漢語兒童在母子對話中的否定表達 - 政大學術集成

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(1)MANDARIN-SPEAKING CHILDREN’S EXPRESSION OF NEGATION IN MOTHER-CHILD CONVERSATION. BY. 立. 治政大 Ting- Yi Chen. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 er. io. sit. y. Nat. A Thesis Submitted to the. n. aGraduate iv l C Institute of Linguistics n In Partial of the h eFulfillment ngchi U Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. January 2016. i.

(2) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v.

(3) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. ii. i n U. v.


(5) 版權頁 (Copyright page). 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. iii. i n U. v.


(7) Acknowledgements 終於完成論文，能夠歡欣的著手寫謝詞。回顧生論文期間所經歷的生活大小事與酸甜苦辣，都很感激在這段路上，或長或短的陪我走過的人。首先要感謝的，是我的指導教授黃瓊之老師。在加入語言習得工作室之前的修課過程中，偶而幾篇指派的學術文章讀完仍感身陷五里霧，而經老師課堂中的提點後，總會霎時一片清明。若是沒有老師廣博的專業與溫暖慷慨的指引，我或許無法完成這條漫漫長路。論文能夠給黃老師指導，是我會一直非常感激、與感到幸運的事。此外，還有我的兩位口試委員，徐嘉慧老師與張麗香老師，為我的論文提供許多寶貴實在的意見，讓我能夠修改論文不足之處，使其更臻完善。除了感謝您們的指導，也要特別感謝您們在負北極振盪的寒天凍地中，來參加我的論文口試。. 政治大準引人思辨的徐老師、集優雅淵博與氣度於一身的黃老師、活潑有趣的萬老師、立音韻魔法師蕭老師、還有充滿熱忱忘我授課的詹老師。也感謝助教惠鈴學姊，在在政大語言所，也感謝所上老師們的灌溉；講課智趣橫生的何老師、立論精. ‧ 國. 學. 研究所生活中的各種協助與照顧；套一句好多老師都說過的話：有您真好！此外還有可愛的同學們，在修課繁重的一二年級時一起讀書一起玩耍。最重要的莫過. ‧. 於在語言習得工作室的夥伴們；侃彧「學姊」(我有加學姐喔〜環保愛地球的好音樂大盤商)、意儒學姐(永遠記得妳將我找破頭的泛黃文獻親手交給我的那刻嗚. y. Nat. er. io. 們，工作室對我來說像是一個溫暖的小窩♥. sit. 嗚)、宇涵(處女果然是金牛好朋友無誤)、曉婷(等於十個我的阿妹阿)。因為你. al. 此外也要感謝一些校外的朋友，謝謝奕揚與佳音，在我需要台大圖書館的資. n. v i n 源時總不吝協助。還有美麗與哀愁研究生夥伴艾莉絲、摯友維欣 WSBB、總能使 Ch U i e h n gc 我開懷大笑的湯湯、在咖啡店陪(爽)我(爽)寫(看)論(美)文(劇)的家栩、給我溫暖支持的 Grace 阿姨與咏妡姐、還有幫我加油無數次的 Zac… 等等，謝謝所有曾幫助過我與為我加油的親朋好友。Also, I would like to express my appreciation to my dear friend, Dylan. Thank you so much for getting my thesis edited so quickly. Your interest and enjoyment in my thesis are a great pleasure for me! I’m so lucky to have a sincere and supportive friend like you.  在謝詞的最後，我要感謝我的家人們，讓我大學畢業後得以沒有經濟壓力的繼續求學。也謝謝您們的鼓勵與包容，與各種形式的愛與協助。. iv.


(9) Table of Contents Chapter 1 Introduction. 1. Chapter 2 Literature Review. 5. 2.1 The acquisition of Negation Meanings. 5. 2.2 Negation strategies of English-speaking Children. 11. 2.3 Negation Strategies of Mandarin-speaking Children. 16. 2.4 Negation and Gender. 19. Chapter 3 Methodology. 25. 政治大 3.2 Procedure of data analysis 立 3.3 Coding System. 25. 3.3.1 Types of negation meanings. 26. 3.1 Participants and data. 26 26. ‧ 國. 學. 3.3.2 Types of strategies expressing negation. ‧. Chapter 4 Results. y. Nat. 4.1 Children’s expression of negation. sit. 4.1.1 Semantic meanings of children’s negation. n. al. 4.2 Children’s negation by gender. Ch. engchi. 4.2.1 Semantic meanings of each gender. er. io. 4.1.2 Meaning-form mappings of children’s negation. i n U. 4.2.2 Meaning-strategy mappings of each gender Chapter 5 Discussion. v. 29 35 35 35 40 61 61 70 83. 5.1 Children’s expression of negation. 83. 5.2 Children’s negation by gender. 85. 5.3 Limitations and suggestions. 89. Reference. 91. v.


(11) 國. 立. 政. 治. 大. 學. 研. 究. 所. 碩. 士. 論. 文. 題. 要. 研究所別：語言學研究所論文名稱：漢語兒童在母子對話中的否定表達指導教授：黃瓊之博士研究生：. 陳亭伊. 論文題要內容：本篇論文主要研究漢語兒童的否定表達，與其性別對否定表達方式之影響。使用的語料來自四位平均年齡五歲一個月的兒童，在家中與母親的日常對話。參. 政治大. 與研究的兒童共使用八種語用策略與其組合，來對他們的母親表達七種否定。分. 立. 析語料後顯示，此年齡層的兒童表達方式與成人不同，他們偏好使用單一策略做. ‧ 國. 學. 否定。此外，有別於同儕互動中主要使用間接否定來維持友誼，兒童對母親表達否定時較為直接。而他們的間接否定策略，大多出現在可能危及聽者面子的拒絕. ‧. （Rejection）與否認（Denial）這兩者，也較常出現在表達自己能力與知識上. Nat. sit. y. 的不足時（Inability & Epistemic negation）。在性別對否定表達的影響方面，. n. al. er. io. 女生在否定時有注重關係的傾向（care orientation）。她們拒絕或否認她們母. i n U. v. 親的次數比男生少，表達拒絕或否認時，也比男生使用更多間接策略與提供較容. Ch. engchi. 易理解的原因。在其他的否定語意方面，女生比男生更常表達自己在能力或知識上的不足，此外也更常述說物品的不復存在（Nonexistence）。本研究提供了漢語兒童在否定表達上的結果，也為兒童性別對否定表達的影響提供說明與證據。. vi.


(13) Abstract The study investigates children’s expression of negation, and how each gender expresses it to their mother. We observed 4 Mandarin-speaking children of age 5 (mean age= 5; 1) when they were having natural conversation with their mother at home. We found that children used 8 pragmatic strategies (account, nonverbal, correction, temporizing, challenge, countering move, partial agreement, and appealing) to express 7 negation meanings (Nonexistence, Non-occurrence, prohibition, rejection, denial, inability, and epistemic negation). The results showed that children preferred. 政治大 which children preferred to use indirect strategy to maintain their friendship, the 立. to use single strategy to negate, unlike adults. In contrast with peer interaction in. amount of direct strategy and indirect strategy were quite even in our data. Their. ‧ 國. 學. indirect strategies tended to appear in negation meanings that are potentially. ‧. face-threatening (rejection and denial) or reveal their own insufficiency (inability and. sit. y. Nat. epistemic negation). They also inclined to use a combination of strategies to deliver. io. er. rejection, denial, and prohibition. When we further examine negation in boys and girls, we observe ‘care orientation’ in girls’ negation. They denied and rejected their mother. al. n. v i n less than boys did, mainly usingC indirect negation or understandable accounts while hengchi U. boys did the opposite. As for other negation meanings, girls revealed one’s. insufficiency (Inability and Epistemic negation) and reported nonexistence of entities (Nonexistence) more often than boys did. The findings provide Mandarin children’s results and evidence of the expression of negation in mother-child interaction, and suggest gender does affect how boys and girls deliver various negation meanings.. vii.


