Chapter 4 Results
4.2 Children’s motion event expressions in narration
4.3.2 Motion constructions in conversation and narration
This section is about the comparison of the motion constructions in conversation and narration. The comparison focuses on the comparison of number of verbs in motion constructions, and the results are shown in Figure 7. It appears that the disparity between one-verb constructions and two-/three-verb constructions was larger in conversation. On the other hand, the three categories of motion
Figure 6. The percentage of Motion verb tokens in narration and conversation
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constructions in narration were evenly distributed with similar frequency. The results showed that one-verb constructions appeared significantly more in conversations than in narration in the three-year-old group (X2 (1, N = 39) = 3.86, p <.05), the four-year old group (X2 (1, N = 36) = 3.92, p <.05), and the five-year-old group (X2 (1, N
= 50) = 4.99, p <.05). The two-verb constructions were not significantly different in the three-year-old group (X2 (1, N = 135) = 0.66, p>.05), the four-year old (X2 (1, N
= 135) = 1.11, p>.05), and the five-year-old group (X2 (1, N = 135) = 1.64, p>.05).
The three-verb constructions were also not significantly different in three-year-old group (X2 (1, N = 135) = 1.49, p>.05), four-year old (X2 (1, N = 135) = 0.93, p>.05), and five-year-old group (X2 (1, N = 135) = 1.41, p>.05). In other words, the difference of motion constructions in conversation and narration lies in the difference
Figure 7. The percentage of number of verbs in narration and conversation
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of the usage of one-verb constructions. Children of all age groups used one-verb construction significantly more in conversation than in narration.
In conclusion, similarity and differences of Mandarin-speaking children’s expressions of motion events could both be found in conversation and narration. The similarity was found in motion verb tokens. Children’s usage of Manner, Path, Deixis tokens were found no different in narration and in conversation. The differences were found in motion verb types and motion constructions. More types of Manner verbs were used in conversation than in narration. Also, one-verb constructions were spoken more in conversation than narration.
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Chapter 5 Discussion
The discussion is divided into three sections. The first section looks at the first research question on developmental patterns of children’s motion expressions in conversation. The second section discusses children’s motion event expressions in narration with regard to the second research question. The third section is the discussion on the differences and similarities found in children’s motion event expressions in conversation and narration, with regard to the third research question.
5.1 Children’s motion expressions in conversation
Children’s motion expressions in conversation were expected to show some language-specific characteristics since age three. Our results showed that children’s motion expressions in conversation showed language-specific characteristics in some aspects, while in other aspects it didn’t. The language-specific patterns were revealed in number of verb types and motion constructions. In terms of number of verb types, children in all age groups used more types of Manner verbs than Path verbs, similar to what the previous study by Chen (2005) suggested. The pattern was also found in Huang’s (2012) results on children’s motion expressions in conversation. Both Huang’s study and the current study show that children were prone to use more types of Manner than Path in conversation. Furthermore, the number of each type of verb continued growing larger between age three to five, especially for Manner types.
This suggested that the usage of verb type became more adult-like with age.
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Children’s usage of motion constructions also revealed to have language-specific patterns. Among the nine types of motion constructions found in our data (D, M, P, MD, MP, PD, PP, MPD and PPD), children from age three to five all preferred MPD construction the most in conversation. The frequent usage of MPD construction was particular in Mandarin, and it was also commonly found in adults’
motion expressions (Chen, 2005; Lin, 2006; Guo & Chen, 2009). The results of the current study did not conform to Huang’s (2012) study on children’s motion expressions in conversation. In Huang’s study, MPD was not the most common motion construction in children’s motion encoding in conversation. It was suspected that Huang’s combining of D and P when analyzing verb constructions might lead to the conflicting result.
On the other hand, some aspects of children’s motion expressions did not present language-specific patterns, namely the usage of verb tokens and the number of verbs in motion construction. The result showed that the frequency of Manner, Path and Deixis were roughly the same in all age groups. According to previous studies, Mandarin has been said to be a Manner prominent language with higher frequency of Manner verbs (Slobin, 2004; Chen, 2005, Lin, 2009). However, in the current study, Manner only took up one-third of the total verbs, while Path and Deixis occupied two-third of the tokens. The results of verb token in conversation in the present study were similar to Huang’s (2012) results. Both of the studies with conversational data showed that the frequency of Manner was not higher than Path in children’s motion expressions in conversation.
