Chapter 3 Method
3.2 Analytical frameworks
3.2.4 Linguistic devices
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frog has jumped out” possible; if the frog was never in the bottle, then it is
impossible for it to jump out. Meanwhile, the situation does not motivate any action or cause any physical or psychological state. Thus, this clause pair is merely related
in terms of enablement.
(3.6) *CHI: 養 在 瓶子 裡。
yang zai pingzi li keep at bottle inside
“[The frog] is raised in a bottle.” Cause […]
*CHI: 小青蛙 蹦 出來 了。
xiaoqingwa beng chulai le
little frog jump out-come ASP
“The little frog has jumped out.” Effect
3.2.4 Linguistic devices
After related pairs were identified, they were further coded with different types of linguistic devices.6 The categories of linguistic devices were based on Chang’s (2004) temporal coding scheme, with slight adjustments based on studies of Mandarin grammar (Li
& Thompson, 1981; Tiee & Lance, 1986; Yip & Rimmington, 2004) and evidence found in related studies (Hsu, 1996; Wu & Tsai, 2006; Chang & Su, 2012).
The main categories in the coding scheme are presented below. Types (1) through (3) are
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After identifying related events, two coders achieved 100% reliability in recognizing linguistic devices.
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explicit linguistic devices; that is, certain forms in Chinese characters serve as linguistic devices. Type (4) is an implicit linguistic device.
(1) Temporal connectives: temporal conjunctions or adverbs, including sequential connectives.
Examples: …shi, …de shihou, …hou/yihou/zhihou, …qian/yiqian/zhiqian,
yi…jiu…, yushi, ranhou, jiezhe, jiu
(2) Causal connectives: causal conjunctions or adverbs.
Examples: jieguo, yinwei…, suoyi…, yinwei, youyu, yiner, yinci
(3) Aspectual expressions: perfective, durative, and experiential expressions Examples: le, yijing, zai, zhe, guo, qilai, and kaishi
(4) Zero connectives (juxtapositions): Zero connectives exist where two clauses are
related in meaning (causal or temporal) but come together without any explicit conjunction marker. The two clauses’ meanings will not change if they are equipped
with a conjunction marker. For example, the clauses in (3.7) are causally related and
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the clauses in (3.8) are temporally related. The meanings remain the same with or without the markers in the brackets.
(3.7) 時間 不 早 了， 咱們 走 吧。
shijian bu zao le zanmen zou ba time not early ASP we go Pt
“It is late, (so) let’s go.”
(3.8) 他 剛 想 出去， 忽然 下 起
ta gang xiang chuqu huran xia qi
he just think out-go suddenly fall begin
大雪 來 了。
daxue lai le heavy snow come ASP
“(When) he was just thinking of going out, it suddenly began to snow heavily.”
(Yip & Rimmington, 2004)
It is worth noting that clauses with causal relation may be close but not necessarily adjacent to each other—the hearer may insert attention using a minimal reactive token, and the causal utterance itself may span across several intonation units—however, the base meaning of these causal-clauses remains unchanged (Chang & Su, 2012).
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Chapter 4 Results
This chapter will present the results of the present study in the following sequence.
Section 4.1 shows the measures of narrative length and event connectedness. Section 4.2 displays various types of relations constructed between connected events. Section 4.3 presents the linguistic devices applied in connected event pairs. Section 4.4 presents the combined results of the linguistic devices and different connection types.
4.1 Narrative length and event connectedness
The overall story length of the four-year-old children’s story narratives was first calculated. From the calculation of the number of c-units, it was found that two values were
far from the mean.7 Given this finding, the present study conducted the following data analysis without the two outliers. The four-year-old children’s narrative performance was inferred from the remaining 28 pieces of data.
Table 1 displays the measure of story length and the mean attributes of the c-units. The
children produced between 18 and 57 c-units per story. Within a c-unit, the mean number of
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The box plot (see R: Box Plot Statistics) defines outliers as any data point more than 1.5 interquartile ranges
(IQRs) below the first quartile (Q1) or above the third quartile (Q3). In measuring the total c-units, the outliers
are Story 11 with a total of 76 c-units and Story 25 with a total of 103 c-units.