(15) Chapter 1 Introduction Negation is a conceptual and linguistic device that negates some propositions (Jespersen, 1917; Quine, 1960). Being dependent on propositional negation, the existence of logic, science, or explicit correction is only possible when one has the ability of negating (Altmann, 1967; Harrison, 1972; Wilden, 1972). Studies in communication have confirmed that the presence of negation is not found in animal. 政治大 Sebeok, 1962). The nature of negation which seems to be circulating between 立. communication while it is one of the universals in human languages (Altmann, 1967;. confirmative and negative has sometimes misled people to think that it is simply a. ‧ 國. 學. binary system. However, with linguistic analysis, it has been distinguished as a. ‧. complex expression. Linguists have not only found abundant negators in different. sit. y. Nat. parts of speech across languages, but some problematic issues about the interaction of. io. er. negation with other operators at the aspect of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics have also been detected. Regarding the linguistic complexity of negation, the process of. n. al. Ch. children acquiring it thus received some attention.. engchi. i n U. v. A group of researchers (e.g., Quine 1974) of language acquisition proposed that words paired with objects provide children with the referential connection that established their acquisition of word meaning. Pea (1980) pointed out that children's earliest negative utterances give direct counterexamples to such an account, since "negation has no referent, ..., and is inherently relational in nature. " Negation appears in children's repertoire from a considerably early period— around 18 -24 months (Horn, 1989). Due to the collision between the complicacy and intangible nature of negation in natural languages and in light of the early appearance of it in child language without major problems, much research effort has been invested into the 1.

(16) acquisition of negation in the late twentieth century. Among this research, some examined the positional transformation of negative words in sentences children uttered; others have investigated the chronological emergence of different semantic contents carried by children's negative words. Howbeit, negative words do not cover the full negative expressions found in adult language. For example Wang (2001) shows that adults rarely refuse others with a direct refusal that contains negative words, but apply several indirect strategies like reason, regret, and alternatives when refusing.. 政治大 inclining towards adult language. In the case of negation, instead of solely learning 立 It is believed that the development of normal children’s language is a process. how to add negative words to complete sentences, children will be gradually equipped. ‧ 國. 學. with more indirect strategies to express negation. Focusing on children’s negative. ‧. words may be a fair way to learn about early negation development, but their usage of. sit. y. Nat. strategies to express negation is also important because it reflects their awareness of. io. er. various contexts and social relationships.. Literature of negation has been focused on the development of pragmatic. al. n. v i n functions in children’s negationC and the usage of strategies h e n g c h i U conveying negation-related types of speech (such as adversative episodes, conflict, disagreement, denial) in. different contexts or with interlocutors of different status. Nonetheless, few studies have examined how children make use of strategies in other meanings of negation (e.g., nonexistence, nonoccurrence, inability, epistemic negation, prohibition) or discussed the relationship between the speaker’s gender and the usage. The present study aspires to narrow this gap through answering the following questions: 1.. Do Mandarin-speaking children use strategies other than direct negation to express negation meanings? If yes, what strategies do children apply to deliver each negation meaning to their mother? 2.

(17) Does gender play a role in delivering negation meanings with various strategies? Are there any different preferences or orientations between genders when expressing negation?. 立. 政治大. 學 ‧. ‧ 國 io. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. 2.. Ch. engchi. 3. i n U. v.

(18) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 4. i n U. v.

(19) Chapter2. Literature Review 2.1 The Acquisition of negation meanings Bellugi (1966; 1967) collects data from English, French, Russian, and Japanese children, concluding that there are three main periods which appear in the child language acquisition of negation words. At first, children usually place a negative word outside the sentence to conflate a number of different negative meanings. After the. 政治大. extra-sentential period, children begin to place negative words inside the sentence. At. 立. the onset of the intra-sentential period, children tend to put the negative word next to. ‧ 國. 學. the main verb or predicate without productive use of the auxiliary system. The last period is the more mature intra-sentential period, in which children use different. ‧. auxiliaries in their negative sentences. One of Bellugi's significant findings in her thesis. y. Nat. io. sit. is that utterances that deny previously proposed propositions did not occur until the. n. al. er. period of intra-sentential negation, which are the second and third periods in Bellugi's system.. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. However, Bloom (1970) does not agree with Bellugi's distinction of three main periods. In Bloom's study, her data mostly consist of " Neg + NP ", "Neg + VP " and " Neg + Predicate Phrase ". Based on this finding, she claims that since a subject term is always missing in children's early sentences anyway, children actually place the negative word correctly inside the sentence (next to the main verb or predicates) from the very beginning. In addition to disproving the existence of the extra-sentential period that Bellugi proposed, Bloom's data also appeared to disagree with Bellugi's significant finding mentioned in the former paragraph. Besides, Lee (1981) considered studies like Bellugi's that focused mainly on the syntax of the child's speech as having drawbacks. 5.

(20) Take one of the problems as an example. Such studies fail to account for the relevance of the semantics of negation to the child's acquisition process. Also, Park (1978) criticized Bellugi's work for not giving contextual information for most of the utterances. Aside from analyzing the syntactic aspect of negation, several researchers also take notice of the semantic contents within negative utterances. McNeill and McNeill (1968) distinguished four values of negation for children learning Japanese and provided temporal ordering of acquisition, which were Nonexistence, Denial without entailment,. 政治大 McNeills’ progression and later findings, particularly Lord’s findings published in 1974. 立 Rejection, and Denial with entailment. But there were many discrepancies between. Another widely accepted developmental direction of negation was firstly described by. ‧ 國. 學. Stern and Stern (1928). Stern and Stern (1928) kept diaries of their own three children. ‧. and described the development of negative functions as a sequence proceeding from. y. Nat. affective or volitional (“rejection” in negative functions) to commenting functions. er. io. sit. ( “denial” in negative functions). Pea (1980) explained this direction with the complexity of conceptual representation, stating that the latter emergence of symbolic. al. n. v i n Ch or abstract representations in developmental progression stems from “more primitive engchi U. mental activity limited to concrete motor-affective sensorimotor intelligence”. A great deal of later negation research conformed to this progression; among which Bloom’s. taxonomy published in 1970 were fairly influential. The system contains three categories with temporal ordering; they are nonexistence, rejection, and denial. Among these three categories, both nonexistence and denial express the absence of something expected; the former is set up by the child's belief world and the latter by the prior linguistic context. Rejection and denial also have similarity in that they both represent a comment on a present referent; the former rejecting it and the latter rejecting a characterization of it. Therefore, Bloom believed that in order to transmit information, 6.

(21) children must be able to express nonexistence first. Because rejection can be conveyed easily with non-linguistic communication (i.e., head shaking) or a simple "no", there is a more urgent need on the part of children to acquire nonexistence than there is rejection. Lastly, children acquire the function of denial finally, as it involves a symbolic referent which is the most abstract realization among these three categories. Horn (1989) points out that though Bloom's speculations are not obviously incorrect, they are not totally convincing either. Moreover, Bowerman's study, published in 1973, reveals that it is hard to interpret her data from Finnish children with Bloom's model,. 政治大 negatives as opposed to nonexistence. 立. and it seems to show that denial is the earliest and most frequent category for Finnish. Subsequently, researchers put effort into examining negation from the point of view. ‧ 國. 學. of pragmatics. Volterra and Antinucci (1979) find four types of negation from Italian-. ‧. and English- speaking children in their longitudinal study. Their taxonomy includes. sit. io. n. al. er. below.. y. Nat. four types, and each one corresponds to a different kind of presupposition as presented. Ch. i n U. v. Table 1. Taxonomy posited by Volterra and Antinucci grounded in pragmatics. engchi. Presupposition. Effect. TYPE A. S believes H is doing/about to do P. Command: S doesn't want H to do A (= negative imperative). TYPE B. S believes H believes P. Assertion: S doesn't want H to believe P (= negative information or correction). TYPE C. S believes H wants S to do A Assertion: S doesn't want H to believe S will do P (= refusal). TYPE D. S believes H wants S to (dis)confirm P. Assertion: S (dis)confirms P (=negative reply to question). They found that all four types of negation were found in their subjects' spontaneous 7.

