The three types of syntactic directness in directives

The other type of control acts discussed in this study is prohibitions. Prohibitions are used by the speaker to get the hearer to stop, avoid, inhibit or prevent undesirable behaviors. Among 73 prohibitions observed in Table 1, there were 21 prohibitions (18.8%) at 2;1, 15 (22.4%) at 2;7, 21 (24.4%) at 3;1, and 16 (30.8%) at 3;7. The results show that the frequency of prohibitions increases with H’s ages. It seems that the results show developmental patterns. The frequency of directives decreases with the child’s ages. On the other hand, the frequency of prohibitions increases. Example (2) from H at 3;7 shows the use of maternal prohibitions.

(2) M asks H not to pick up the video recorder.

%sit: H touches Ya-ting’s video recorder.

The mother ordered the child not to pick up the equipment in Line 1. In Line 2, she provided a reason for him to keep away from the video recorder. She warned him not to touch the equipment. If he touched the equipment, it would get broken. The mother stopped the child from touching the equipment.

4.2 Syntactic directness

As mentioned in the previous chapter, syntactic directness is divided into direct, conventionally indirect, and non-conventionally indirect by measuring how explicitly the structure of a sentence indicates that it is a control act. After analyzing the data for examples of maternal syntactic directness in addressing H, the data identified includes 266 direct, 43 conventionally indirect, and eight non-conventionally indirect usages under the two types of control acts.

4.2.1 The three types of syntactic directness in directives

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We will examine how the mother uses syntactic forms in directives. Table 2 presents the three types of syntactic directness in directives by H’s ages.

Table 2

The three types of syntactic directness in directives by H’s ages

Direct (IMP: imperative, PER: performative, OS: obligation statement, WS: want statement)

According to the results in Table 2, the mother employed 244 directives. Among them, direct occupied 203 (83.2%), conventionally indirect 38 (15.6%), and

non-conventionally indirect three (1.2%). The frequency for direct is more than five times the frequency for conventionally indirect and more than 60 times that for non-conventionally indirect. Therefore, the result suggests that the highest frequency of occurrence in the syntactic directness belongs to direct. The results conform to Blum-Kulka’s (1990) finding of a high frequency of direct forms. Blum-Kulka indicates that intimacy, efficiency, and asymmetrical power relations between parents and children lead to the high frequency of the use of direct forms. Thus, the mother’s power status results in the application of direct usage at a much higher rate than that of conventionally indirect or non-conventional usage in our results. The following discussions will investigate the use of the three forms of syntactic directness at each of the child’s ages.

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As for the direct, the sub-categories include imperative, performatives, obligation statements, and want statements. According to the use of imperatives in Table 2, the frequencies of each time are 79 (86.6%) at 2;1, 40 (76.9%) at 2;7, 57 (87.7%) at 3;1, and 26 (72.2%) at 3;7. The imperative occurred highly at all four of the child’s ages, over 70 % of all usages at each age. Among direct usages, the use of imperatives comprises nearly the entire number of usages and only one utterance is a want statement. We observed that no tokens of performative or obligation statements were found in the maternal usages of direct forms.

In our study, the imperative is used with the most frequency of the direct forms.

One of the examples of the use of the imperative in directives is observed in Example (3) when H was at 2;7.

%sit: H stands on the sofa and looks through the window.

H: Ok.

M: Ok. Please come down.

Example (3) demonstrates the application of the imperative to express the prohibition in Line 1 and of the imperative to express the directive in Line 4. The mother asked the child not to stand on the sofa (Line 1) and received the compliance hao ‘Ok’ from the child in Line 3. His mother asked him to come down in Line 4.

Example (4) shows the only instance of the use of a want statement by the

mother when H was as 2;1. The want statement appearing in Line 1 is to ask H to give the mother a yellow car. H repeated the mother’s utterance in Line 2 and started to look for the object the mother wanted. This kind of form of direct want statement is

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only used at a low frequency in maternal usages, and only one example appears in our data. The usages of syntactic direct in either directives or prohibitions are imperative.

(4) M and H are playing cars.

%sit: H searches for one and finally finds a yellow car.

M: Great. It’s a yellow car. Thank you.

After discussing the direct form of syntactic directness, we will investigate conventionally indirect form in directives. The category of conventionally indirect form of syntactic directness includes language where the speaker asks the addressee’s ability or willingness to induce the addressee’s compliance. The language in the indirect category is produced in the form of questions. According to the results in Table 2, the frequencies of conventionally indirect form are 11 (12.1%) at 2;1, 12 (23.1%) at 2;7, five (7.7%) at 3;1, and 10 (27.8%) at 3;7. The mother uses this kind of conventionally indirect form at all four ages. Example (5) shows that the mother wants H to eat by using a conventionally indirect form at H 3;7.

(5) M asks H to eat something.

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In Example (5), the mother asked the child whether he wanted to eat boiled dumplings or not (Line 1). The child expressed that he didn’t want to eat any (Line 2).

The mother was eager to know what exactly the child wanted to eat in Line 4. In Line 5, the child clearly expressed he didn’t want to eat anything. This example shows the mother using the questions to ask the child to eat something.

The third type of syntactic directness which we will discuss is

non-conventionally indirect form. The illocutionary intent is not overtly expressed in a non-conventionally indirect form. The desired action is not named and the form is not imperative. In Table 2, we can see that the numbers of tokens for the use of the non-conventionally indirect form in directives are much less than for the other two.

Only three (4.6%) at H 3;1 are observed. Example (6) is extracted from H at 3;1 to illustrate the use of non-conventionally indirect form in directives.

(6) M asks H to bring the cards to her. include examples of the non-conventionally indirect form of directive. In Line 1, the mother mentioned that there was another card inside without explicitly mentioning the

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desired act. The mother found the child did not comply, so she uttered imperative form in Line 3 and 4. Line 5 and 6 are utterances to provide clues for her child to be aware of her mother’s desired act of bringing the card.