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words ranged from 1 to 7.43. On average, a four-year-old child produced 35.89 c-units in his/her story and each c-unit consisted of 5.8 words. The number of causal connections per c-unit in each story ranged from 0.84 to 2.23, with a mean of 1.45. The statistics demonstrate that the four-year-old children used about 1.45 c-units to describe one story picture (24 in total).
Table 1. Story length and attributes of c-units
Variable Number of C-units Words per C-unit Causal Connections per C-unit
Range 18 to 57 1.00 to 7.43 0.84 to 2.23
Mean 35.89 5.8 1.45
SD 9.97 1.23 0.33
Story 3 had the closest statistics to the mean scores for story length (37 c-units) and attributes of c-units (5.92 words per c-unit, 1.41 causal connections per c-unit). All the c-units in Story 3 are displayed in Table 2. The connections among c-units in Story 3 are visualized as a connectivity network, as shown in Figure 2. Each c-unit is represented by an Arabic number, and each pair of connected c-units is linked with an arrow. The direction of the arrow indicates a cause to an effect.
‧ Table 2. List of story events (c-units) of Story 3
C-unit Content C-unit Content
1 小 男 孩兒 在 看 這 一 個 小 青蛙 . xiao nan hai er zai kan zhe yi ge xiao qing wa .
A little boy is looking at a little frog.
20 小 孩兒 倒 在 地 下 .
xiao hai er dao zai di xia . The little boy falls down on the ground.
2 等 他們 睡覺 時候 the little frog climbs out from here.
22 那 個 蜜蜂 在 後邊 追 .
na ge mi feng zai hou bian zhui . The bees fly after the dog.
4 他們 醒 來 了.
ta men xing lai le . They wake up.
23 然後 嗯 貓頭鷹 沒 看 見 .
ran hou en mao tou ying mei kan jian . Then, well, the owl doesn’t show up.
5 看 見小 青蛙 沒 了 .
kan jian xiao qing wa mei le . (They) find that the little frog has disappeared.
24 他 就 又 飛 回 去 了 . ta jiu you fei hui qu le . He then flies back.
6 後來 到處 找 小 青蛙 .
hou lai dao chu zhao xiao qing wa . Later, (they) search for the little dog around.
25 那 個 貓頭鷹 不 見 了 .
na ge mao tou ying bu jian le . The owl disappears.
7 小 狗 陽台 上面 .
xiao gou yang tai shang mian . The little dog (is) at the balcony.
26 他 又 找 小 青蛙 .
ta you zhao xiao qing wa . He searches for the little frog again.
8 然後 小 狗 跳 下 去 .
ran hou xiao gou tiao xia qu . Then the little dog jumps down.
27 然後 有 個 鹿 出 來 了.
ran hou you ge lu chu lai le . Then a deer appears.
9 小 孩兒 也 跳 下 去 .
xiao hai er ye tiao xia qu . The little boy jumps down, too.
28 然後 小 狗 也 跑 .
ran hou xiao gou ye pao . Then the little dog runs, too.
10 小 狗 說小 青蛙 還 沒 找 著.
xiao gou shuo xiao qing wa hai mei zhao zhe .
The little dog says that (they) haven’t found the little frog.
29 掉 下 去 了 . diao xia qu le . (They) fall down.
11 他 就 過 來 了 . 30 掉 到 河 裡 去 了 .
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A little frog cannot reach (the tree).33 看 那 小 狗 噓 . Well, he climbs up the tree,
36 他 就 爬 過 去 了 . ta jiu pa guo qu le . Then he creeps over there.
18 仔細 看 …有 沒 有 青蛙 呀.
zai xi kan …you mei you qing wa ya . looking carefully for the frog’s presence.
37 然後 後來 他 帶 一 只 小 青蛙 回 去 .
ran hou hou lai ta dai yi zhi xiao qing wa hui qu .
Then, later, he brings a little frog home.
19 一 只 貓頭鷹 飛 過 來 了 .
yi zhi mao tou ying fei guo lai le . An owl flies over here.