(22) speech from the earliest sessions (at fifteen months). Nevertheless, Horn (1989) points out that there is some overlap when comparing this system with the taxonomy of McNeills (1968) and Bloom (1970). When looking carefully, Horn holds that the earlier taxonomies sometimes seem to fare better with Volterra and Antinucci's own data. Lee (1981) examined data from his son, a native speaker of Mandarin, but noticed that Volterra and Antinucci's taxonomy of negation was insufficient to describe his data. He asserts that negation is an act of denial of a presupposition, so he made some modifications and extensions and proposed a system which consists of eleven semantic. 政治大 Lee divided the data of his son, Xiao Min, into three periods to make the trend of 立. categories, as shown in Table 2.. development clearer. Outlining the overall linguistic development of Xiao Min as. ‧ 國. 學. background knowledge, he kept track of eleven negative semantic categories springing. ‧. up in each period. Also, his data revealed the discrepancy between the development of. sit. y. Nat. negative functions in Xiao Min and the development of their linguistic behavior. This. io. er. finding is in accord with Piaget's claim that cognitive development precedes linguistic development (Piaget, 1954). Thus, he generalized about two distinct orders of negative. al. n. v i n acquisition with different levels;C one order is of emergence h e n g c h i U of the negative functions, the other of their linguistic codification. However, Lee’s system of developmental negation actually further subdivided Bloom’s taxonomy into subcategories.. Previously-mentioned studies that trailed the trinary categorization all describe the very initial stage of the development of negation.. 8.

(23) Table 2. Lee’s system of negation. 4 5. Nonrecurrence of event Nonexistence of state or quality of object. ‧. Denial 8 Denial of object identity 9 Inability 10 Denial of happening of event 11 Denial of object function. n. Negative imperative. The speaker assumes that the listener wants to impose an object or an action on him; this assumption stems from the child's own perception of the situation, or from a verbal suggestion in a previous utterance of the listener. The speaker believe that the listener is carrying out or about to carry out an action. In this case, the action intended a ltoward the speaker. or carried out is not directed iv. io. 7. Nat. Rejection 6 Negative volition. 立. y. Nonoccurrence of event. sit. 3. 政治大. er. Nonrecurrence of object. The speaker expects the existence of an object, animate or inanimate, at a certain place; or the speaker believes that the listener has suggested in a previous utterance the existence of the object. The speaker expects the reappearance of an object (whose existence has been perceived by the speaker prior to the negation), or of another object of a similar kind. The speaker expects the occurrence of an event at a certain time and place; or the speaker believes that the listener has suggested in a previous utterance the occurrence of an event. The speaker expects a continuation of an event whose occurrence he has been perceiving. The speaker expects to find an object in a certain state or possessing a certain quality; or the speaker believes that the listener has suggested in a previous utterance that the object may be in a certain state or possess a certain quality.. 學. 2. Presupposition. ‧ 國. Semantic categories Nonexistence 1 Nonexistence of object. Ch. n engchi U. The speaker assumes that the listener has suggested in a previous utterance that the name of an object is X. The speaker believes that he may be able to perform a certain physical or mental task. The speaker denial denies the happening of an event that has happened. The speaker believes the function of an object; or the speaker believes that the listener has suggested in a previous utterance the function of the object. 9.

(24) Choi (1988) observed 2 children speak in English, 4 in Korean, and 5 in French and reported on their semantic development of negation. Her data extend from the single-word to the syntactic period, with the children’s age ranging from 1;7 to 3;4, adding six categories to the original trinary system of negation as in Table 3.. Table 3. Categories for a classification of negation meanings in Choi 1988. Category. Description. Nonexistence. child’s expectation of the presence of an entity at a particular place or time was not met. 治政 negation of object or action大 present in the context 立 negation of others’ action present in the context. Failure. negates occurrence of a specific event. Rejection Prohibition. ‧ 國. Inability. negated proposition represented in the interactants verbal assertion. 學. Denial. child negates a physical ability. ‧. Normative negation. discrepancy between state of affairs and the child’s expectations (norms) of the objects involved. Inferential negation. involves inference about listener – no overt assertion precedes the child’s negation. n. al. er. io. sit. y. child negates possession of knowledge. Nat. Epistemic negation. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Choi’s taxonomy has been remarked upon as a relatively fine-grained one because it embraces negation meanings that emerge relatively late in child language. A number of studies on the issue of child negation have continued using this taxonomy up to now (Tam and Stokes 2001, Cameron-Faulkner, et al 2007 for example). Previous studies mentioned in this section all represent the corresponding emergence of negation meaning(s) and the specific negative morpheme(s) in various languages. Thus we are able to have a clearer picture of the correspondence of new/old functions and new/old forms in children’s first three years of life. Yet, when we observe negative utterances of adults, we find that using obvious negative words is an extremely 10.

(25) direct way which was not taken as the majority choice when expressing negation. Take refusal among negation meanings as an example. Wang (2001) reported nine strategies other than a direct one in adults’ refusal – negated ability and willingness, grounders, regret, alternative, dissuade interlocutors, acceptance as a refusal, avoidance, principle, and folk wisdom. Regarding children, it is believed that they embark on showing socially adaptive language by the age of three (Mueller, 1972; Garvey & Hogan, 1973). In the case of disagreement, Hsu (2000) stated that children often adopt a more polite way by the age of four. That is to say, children are capable of expressing negative intent. 政治大 In the coming section we will review studies that look into the strategies children 立. without obvious negation words and inclining to the adults’ way of delivering negation.. applied when expressing negation.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 2.2 Negation Strategies of English-speaking children. sit. y. Nat. In order to grasp strategies children utilized in negative expression, it is necessary. n. al. i n U. episode, dispute, argument, and dispreferred responses.. Ch. engchi. er. io. to look at their linguistic behavior in related speech events such as an adversative. v. An adversative episode is defined as a verbal exchange that evolves from an opposition to the interlocutor’s request, assertion, or action (Eisenberg and Garvey 1981, Eisenberg 1992). Hence, researchers locate adversative episodes by finding “negative responses” like denials, refusals, objections, disagreements, conflicting claims or intentions, and contradictions. Generally speaking, any move of the interlocutor can be unnoticed, ignored, or accepted. Once opposition occurs, the social context of the adversative episode begins; the ongoing interaction was stopped and any prior goal or task is suspended. It is only possible for the original conversation to be resumed when the opposition has been resolved. This social context assigns different. 11.

(26) functional roles to the opposer and opposee, and the choice of strategies that depends on several social factors demonstrates the distinct roles of interactants. Eisenberg and Garvey (1981) examined the choice of strategies of both opposer and opposee in peer conflict from a database of 50 preschoolers aged 2;10 to 5;7. It was found that the initial opposition can be conveyed by using a simple negative, supplying a related reason or justification, making a countering move, proposing substitution, evading, or hedging; and the opposee’s reaction to the opposition may be insistence, mitigation, reasons, countering moves, conditional directives, compromise, requesting. 政治大 strategy does affect the response which follows due to the fact that only 25% of 立. an explanation, physical force, or ignorance. It is proved that the choice of opposing. adversative episodes ended with single direct opposition. The opposee expects the. ‧ 國. 學. opposer to oppose with a reason; if not, then the opposer was expected to submit.. ‧. Though adversative episodes are potentially aggressive, this study found that children. sit. y. Nat. chiefly choose to give reasons, justifications, and a number of different strategies,. io. er. avoiding the use of physical force, to resolve the conflict regardless of complying or not. Hence, an adversative episode does not represent the breakdown of interaction, but is. n. al. Ch. rule-governed and contains roles and routines.. engchi. i n U. v. Eisenberg (1992) further investigates conflict talk between mothers and 4-year-old children, identifying four types of speech acts being opposed, namely requests for action, requests for permission, statements of intent, and statements of fact. Among these speech acts, statements of intent is the category that is most likely to lead to mutual opposition, while requesting permission is the act that is least likely to lead to such a consequence. Interestingly, when opposing statements of fact, children tend to give direct opposition without reasoned argument and mothers would tend to submit. Six types of oppositions were also proposed to analyze mother-child conflict talk, as listed below: simply no, indirect no, justification, alternative, delay/ distraction, 12.

