prohibition. See table 19 for the mappings of meanings and combinations in each gender.
Table 19. Combinations in denial, rejection, and prohibition of each gender
---Male Female
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(Semantic meanings: DEN: denial, REJ: rejection, PRO: prohibition. Strategies: DIR: direct negation, NVB: nonverbal, ACC: account, INS: insistence, COR: correction, TEM: temporizing, COU:
countering move, CHA: challenge, APP: appealing, PAR: partial agreement. )
Both gender preferred to use a direct strategy with an indirect strategy to express their denial. Boys mainly used direct negation with correction, and girls preferred direct negation with account than any other forms. Actually girls also used this forms of combination in other negation meanings, namely epistemic negation and
nonoccurrence. The combination of insistence with nonverbal was only used by male in their denial and prohibition, and they used it in an aggressive way. They did what they want after they verbally denied their mother or physically stop their mother after a verbal insistence.
Combinations of two indirect strategies were mainly used for denial in both gender, and boys used more correction with account than other combinations of two indirect strategies in denial. In single strategy, girls used more correction than boys, but boys used more correction with account than girls. We may infer that boys were more likely than girls to explain for their correction.
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Chapter 5
Discussion
In the last chapter, children’s negation expression and expressing behavior of each gender were presented and analyzed. In this chapter, firstly in 5.1 we will summarize children’s overall negation expression and point out the differences between our data and previous research done in peer interaction. Secondly, the summary of comparison and contrast between each gender’s negations are presented in 5.2, followed by possible reasons and assumptions for it. Lastly, the limitations of our study and some suggestions for future study are listed in 5.3.
5.1 Children’s expression of negation
In previous data from younger children (about 1.5- 3 years old), researchers had found that among negation meanings, children in early development express
nonexistence to their mother most frequently, while using rejection and denial less often (e.g. Choi 1988, Tam and Stokes 2001). However, in our data of four 5-year-old children, they expressed denial and rejection most frequently to their mother. Both meanings are known as ‘dispreferred’, as adults would always apply a combination of indirect strategies to deliver. The reason why these meanings account for over 75% of our participants’ negation might owe to their development of independence at this phase. Through disagreement and disobedience, they gain autonomy and authority.
We then further looked into how children express each negation meaning, and found that children of this age mainly use a single strategy, which is in accord with previous research investigating child negation. Among 812 negations, direct strategy and indirect strategy were divided nearly evenly. In previous research, children of this
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age mostly used indirect strategy when interacting with their peers. It can be inferred that children employ different styles of expressing negation across their different relationships. The reason why children are more indirect in their peer interaction might be that their relationship does not have to be ‘worked at’ to ensure its continuation, while friendship might break up if they do not maintain it at all.
However, some ‘impolite’ strategies, like threats, insults, and physical force that were typically found in peer interaction did not occur in our data, which agrees with other parent-child interaction studies (e.g. Wang, 2007). Even though the relationship between mother and children is closer and costs less effort to maintain, children still recognize and respect the social status of the mother. Also, researchers found that
However, some ‘impolite’ strategies, like threats, insults, and physical force that were typically found in peer interaction did not occur in our data, which agrees with other parent-child interaction studies (e.g. Wang, 2007). Even though the relationship between mother and children is closer and costs less effort to maintain, children still recognize and respect the social status of the mother. Also, researchers found that