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Figure 2. Connectivity network of Story 3
Event connectedness was analyzed through the identification of four levels of causal connectedness (the connection between two c-units): C0, C1, C2, and C3+. Table 3 displays the measure of causal connectedness. The 28 pieces of data were found to contain 1,003 c-units. In each story narrative, the isolated c-units ranged from 2 to 19, the c-units with only one connection ranged from 5 to 21, the c-units with two connections ranged from 1 to 17, and the c-units with three or more connections ranged from 0 to 13. On average, in a four-year-old child’s story narrative, 8.11 c-units were isolated, 12.11 c-units had only one connection, 10.11 c-units had two connections, and 5.54 c-units had three or more connections. The statistics demonstrate that the C1 event was the dominant type for the
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four-year-old children, followed by the C2 event and the C0 event, while the C3+ event was the least produced type. Figure 3 provides a visualization of the distribution of levels of causal connections in the four-year-old children’s narratives.
Table 3. Mean scores for each type of causal connectedness
C0 C1 C2 C3+ Total
Range 2 to 19 5 to 21 1 to 17 0 to 13
Mean 8.11 12.11 10.11 5.54
Total 227 339 282 155 1,003
Percentage 22.63% 33.80% 28.12% 15.45% 100.00%
Figure 3. Levels of causal connections in narratives
Story 15 had the closest statistics to the proportion of each level of connectedness. Of the events, 21.43% (N=12) had no connection to or from other events, 35.71% (N=20) had one
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connection to or from other events, 26.79% (N=15) had two connections, and 16.07% (N=9) had three or more connections. The connections among c-units in Story 15 are visualized as a connectivity network, as shown in Figure 4. All of the c-units in Story 15 are displayed in Table 4.
Figure 4. Connectivity network of Story 15
‧ Table 4. List of story events (c-units) of Story 15
C-unit Content C-unit Content
1 狗 想 吃 青蛙 .
gou xiang chi qing wa . The dog wants to eat the frog.
30 把 那 小 男 孩兒 扔 下 地 .
ba na xiao nan hai er reng xia di . throwing the little boy to the ground.
2 這 小 男 孩兒 不 讓 吃 青蛙 .
zhe xiao nan hai er bu rang chi qing wa . This little boy wouldn’t let (the dog) eat the frog.
31 扔 下 河 . reng xia he . To the brook.
3 一會兒 狗 也 嘣 . yi hui er gou ye beng . After a while, the dog jumps, too.
32 然後 他 掉.
After a while, the frog comes out from the bottle.
33 和 小 狗兒 和 男 孩兒 全 都 掉 .
he xiao gou er he nan hai er quan dou diao .
The little dog together with the little boy all falls.
5 然後 小 男 孩兒 起 來 之後 .
ran hou xiao nan hai er qi lai zhi hou . Then the little boy wakes up.
34 然後 呢 小 男 孩兒 還 一 坐 .
ran hou ne xiao nan hai er hai yi zuo . Then the little boy sits down.
6 一 看 there is no frog inside the well.
36 一 看 there is a huge wood stick.
9 去 找 青蛙 . qu zhao qing wa . (It) goes to search for the frog.
38 他們 大 木棍兒 上 爬 上 去 .
ta men da mu gun er shang pa shang qu . They climb up along the huge wood stick.
10 然後 他們 全 都 找 遍 了 .
ran hou ta men quan dou zhao bian le . Then they have searched all around.
39 然後 呢 他 就 坐 了 起 來 .
ran hou ne ta jiu zuo le qi lai . Then he rises.
11 然後 小 狗 上 去
ran hou xiao gou shang qu Then the little dog goes up,
40 小 狗兒 趴 他 頭 上 .
xiao gou er pa ta tou shang . The little dog bends over on his head.
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Then he says the wood stick…
13 小 男 孩兒 沒 看 見 狗 下 窗台兒 去 抓 青蛙 去 .
xiao nan hai er mei kan jian gou xia chuang tai er qu zhua qing wa qu .
The little boy doesn’t see the dog go down the windowsill for the frog.