(27) question/challenge. The results showed that both mother and child in conflict talk avoid correcting or disagreeing with each other directly most of the time, and this behavior is in accordance with previous findings on peer conflict (Eisenberg and Garvey 1981). Like children in peer conflict, mothers as well as children would give reasoning as a response to an initial opposition with reasoning. When a child gave a single direct opposition, she would receive a request for a reasoned argument from her mother. However, children do not ask for a reasoned argument but instead accept when their mother gives unreasoned opposition, which is different from peer conflict.. 政治大 relatively older children by asking them to perform four situations of role play under a 立. Aside from preschoolers, Brenneis and Lein (1977) collected verbal disputes from. researcher’s direction. By observing these first grade, third grade, and fourth grade. ‧ 國. 學. children performing assigned role plays, various tactics in children’s argument and. ‧. structural patterns were found. Children of these grades give threats, bribes, insults,. sit. y. Nat. praise, command, moral persuasion, negating or contradictory assertion, and simple. io. er. assertion to oppose their peer, and denial, affirmative, supportive assertion, demand for evidence, and nonverbal vocal signals may follow as reactions to previous opposition.. al. n. v i n C h children at this U Other than using these various tactics, age are also able to understand engchi. the structural pattern of argument and successfully anticipate what their opponents may say. A vivid example from their data is provided (p. 57): JOHN: I am smarter. ANN: I am. JOHN: I am. ANN: I am. JOHN: I am. ANN: You are dumb. JOHN: I am. 13.

(28) This example demonstrates one of the structural patterns called Inversion; the other two commonly seen structure patterns in Brenneis and Lein’s data are Repetition and Escalation. Though these techniques in role-playing disputes also occur in children’s everyday interactions, Brenneis and Lein admitted that they have found certain discrepancies exist between role-played disputes and disputes in real life after they watched children’s spontaneous disputes happening in daily life. By the end of the twentieth century, studies of dispute shifted their focus to examine that between children’s different social relationships and its growth across. 政治大 Dunn and Munn (1987) looked into spontaneous disputes between 43 children and 立. ages (Dunn and Munn 1987, Slomkowski and Dunn 1992, Dunn 1996 for example).. their mother and siblings that occurred when they were of ages1;6, 2;0, and 3;0. The. ‧ 國. 學. topics of dispute found in their data were about possession, rights, hurting/ aggression/. ‧. unkindness, rules of the house, physical space, and independence. And these topics. sit. y. Nat. were conveyed by justification for other’s action, other’s feelings, one’s own feelings,. io. er. social rules, and material consequences of action. Also, developmental progress is reported. In the earlier stage, children often showed negative emotions (anger, distress,. al. n. v i n etc.) in disputes, especially withC their siblings. But suchUemotions decreased with age— hengchi actually, they even found that children of age 3 applied relatively mature justifications. over topics that brought out their negative emotions when they were 2 years old. This is not the only study that describes a direction towards a more rational way of child opposition in dispute when they grow up—see also Vaughn, Kopp, and Krakow (1984) and Kuczinski, Kochanski, Radke-Yarrow, and Brown (1987). The research Dunn published in 1996 also shows that the amount of dispute which occurred among children ages two to four did not increase, but the proportion of reasoning argument become greater with age. Nevertheless, both studies certified that instead of conciliation, children offer reasoned argument to uphold their own immediate wants, 14.

(29) needs, or goals. Besides, even within the family, conflict with different family members may possess different interactional characteristics. It has been found that in a dispute, a mother and siblings are always talking about the child, using other-oriented argument, and giving their focus and attention on the child aged two to three (Slomkowski and Dunn, 1992). But the content of their justification is different. While mothers are more likely to give children arguments about the material consequences of their behaviors, siblings always refer their arguments to social rules. On the other hand, for people in. 政治大 Dunn (1992) state: “Some children who were able to negotiate and compromise within 立. different social relationships, children also treat them differently, as Slomlowski and. conflicts with their mothers simply repeated protests and unreasoned accusations in. ‧ 國. 學. conflicts with their siblings; others who typically took their siblings’ viewpoints into. y. Nat. their mothers.”. ‧. consideration in their arguments simply yelled and protested in an unreasoned way with. er. io. sit. Reasoned argument may be other’s-centered (talking about other’s action or feelings) or self-centered (talking about one’s own feelings). So far, we can see that for. al. n. v i n C h in conflict between children under age four, their justifications their mother and siblings engchi U are mainly self-centered (Slomkowski and Dunn, 1992), yet that cannot present the whole picture of children’s behavior in conflict. Dunn (1996) observed fifty second-born children at ages 2;9, 3;4, and 3;11 and recorded the pattern of children’s conflict talk in different relationships within and outside the family. When children got involved in conflict with their close friend, they were using significantly more reasoning argument that showed their understanding of other’s feelings and thoughts than they did with their family members. All of the evidence reviewed in this section confirmed that “children’s use of argument in disputes was specific to each relationship”, and they “use their social understanding depending on the nature of the 15.

(30) particular relationship.” (Dunn, 1996) 2.3 Negation strategies of Mandarin-speaking children Oppositions can be delivered directly, less directly, or implicitly. Means of opposition may, with some adjustment, be based on the degree of intimacy, familiarity, the power of the relationship, and the ranks of imposition between participants (Brown and Levinson 1978). Thus, by examining the strategies children utilized to convey negation meanings, we are able to know their linguistic development, pragmatic knowledge and social, interactive skills. After comparing his own findings with. 政治大 universal, but the relative degrees of politeness and the associations between opposition 立 previous studies on refusal, Liao (1994) concluded that the strategies of refusal are. and request may be language- specific. He also summarized his data obtained with. ‧ 國. 學. native speaker’s intuition, interviews, participant observations and Realistic. ‧. Conversation Writing (RCW) into twenty two strategies listed below: Silence, hesitation, lack of enthusiasm. 2.. Offering an alternative. 3.. Postponement. 4.. Putting the blame on a third party or something over which you have no. sit. n. er. io. al. y. Nat. 1.. control. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. 5.. Avoidance. 6.. General acceptance without giving details. 7.. Diversion and distraction of the addressee. 8.. General acceptance with excuse. 9.. Saying what is offered or requested is inappropriate. 10. External yes, internal no 11. Statement of philosophy 12. Direct NO 13. Lie, excuse, reason, or explanation 14. Complaining or appealing to feelings 15. Rationale. 16.

(31) 16. Joke 17. Criticism 18. Conditional yes 19. Questioning the justification of the request 20. Threat 21. External no, internal yes 22. A composite of strategies In addition, after examining the understanding and producing of refusal of children from age 7 to 11, it was discovered that children of eight years old and older are as competent as grown-up native speakers.. 政治大. In recent years, several studies focusing on Mandarin-speaking children under 8. 立. years old have described preschoolers’ expressions of disagreement and refusal with. ‧ 國. 學. natural data. In Wang’s work (2007), the dispreferred responses of a 4-year-old girl are collected during interaction with her mother. The nature of dispreferred responses or. ‧. dispreferred seconds is similar to the concept of opposition; here Wang anchored it by. Nat. sit. y. identifying refusals and disagreements. Each of these two types of dispreferred. n. al. er. io. responses appeared in child language in the form of simple negation, account,. i n U. v. challenge, correction, counter-request, and partial agreement. Comparing the statistical. Ch. engchi. findings to adults’ dispreferred responses, this child usually uses a single strategy (nearly 90%) instead of a combination of strategies which mitigated the response to express their disagreement and refusal to her mother. Her turn shape of dispreferred responses was simpler than that of adults because of single strategy. Moreover, the one and only strategy itself was usually direct and self-centered. Other researchers narrowed down the scope, investigating preschoolers’ refusal in mother-child interaction and peer interaction. Wu (2010) conducted a case study on a boy’s refusal at his 2;7, 3;1, and 3;7. In the interaction with his mother, the boy’s refusals were analyzed with the schema below.. 17.