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Compared to the results of previous studies, another difference lies in the patterns of the number of verbs in motion constructions. The results of the current study implied that children’s optimal construction of encoding motion events in conversation was one-verb constructions, including the simple M, P, D constructions.
Although the three-verb construction MPD was the most frequent one when analyzed individually, it did not outnumber one-verb constructions when M, P and D constructions were categorized together. This result was found in both Huang’s (2012) study on children’s speech in conversation and this present study. The frequency usage of one-verb constructions seemed to be specific in children’s motion expressions in conversation.
There were two speculations on the discrepancy between children’s patterns and the language-specific patterns. One possible reason is that some aspects of children’s motion encoding have not yet developed. Guo and Chen (2009) mentioned that children’s motion expressions might not follow exactly the typical patterns of their native language. Children did not fully develop the typological patterns in their motion event description until the age of nine (Chen, 2005). The other possibility to account for the differences is that the language-specific characteristics found in narration data were not the best criteria to predict the patterns of children’s motion expressions in conversation. Children’s speech in conversation was compared to adult’s speech in narration in the current study, but it is still unknown if adults’
motion event encoding in conversation will show different patterns from those in narration. The expressions of motion events have been widely studied, but the evidence mostly comes from narrative data. Whether adults use more Path tokens or
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more one-verb constructions in conversation has yet to be examined. The results raised a question on whether the language-specific patterns found in narrative data could actually apply to conversational data.
5.2 Children’s motion event expressions in narration
In the narrative data, children’s motion expressions were expected to show some similarities toward the language-specific patterns found in adults’ usage. The results showed that children’s motion encoding did present language-specific patterns in some aspects, but not in all aspects. The language-specific patterns were found in the usage of verb types and verb constructions. In terms of motion verb types, it was found that children used more types of Manner verbs than Path verbs since and after the age of three. The results were similar to the previous studies on children's motion encoding in narrative data (Chen, 2005; Guo & Chen, 2009; Lin, 2006), and also comply with adults’ patterns (Chen, 2005; Guo & Chen, 2009). Furthermore, Manner types increased a lot more than Path types or Deixis types. It’s worth mentioning that Manner types increased a lot more than Path types, and even more than Deixis types.
This may be due to the different lexicon sizes of M, P and D in Mandarin Chinese.
Mandarin has a larger Manner lexicon than Path lexicon. It seems that the larger the lexicon size is, the more verbs children need to learn.
Another language-specific pattern was found in children’s verb construction usage. Among the nine types of motion constructions (D, M, P, MD, MP, PD, PP, MPD and PPD), the usage of MPD and MP constructions were two of the most frequent constructions in the motion expressions of three- to five-year-old children’s
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narration. These constructions of using both Manner and Path in verbs have shown the language-specific characteristic of equipollent-framed languages. Children’s preference of MPD and MP construction conformed to what previous studies found in children’s motion encoding in narration (Guo & Chen, 2009; Lin, 2006).
Moreover, this construction was also widely found in adults’ motion expressions in previous studies (Guo & Chen, 2009; Lin, 2006).
However, the aspect of verb token usage did not show language-specific characteristics. The current study shows that children’s Manner frequency was similar to Path frequency, and Deixis frequency was the lowest. The results were contrary to what Chen (2005) found in adults’ language. Chen reported that adults used Manner more frequently than Path. The reason why Manner frequency was not high in children’s speech might be due to its being more cognitively complex than Path (e. g. Cifuentes-Férez & Gentner 2006; Pourcel, 2004). Also, it was more difficult for children to process and detect Manner than Path (Pruden et al., 2004).
Therefore, Manner frequency was found to be lower in children’s speech. It seemed that in terms of motion verb tokens, children have not adopted the language-specific patterns yet.
No developmental difference was found in the current study. Verb token did not show significant changes among all age groups, neither did number of verbs in construction. The speculation is that children’s speech has not yet resembled adults’
pattern in verb token usage. They probably will adopt adults’ motion verb token patterns after age five, and further developmental changes could be found when children are older.
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5.3 The comparison of children’s motion event expressions in conversation and narration
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
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