42 住 裡頭 呢 之後 呢 zhu li tou ne zhi hou ne After (he) sets them down here,
14 逮 住 小 狗 .
It calls those bees to come and search for this frog.
44 住 這兒 了 之後 呢
Then those bees all come out of the bottle.
45 他 又 不 住 這兒 了 . ta you bu zhu zhe er le . he doesn’t live here, again.
17 出 來 一 大 群.
chu lai yi da qun . A large group (of bees) comes out.
46 原來 的 家 去 了 .
The frogs say that they live inside the wood stick.
21 全 都 是 . 50 這 個 是 我們 的 窩 .
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Wow, so many bees all come out from the honey jar.
51 他 呢 小 男 孩兒 說 呢 這 個 是 我們 剛 搭 好 的 樹 窩 .
ta ne xiao nan hai er shuo ne zhe ge shi wo men gang da hao de shu wo . He (the little boy) says that the tree house is just made by them.
23 小 狗兒 把 那 男 孩兒 嚇 得 坐 一 大 屁敦兒 . xiao gou er ba na nan hai er xia de zuo yi da pi dun er .
The little dog scares the little boy to fall on his bottom.
52 但是 呢 你們 不 可以 住.
No matter how (they) cry, (the frog) doesn’t come back.
55 扔 完 水 裡頭 去 呢
reng wan shui li tou qu ne After (he) throws (it) to the water, 27 小 狗兒 在 石頭 底下 呢 .
xiao gou er zai shi tou di xia ne . The little dog is under the rock.
56 他 就 想 抓 住 小 青蛙
ta jiu xiang zhua zhu xiao qing wa he wants to catch the little frog,
28 小 男 孩兒 也 沒 看 它 一 眼 .
xiao nan hai er ye mei kan ta yi yan . The little boy doesn’t even look at it.
57 把 它 給 吃 了.
ba ta gei chi le . (and) eat it up.
29 這 梅花鹿 給 他 踢 了 過 去
zhe mei hua lu gei ta ti le guo qu This deer kicks him over there,
As Table 3 and Table 4 display, most of the events were stated in the same chronological order as in the storybook. However, it is worth noting that there was an event often mentioned
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much earlier than its real occurrence in the storyline. C-unit 12 in Story 8 exemplifies this phenomenon. Table 5 is an excerpt from Story 8. The narrator described the scene as the little frog has gone and the little boy and the little dog cannot find it in their house. Then the
narrator asked where the frog had gone (c-unit 11). The narrator soon stated, “(It) went behind the tree” (c-unit 12). In fact, the scene where the little frog is behind a tree was not illustrated
at the time the protagonist lost his frog and searched his home; rather, the protagonist had to go out from his home and search the forest, where the frog was found behind the tree. In other words, this narrator expressed his/her own knowledge of the location of the missing frog from his/her point of view.
Table 5. Excerpt from Story 8
C-unit Content
11 然後 小 青蛙 跑 哪 去 了?
ran hou xiao qing wa pao na qu le ?
Then where did the frog go?
12 跑 樹 的 後面 了.
pao shu de hou mian le . (It) went behind the tree.
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4.2 Connection types
Pairs of c-units identified as causally connected were further classified into four categories of causal relations: motivation, psychological causation, physical causation, and enablement. The scores of the four types of causal relations were calculated. Table 6 shows the overall statistics. Story 11 and Story 25 were excluded from the analysis due to their extreme number of c-units.
Table 6. Four types of causal relations between connected events
Causal Relation Type Total
Connections Enablement Motivation Physical
Causation
Psychological Causation
Range 4 to 34 2 to 18 0 to 8 0 to 6 10 to 43
Mean 13.96 9.32 2.14 0.89 26.32
Total 391 261 60 25 737
Percentage 53.05% 35.41% 8.14% 3.39% 100.00%
In the 28 pieces of data, 776 non-isolated c-units formed 737 pairs of connections. The number of connections ranged from 10 to 43 in all the narratives. The occurrence of enablement in each story ranged from 4 to 34, the occurrence of motivation in each story ranged from 2 to 18, the occurrence of physical causation in each story ranged from 0 to 8, and the occurrence of psychological causation in each story ranged from 0 to 6. On average, a
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four-year-old child’s story narrative consisted of 26.32 event pairs: 13.96 were related to enablement, 9.32 were related to motivation, 2.14 were related to physical causation, and 0.89 were related to psychological causation. The statistics demonstrate that enablement dominantly occurred in the four-year-old children’s narratives, followed by motivation.