(32) (A) Direct refusal: This type of response refers to the direct denial of compliance without reservation. (B) Insistence: This type of response refers to utterances showing an insistence on the speaker’s original plan of action. (C) Negated ability: This type of response refers to an inability to respond to the request. (D) Reason: This type of response refers to utterances showing reasons for non-compliance. (E) Alternative: This type of response refers to utterances suggesting or choosing an alternative course of action. (F) Dissuade interlocutor: This type of response refers to utterances persuading. 政治大 (G) Avoidance-verbal: This type of response avoids a direct response to a 立 proposed action. the hearer to give up his/her previous request.. ‧ 國. 學. (H) Unrelated answers: The speaker gives an unrelated answer or request. (I). Silence: The speaker remains silent and ignores the request when he/she. ‧. doesn’t know how to make a refusal.. sit. y. Nat. (A) is categorized as direct refusal, while (B-I) are categorized as indirect refusal. Wu. io. er. found that the repertoire of refusal strategies increased with age since only 4 strategies were used by the child at 2;7 but 9 strategies were offered at 3;7. Also, the child’s. al. n. v i n C hdirect just to achieve refusal at former stages were more their interactive goals, but the engchi U use of self-oriented arguments decreased at latter stages and were considered to obtain other’s perspective when performing refusal to his mother. In Jong’s study (2011), which investigated the refusal strategy of six children aged 4;7-5;10, some modification had been made with Wu’s analytical framework (2010). The category of insistence and unrelated answers are not seen in peer refusal; on the other hand, three categories were added as following. (A) Physical force: Children sometimes appeal to physical force such as grabbing or hitting to show noncompliance. (B) Counterclaim: A counterclaim happens when the speaker refuses the request 18.

(33) by repeating the interlocutor’s plan of action as the speaker’s own plan of action. (C) Conditional acceptance: This refers to the utterances which indicate that the refusee’s plan of action will be accepted under certain conditions. Jong found that 67.45% of children’s refusals in peer interaction were conveyed with indirect strategies, which is the opposite of Wang’s findings of a child in mother-child interaction. Children not only used more indirect strategies of refusal to maintain their friendship, they were able to take other’s perspective into account at this age. Jong’s. 政治大 context was limited to the playground, and some other semantic meanings of negation 立. study sketched the landscape of girls’ and boys’ refusal in peer interaction, but the. were unexplored (nonexistence, nonoccurrence, inability, prohibition, for example).. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 2.4 Negation and Gender. sit. y. Nat. Generally speaking, there are two orientations that people would use to approach. io. er. sorting conflict out--care orientation and justice orientation (Gilligan, 1987). The characteristics of care orientation cited from Gilligan’s work are as follows: “ (1). al. n. v i n assumes connection between theCself and others, frames h e n g c h i Uconflict resolution in terms of. the relationship; (2) shows greater tolerance of, compassion for, and responsiveness to others; (3) emphasized understanding and communication through listening and speaking, hearing, and being heard; (4) seeks agreement and tries to respond to everyone’s needs; (5) shows less legalistic elaboration; (6) shows willingness to make exceptions to rules; (7) appeals more to a particularistic understanding of others and less to a universal point of view”. Sheldon (1990) observed this orientation in her data of girls’ conflict; they offered negotiation through clarification of intent, compromise, and evasion to mitigate their language in conflict. The avoidance of conflict ensured the continuity of girls’ jointly pretend play and the discourse seemed to be cooperative and 19.

(34) interpersonally harmonious. In addition to Sheldon’s study, Miller et al. (1986), Leaper (1991), Young (2003), and Yong (2004) have also found care orientation in their female data. On the other hand, justice orientation is more likely to be used by males with quoted operations below: “ (1) frames conflict in terms of individual rights that must be respected in the relationship; (2) values detachment, independence, and autonomy; (3) assumes separation and the need for an external structure of connection; (4) steps back from the situation and appeals to a rule or reasons from a principle to resolve conflict,. 政治大 attends to rights and respect ”. This orientation has also been found in Sheldon’s work 立 valuing logic, rationality, and control and often losing sight of the needs of others; (5). (1990) in which boys were found to engage in more conflict. They would insist on their. ‧ 國. 學. needs and wants, providing self-serving rules, and being more self-centered and. ‧. controlling. It is suggested that the development of their pretend play scenarios is not as. sit. y. Nat. important as it for girls since they used language to assert their position of dominance. io. er. when confronting conflicts. Justice orientation was also reported to be taken by males in several studies such as Miller, Danaher & Forbes (1986), Sachs (1987), Young. al. n. v i n C hjustice orientation U (2003), and Yong (2004). Although seemed to be simpler and direct, engchi while care orientation was more tactful and tactical, the choice of orientation cannot determine one’s levels of language ability. Sachs’s data (1987) provides evidence to show that boys also use mitigated utterances in contexts other than conflict or situation called for them, and it is believed that they simply use them less frequently in dispute episodes, resulting in a style difference. So far, the research reviewed above seems to indicate that females are most prone to care orientation and males to justice orientation. However, Goodwin’s study suggested an element other than gender that makes a difference to the orientation. She found that urban African American and Latina working-class girls between 8 and 13 years of age 20.

(35) used very direct means to oppose their interlocutor, including a simple “No”, insult terms, and disdain. The contrast in conflict management strategies suggested that neither care orientation nor justice orientation universally belongs to just one sex. Kyratzis and Guo (2001) further investigate the linguistic strategies in conflict among middle-class girls and boys from the United States and Mainland China. In same-sex groups, the conflict strategies of the Chinese girls and U.S. boys are more direct than that of U.S. girls and Chinese boys. Being the most direct group, Chinese girls used direct negation, insulting, threats, direct commands, and physical force to. 政治大 using frame shifting, modifying statements, and the use of “and” to avoid voicing the 立 manage conflict. Conversely, U.S. girls were the most mitigated ones in conflict by. negative in conflict. The degree of directness of U.S. boys’ conflict strategies was. ‧ 國. 學. similar to Chinese girls’ by using explicit negation markers and implied threat to. ‧. aggravate their commands and opposition. Chinese boys’ way of managing conflict was. sit. y. Nat. of the temperate degree in that they used both direct and indirect strategies compared to. io. er. U.S. boys and girls and Chinese girls. In mixed-sex groups, the U.S. pairs and Chinese pairs reflected a considerable degree of contextual complexity. In the U.S. cross-sex. al. n. v i n group, the interaction was very C courtship like. Boys would h e n g c h i U court girls’ favor and girls. were positioned as more decisive and having a dominant influence, and girls used more assertive strategies than in their same-sex groups. In the Chinese cross-sex group, there were instances of Chinese girls directly offering their opposition as they did in their same-sex group. But when it comes to male-predominant contexts such as technical matters, Chinese girls sometimes fell back or even deferred to Chinese boys. We may then infer that cultural and contextual differences would also affect how gender relation varies in conflict management. Some research has been done in Taiwan on the negation strategies offered by each gender of children. Young (2003) conducted experiments with edited cartoons to 21.