Physical causation occurred less frequently, and psychological causation was the least frequently found.
Among all the events described by the children, one scene was elaborated on by almost all of them. The scene (Picture 2 and Picture 3 in Frog, Where Are You?) depicts the little frog getting out of the jar where the boy kept it while the boy and the dog are sleeping; the jar is empty; then the boy and the dog wake up and find that the frog is gone. Story 3 exemplifies this elaboration (see Table 2 and Figure 2 for c-units 2 to 5). The child narrator elaborated on the story using the following types of relations: c-unit 2 “When they sleep” enables the
occurrence of c-unit 3 “The little frog climbs out from here.” C-unit 2 also enables c-unit 4
“They wake up” because once the protagonists fall asleep, they are able to wake up. C-unit 4
enables the action in c-unit 5 “(They) find that the little frog has disappeared” because the protagonists had fallen asleep, and if they had not woken up, they would have been unable to use their eyes and see what had happened. C-unit 3 also enables the status in c-unit 5 because, since the frog had come out of the jar, the frog went away; if it had stayed in the jar, no such
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conclusion would have been made. Similar elaboration, though not in as much detail as in Story 3, could be found in Story 15 (see Figure 4 and Table 4 for c-units 4 to 7). Interestingly, the c-unit possessing the most connections to or from other c-units corresponded with the c-unit resembling Picture 3 in the storybook. C-unit 5 in Story 3 possessed five connections, and c-unit 7 in Story 15 possessed four connections.
4.3 Linguistic devices for connectivity
Among the 737 pairs of connected c-units, 452 of them were marked with linguistic devices. That is, 61.33% of the event pairs were marked with linguistic devices, including causal connectives, temporal connectives, aspectual expressions, and zero connectives.
However, 38.67% of the event pairs were not marked with any explicit or implicit linguistic devices. Table 7 below presents the statistics of adopted linguistic devices in all the connected event pairs:
Of all the applied linguistic devices, 1.55% were causal connectives, 57.08% were temporal connectives, 1.11% were aspectual expressions, and 40.27% were zero connectives.
There were four forms found in causal connectives, namely, jieguo “as a result” (N=3), er
“while; but” (N=2), yinwei “because” (N=1), and jieguo…jiu… “and so” (N=1). There were
14 forms found in temporal connectives, including ranhou “and then”, jiu “then”, houlai
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“then”, ranhou…jiu… “and then”, zhihou “after that”, yi “as soon as…”, de shihou “when…”,
yihou “after…”, ranhou houlai “and then”, yi…jiu… “as soon as…, then…”, cai “until…,
then…”, jiezhe “sequentially”, yi huier “later”, and zhihou…jiu… “after…, then…”. The most
frequently occurring one was ranhou (N=131), which was more than twice as frequently attested as the other variables. The second-most frequently occurring was jiu (N=47), followed by houlai (N=21), and ranhou…jiu… (N=15). It is worth noting that several
linguistic devices were combinations of other devices, for example, jieguo… jiu… (N=1),
ranhou… jiu… (N=15), ranhou houlai (N=3), yi… jiu… (N=2), and zhihou…jiu… (N=1).
These components were not singled out in the calculations; instead, the present study treated each combined form as an independent form.
The statistics demonstrate that the four-year-old children were able to apply linguistic devices in the narratives, and there were various forms of devices. Among all the applied devices, the explicit device—temporal connectives—was the dominant type. The implicit
The statistics demonstrate that the four-year-old children were able to apply linguistic devices in the narratives, and there were various forms of devices. Among all the applied devices, the explicit device—temporal connectives—was the dominant type. The implicit