(36) induce children’s refusal production and test their judgment on the politeness of refusals in a cartoon’s episode. In the production of refusals, females produced more words, generated more indirect strategies such as alternative and avoidance, and used more adjuncts than males in their refusal response. In the perception of refusals, more male children than female children judge the politeness of an invitation or request by volume, and they tend to regard turning down invitations as more impolite than do females. Another study (Young, 2004) also reported that elementary girls used fewer direct refusals, more refusal words, refusal strategies, adjuncts, and more indirect. 政治大 status, based on questionnaires. But when refusing people of higher social ranking, 立 refusals than elementary boys did in refusing people of high, equal, and low social. boys and girls are the same in that they were both being more polite (less direct. ‧ 國. 學. strategies). Both of Young (2003) and Young (2004) indicated that girls are more polite,. ‧. which corresponds with Brown & Levinson (1978). However, these findings coming. y. Nat. from questionnaires and non-naturally occurring data failed to explain other natural. er. io. sit. data collected in peer conflict as in Jong (2012). In Jong’s research, girls were more direct than boys in the same-gender group, and became even more direct while boys. n. al. Ch. became more indirect in the cross-gender group.. engchi. i n U. v. The above-mentioned studies mainly explored gender in two meanings of negation, namely denial and rejection, by conducting experiments or examining speech in children’s peer interaction. However, boys’ and girls’ oppositions to their mothers are unexplored. We analyzed mother-child natural data because of the specific relationship of the mother (higher position in the family hierarchy but quite intimate with children) and more variables of contexts instead of limiting ourselves to the playground context. In addition, some meanings of negation still remain uninvestigated. Therefore, the present study aims to examine the meanings and forms of male and female children’s negation in Mandarin mother-child conversations and further investigate if children’s 22.

(37) gender makes any differences in their responses.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 23. i n U. v.

(38) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 24. i n U. v.

(39) Chapter 3 Methodology 3.1 Participants and Data Four Taiwanese children between 59 and 63 months of age (4; 11 – 5; 3) participated in this study, and all of them live with their parents in Taipei City. They were recruited from a parent community website. Their mean age was 61 months (5; 1) and each of them was given a code name: LEE, KUO, QIN, and YOU; the preceding. 政治大 they communicate with others in their mother tongue, and their inputs are mainly 立. two are girls and the other two are boys. As native speakers of Mandarin Chinese,. Mandarin as well.. ‧ 國. 學. The data involved in the presented study were a portion of the database of the. ‧. Language Acquisition Lab in the Graduate Institute of Linguistics in National. sit. y. Nat. Chengchi University directed by Professor Chiung-chih Huang. An observer. io. er. video-recorded the interaction that occurred naturally between the child and her mother at their home. During the observation, participants were basically engaged in. al. n. v i n C hvery similar acrossUthese families, such as having activities of daily living which are engchi meals, doing housework or chores, drawing, reading books or children’s magazines, and playing with toys. Taking into consideration that our participants may act unnaturally before unfamiliar observers at the beginning, the first half hour of every child’s first session were not observed. The length of a session is about 60 minutes,. and 120 minutes in three sessions of each child’s data were included in our research. The total length of the conversation analyzed is eight hours and is transcribed in the CHAT format.. 25.

(40) 3.2 Procedure of data analysis Data were analyzed following the procedures presented below. Each sentence produced by children was carefully examined. Once the child’s negative tokens were detected, they were coded into the system proposed in 3.3. The negation meaning it expressed was coded first, then the strategy(ies) it applies are identified. After that, a data analysis program, CLAN, was applied to calculate the frequencies.. 3.3 Coding System. 政治大 strategy(ies) utilized to convey the meaning. Seven negation meanings (see 3.3.1) and 立 Our coding consists of two components; negation meaning expressed and. 10 strategies (see 3.3.2) have been identified in our data.. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 3.3.1 Types of negation meanings. y. Nat. In a pilot study we conducted with Taiwan Corpus of Child Mandarin (TCCM),. er. io. sit. it was found that Lee’s system was insufficient to cover all negation meanings uttered by children at this age. Moreover, we also found that the usage of Mandarin negators. al. n. v i n such as “bu” and “mei” are quiteClimited to a few specific h e n g c h i U meanings, thus not much. progress in development was found other than those of previous studies. To depict a more complete picture of children’s negation, we adopted Choi’s system (Table 3 at page 8) of negation meanings to identify negation in our data. To avoid overlap between categories as we explained on page 8, normative negation and inferential negation were omitted from our categorization. Following are the analytical schema employed in the present study. 1. Nonexistence Nonexistence is identified when the child has an expectation of the existence of an entity, animate or inanimate, at a certain place, but the expectation was not 26.

(41) fulfilled. In excerpt 1, the child turned on the television but did not get any sound. Excerpt 1. *LEE: 沒有聲音 [% pointing to the television].  ‘ There is no sound coming from the television. ’. 2. Non-occurrence Non-occurrence is expressed when children anticipate the occurrence of a specific event but this expectation was not met. In excerpt 2, the mother has told the child that if he colors red and blue in the same area on a piece of paper, in such. 政治大. an event the area painted with red and blue will become the color purple. The child. 立. had tried but failed.. ‧ 國. 學. Excerpt 2.. *QIN: /eh/?. *QIN: 沒有變紫耶. . ‧. ‘ It did not turn purple. ’. y. Nat. *MOT: 因為這種藍比較不那麼明顯.. n. al. er. io 3. Prohibition. sit. ‘ Because the blue you chose is not that effective. ’. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Prohibition is different from the previous two categories in that it has nothing to do with children’s expectation on the natural existence of an entity or the natural occurrence of an event. This category negates the mother’s action or her plan of carrying out a certain action. In excerpt 3, the father was about to walk through our camera as the author was video recording, then the child expressed prohibition. Excerpt 3. *LEE: 爸比請你不要擋在那我在拍照 [= speaking to DAD].  ‘ Dad, the camera is photographing and please don’t block it. ’. 27.

(42) 4. Rejection While prohibition negates the action of a child’s interactant, rejection negates the child’s own action that the interactant suggested or imposed on her. Excerpt 4 is an excerpt of this category. Excerpt 4. *MOT: 你要不要開燈看比較清楚? ‘ Do you want the lights on so you can see it clearer? ’ *QIN: 不要.  ‘ No. ’. 5. Denial. 立. 政治大. suggested in a previous utterance, as shown in excerpt 5.. 學. ‧ 國. Children express denial to negate the proposition that the interactant has. Excerpt 5.. ‘ Would you feel sorry at your teacher’s going? ’. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. sit. *KUO: 不會.  ‘ No. ’. 6. Inability. ‧. *MOT: 那你會不會捨不得老師?. Ch. engchi. i n U. v. Inability comes from the child’s self-evaluation of his physically inability. Children express inability by doubting their ability to perform a certain physical task, like excerpt 6 that happened when YOU were operating a juice extractor. Excerpt 6. *MOT: 倒一點點油 [% 把油遞給 YOU]. ‘ Pour a little oil (into the juice extractor). ’ *YOU: 我不會倒.  ‘ I can’t. ’. 28.

(43) 7. Epistemic negation While children voice their inability to show their physical incapability, they deliver epistemic negation to express their lack of certain kinds of knowledge. Excerpt 7 is an instance of epistemic negation found in our data. Excerpt 7. *MOT: 你們班每個小朋友都已經會打電話了嗎? ‘ Do all your classmates know how to make a phone call? ’ *YOU: 不知道.  ‘ I don’t know. ’. 治政 3.3.2 Types of strategies expressing negation 大立 We have found ten types of strategy that children used to convey negation. Six ‧ 國. 學. types are adopted from the schema of Eisenberg and Garvey 1981, and three types are. ‧. from previous study of Taiwanese children (Wang 2007 and Wu 2010). One new strategy, appealing, was added in the present study in order to serve for diversified. y. Nat. io. sit. semantic meanings of negation. The strategies are grouped into two divisions: direct. n. al. er. and indirect. Direct strategies include direct negation and insistence, and indirect. Ch. i n U. v. strategies are account, nonverbal, correction, temporizing, challenge, countering move, partial agreement, and appealing.. engchi. 1. Direct negation This type of negation is usually short and concise in that it only contains obvious negative words and keyword(s) that are necessary for the perceiver to know. Excerpt 8. *MOT: 那你去會不會怕怕的? ‘ Are you afraid of being in the Ferris wheel? ’ *KUO: 不會.  ‘ No. ’. 29.

(44) Sometimes children would repeat their direct negation within one negation turn, as demonstrated in the following excerpt. Excerpt 9. *MOT: 小棍子要出來了. I’m going to look for the stick. *YOU: 不要不要不要不要.  No no no no no.. We would code such data as the repetition of direct negation, and interpret it as direct negation with an aggressive position.. 政治大. 立. 2. Insistence. ‧ 國. 學. This type of response functions as supporting children’s original plan or goals through emphasizing their own wants or desire. It may be a repetition of the. ‧. speaker’s former direct negation (exactly or by paraphrasing it without increasing. y. Nat. sit. or decreasing directness) or may strengthen it with a simple yes or no (Eisenberg,. n. al. er. io. 1981). Since this strategy simply repeats children’s direct negation in their last. i n U. v. negation turn as a reply to the mother’s re- request, insistence and direct negation. Ch. engchi. are both categorized as direct strategy. Excerpt 10.. *QIN: 怎麼做 (= 用積木做電風扇)? ‘ How to make a Lego electric fan? ’ *MOT: 想想看嘛! ‘ Think about it. ’ *QIN: 不想. ‘ No. ’ *MOT: 不想? ‘ No? ’ *MOT: 想想看嘛! 30.

(45) ‘Think about it. ’ *QIN: 不想.  ‘ No. ’. 3. Account This type of negation supplies a related reason or explanation to support the children’s claim or stance. Excerpt 11. %act: MOT begins to deal the cards *LEE: 我都不知道是哪一張跟哪一張.. 政治大 *LEE: 因為覆蓋的牌.  立 ‘ Because all the cards are covered. ’ ‘ I have no idea what cards I got. ’. ‧ 國. 學. 4. Nonverbal. ‧. This type of negation contains children’s winning or typical body languages. sit. *MOT: 要不要再加一點鹽 # 味精?. n. al. Ch. er. io. Excerpt 12.. y. Nat. that delivered negation like head shaking or sticking out one’s tongue.. i n U. ‘ Would you like to add some salt or MSG? ’. engchi. *YOU: 0 [=! shaking head]. . v. 5. Correction This type of negation refers to utterances that not only assert previous utterances to be wrong, but also gives information the child believed to be true or correct. This type of strategy sometimes leads by 我說 wo shuo ‘I said…’, or 我是說 wo shi shuo ‘What I said is…’. Excerpt 13. *LEE: 我們好有創意喔. ‘ We are very creative. ’ 31.

(46) *MOT: 臭屁的哩! ‘ So conceited! ’ *LEE: 甚麼是臭屁? ‘ What is “conceited” ? ’ *MOT: 就是你說你自己很有創意 <阿> [>]. ‘ It is you claiming yourself as being creative. ’ *LEE: <我說> [<] 我們兩個都有很創意.  ‘ I said “both of us” are creative. ’. 6. Temporizing. 政治大. This type of negation procrastinates the immediateness of carrying out certain action.. 立. 學. ‧ 國. Excerpt 14.. *MOT: 你等一下要不要幫媽媽摺衣服?. ‘ Do you want to help me with folding clothes? ’. ‧. *QIN: /eh -: / 等一下.  ‘ M… later. ’. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. 7. Challenge. i n U. v. This type of negation questions the prior speaker’s claim and demands. Ch. engchi. evidence for it, while at the same time implying the inaccuracy of the previous view (Lin 1999, Muntigl & Turnbull 1998). Excerpt 15. *LEE: 媽咪這種的我不會摺 [% Taking out a dress and handing it to mom]. ‘ Mommy I don’t know how to fold this one. ’ *MOT: /ho/ 你看每一件你都不會摺! ‘ See? You don’t know how to fold any kind of clothes. ’ *LEE: 哪有!  ‘ What! ’. 32.

(47) 8. Countering move This type of negation is made by telling the absolute opposite from the previous utterance, and usually having a very similar structure to it. Excerpt 16. *MOT: 唷 -: 你是真的看的懂 [= 時鐘] 嗎? ‘ Wow, do you truly know how to interpret the clock? ’ *QIN: 假的.  ‘ Fake. ’. 9. Partial agreement. 政治大. This type of negation is given when the child does not fully agree or disagree. 立. with the preceding proposition or proposal.. ‧ 國. 學. Excerpt 17.. *MOT: 很燙齁-:.. ‧. ‘ It’s so hot, right? ’ *LEE: 有一點點燙燙的. . Nat. sit. y. ‘ Just a little bit. ’. er. io. *MOT: 一點點而已嗎 -: ? ‘ Are you sure? ’. n. al. Ch. *MOT: 都在冒煙了欸.. engchi. ‘ The smoke keeps rolling up. ’. i n U. v. 10. Appealing This type of negation directly asks the interlocutor for help. Below is an excerpt from a child using this strategy to express being physically incapable to take Lego apart. Excerpt 18. *QIN: /eh/ # 媽媽 [% standing up and walking to MOT]. ‘ Hey, mom. ’ *MOT: 嘿 # 怎麼樣?. 33.

(48) ‘ What’s up? ’ *QIN: 你幫我 [% handing his mom a toy].  ‘ Help me with that. ’. 立. 政治大. 學. ‧ 國. Figure 1. The framework of negation strategies analysis. Negation strategies. ‧ y. Nat. n. er. io. al. Indirect strategies. sit. Direct strategies. Direct negation Insistence. Ch. engchi. 34. i n U. v. Account Nonverbal Correction Temporizing Challenge Countering move Partial agreement Appealing.

(49) Chapter 4 Data Analysis In this chapter, children’s expression of negation is examined. Firstly in section 4.1, children’s negation meanings, forms, and the mappings of these two variables are displayed and analyzed with supportive excerpts. In section 4.2, the negation of female children and male children are compared. 4.1 Children’s expression of negation. 治政大 negation (section 4.1.2), delivered (section 4.1.1), all strategic forms found in children’s 立 and the mappings between meanings and forms (section 4.1.3). 4.1.1 Semantic meanings of children’s negation. 學. ‧ 國. The following subsections will present and analyze all negation meanings children. ‧. We identified 812 negations from four target children in 8 hours of observation,. sit. y. Nat. averaging 101.5 negations per hour. The distribution of their negation in each semantic. io. er. meaning is presented in Table 4.. al. v i n C htokens Number of i U (%) e n g c hPercentage. n. Table 4. The frequency of use of each semantic meaning in the total sample. Negative functions Denial Rejection Epistemic Prohibition. 389 233 57 40. 47.9% 28.7% 7.0% 4.9%. Inability Non-occurrence Nonexistence. 38 31 24. 4.7% 3.8% 3.0%. TOTAL. 812. 100.0%. Among seven negation meanings, denial is the most common negation in our data base (n= 389, 47.9%), and rejection takes half of the rest (n= 233, 28.7%). Epistemic 35.

(50) comprised 7% of all negative utterances, prohibition 4.9%, inability 4.7%, non-occurrence 3.8%, and nonexistence 3%. Being the majority of children’s negation, denial can be found in many kinds of contexts in which the mother and the child have disagreements about things. In our data, the disagreement may be mother’s comments (both negative and neutral comments), or matters of fact. When this happened, the mother usually would not compromise at first. In excerpt 1, the mother asserted the fact that the child ate all the bread up the previous day. Although the child denied this in the following turn, the. 政治大 child denied it for the second time, the mother repeated the cause again. It was not 立. mother further gave reason to support her original assertion. Then even though the. until the third time of the child’s denial that the mother got out of the argument by. ‧ 國. 學. dropping the issue.. *MOT:. (MOT: the mother, QIN: the child). ‧. Excerpt 1.. 可是家裡沒有麵包. 有 [= shouting] ! . io. n. al. er. ‘Yes we do.’ *MOT:. 你昨天把麵包吃完了.. Ch. engchi. ‘You ate it all yesterday.’ *QIN:. y. sit. *QIN:. Nat. ‘But we don’t have any bread at home.’. i n U. v. 還沒.  ‘I have not finished yet.’. *MOT:. 有 -:. ‘Nope.’. *MOT:. 吃光光了. ‘You had it all.’. *QIN:. 還沒.  ‘Not yet.’. However, when the mother speaks about her assumptions about a variety of. 36.

(51) children’s subjective experiences, such as assumptions about children’s knowledge, feelings, plans decisions, or children’s imaginary world, children’s denial seems to be more acceptable to mothers. For instance, in excerpt 2, when the child was playing with his bricks and built an item, the mother began to guess what the child had made. Her first guess was a flower, which the child denied with a simple no. The mother did not provide any further reason to support her original assertion, but gave up on her original assertion and made other guesses. In our excerpt, children’s single direct negations were even accepted three times, which is rare in our data of denial. Excerpt 2. *MOT:. 一朵花. ‘A flower.’. 立. 不是. . ‧ 國. 學. *QIN:. 政治大. (MOT: the mother, QIN: the child). ‘No.’ *MOT:. 吊扇.. ‧. ‘Ceiling fans.’ 不是. . y. Nat. *QIN:. *QIN:. 不是. . al. n. ‘Trains.’. er. 火車. io. *MOT:. sit. ‘No.’. Ch. ‘No.’ *MOT:. engchi. i n U. v. 那我不知道是什麼. ‘Then I don’t know what it is.’. Rejection is the second most occurring negative function in our data. Children may reject their mother when she inquires about their willingness to do certain actions or assumes their need for something. In excerpt 3, the mother saw the child rummaging in chests and drawers for a tire of his toy car, and suggested the child turn the lights on so that he could see more clearly. But the child turned down his mother’s 37.

(52) advice with a single direct negation, and then insisted on searching without the lights on. Excerpt 3. *MOT:. (MOT: the mother, QIN: the child). 你要不要開燈看比較清楚? ‘Do you want the lights turned on so that you can see more clearly?’. *QIN:. 不要.  ‘No.’ 我自己看.  ‘I want to see with my own eyes.’. *MOT:. 看的到嗎?. 政治大. ‘Can you see without the lights on?’ *QIN:. 看的到.. 立. ‘Yes, I can.’. ‧ 國. 學. 我看很清楚欸: . ‘I can see very clearly.’. ‧. sit. y. Nat. Rejection also appears after mother’s directives in which children are requested to. io. er. perform an action, confronted by things they dislike, or after being threatened. In the following excerpt, the mother and child were having noodles and soup for their lunch.. al. n. v i n Since the girl kept watching television her noodles, she was warned C h and lingered over engchi U. that if she does not eat faster, the mother would drink up her soup before she finished her noodles. To oppose her mother’s threats, the girl whined over her grievance. Excerpt 4. *MOT:. (MOT: the mother, LEE: the child). 快一點啦. ‘Eat faster.’. *MOT:. 你吃太慢等一下那碗就給我喝. ‘If you keep eating slowly, I will drink up your soup in advance.’. *LEE:. /hm/ -: [= Expressing her grievance with whining]! . 38.

(53) Epistemic occurs when children are aware of their lack of certain knowledge. Sometimes it may be led by their mother’s inquiry about whether the child possesses some specific knowledge or not. In our data we also found that if the child admits not possessing some kind of knowledge, the mother usually gives hints to channel the child to the correct answer. In excerpt 5, the mother and the child were sand painting together but they ran out of white sand. The mother came up with an idea which was to use salt as a substitute and provided inklings on the shape, size, and the context of using salt. Excerpt 5.. 政治大. (MOT: the mother, LEE: the child). *MOT: 啊我知道了白色不夠可以拿甚麼?. 立. ‘I got it! What can we use to substitute for white sand?’. ‧ 國. 學. *LEE: 不知道.  ‘I don’t know.’ *MOT: 甚麼東西是白色的?. ‧. ‘A material that is the color white.’. y. Nat. *LEE: 不知道. . io. sit. ‘I have no idea’. n. al. er. *MOT: 一顆一顆的阿.. ‘They are small particles.’ *LEE: 甚麼一顆一顆. . Ch. ‘What small particles?’. engchi. i n U. v. *MOT: +^ 一顆一顆跟這個一樣白色的是甚麼? ‘Small particles of white color, what is it?’ 我煮飯在用的阿. ‘I add it when I’m cooking.’ 是甚麼? ‘What is it?’. Prohibition and Inability account for 10% of our data. Prohibition takes place as a merely preventive exhort. It emerges mostly when the child hears the mother. 39.

(54) announce bringing about an action that the child did not want, or saw the mother act as if she were about to carry out an unwanted action. There were also fragmentary occurrences of prohibition when the mother asked the target child for permission to perform some actions. Inability was expressed when the child failed to achieve goals of herself or her mother. Sometimes it is also led by the mother’s inquiry about whether the child possesses a certain kind of ability. The less occurring semantic meanings are nonexistence and non-occurrence. These categories usually occur after children find an unfulfilled action or the disappearance of someone or something, mostly here and now.. 立. 政治大. 4.1.2 Meaning-form mappings of children’s negation. ‧ 國. 學. Table 5 displays the frequency of the number of strategies children used in one negation.. ‧. Table 5. Frequency of the number of strategies in one response of negation %. One Two Three. 684 118 10. 84.2% 14.5% 1.2%. n. Ch. 812. engchi. sit. er. io. Total. al. y. N. Nat. Number of strategies. iv n U 100.00%. Most of the negations involved the use of only one strategy in a response (n= 684, 84.2%) while only 15.8% (n= 128) of whole samples were composed of the combination of two to three different strategies. These results showed that children’s negations tend to be simple and short, which accords with the previous studies (e.g. Wu, 2010; Yang, 2003; Jong, 2012). In the following two subsections, we’ll look at the single negation strategy first, then the minority, combination.. 40.

(55) 4.1.2.1 Mappings between meanings and single strategy Table 6 below listed the number and frequency of direct and indirect strategy in children’s single negation. Table 6. The distribution of children’s direct and indirect strategy Types. Total. %. Direct strategy Indirect strategy. 335 349. 49.0 % 51.0 %. Total. 684. 100.00%. In children’s one-strategy negation, indirect strategy is the majority (n= 349, 51. 政治大. %), but direct strategy also took a quantity of it (n= 335, 49%). That is, in. 立. mother-child interaction, children quite evenly use direct and indirect strategy;. ‧ 國. 學. indirect strategy was used only slightly more than direct strategy. Comparing this proportion of indirect strategy to direct strategy with previous study examining peer. ‧. interaction, children of this age seem to convey their negation differently when facing. y. Nat. io. sit. different interactants. In previous research (Jong, 2012) that examined 5-year-old. n. al. er. Mandarin children in peer interaction, children tend to use indirect strategy (n= 172,. Ch. i n U. v. 67.45 %) instead of direct strategy (n= 83, 32.55%) when refusing peers. Table 7. engchi. presents all direct and indirect strategies children applied in their one-strategy negation. Table 7. Frequency of Children’s single negation strategy Types Direct strategy Direct negation Insistence Indirect strategy Nonverbal Account Correction. Total. %. 277 58. 40.5% 8.5%. 71 64 57. 10.4% 9.4% 8.3% 41.

(56) Temporizing. 43. 6.3%. Countering move Challenge Appealing Partial agreement. 40 26 25 23. 5.8% 3.8% 3.7% 3.4%. Total. 684. 100.00%. Among children’s single strategy, one direct strategy, direct negation, was frequently chosen (n= 277, 40.5%). Children used direct negation to express all kinds of negation meanings, and over half of children’s direct negation were clustered in. 政治大 direct negation, two types of indirect strategy were rather common in children’s 立. denial and rejection (n= 169, 61 %), which is shown in the next table. Except for. ‧ 國. 學. negation as well; namely, nonverbal (n= 71, 10.4%) and account (n= 64, 9.4%). Then were one direct strategy and one indirect strategy, insistence (n=58, 8.5%) and. ‧. correction (n=57, 8.3%). However, children’s usage of strategies varied remarkably in. sit. y. Nat. semantic meanings of negation. Table 8 on the next page unfolds all types of single. io. al. n. nonexistence respectively.. er. strategy in denial, rejection, epistemic, inability, non-occurrence, prohibition, and. Ch. engchi. 42. i n U. v.