中文「老」字之第一語言習得研究

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系碩士論文 Master Thesis Graduate Institute of English National Taiwan Normal University. 中文「老」字之第一語言習得研究. L1 Acquisition of ‘Lao’ in Mandarin Chinese. 指導教授：陳純音博士 Advisor: Dr. Chun-yin Doris Chen 研究生：徐佩瑜 Student: Pei-Yu Hsu. 中華民國一百零二年六月 June, 2013.

(2) 摘要. 本研究旨在探討以中文為母語之兒童對中文「老」字的隱喻辭意理解，主要探討的議題包括標誌理論、語意透明度、生命效應、題型效應以及年齡因素。本研究包含兩個理解能力測驗：口頭詮釋測驗與選擇題測驗。研究對象包含實驗組的一百位兒童，依平均年齡七歲至十一歲分成五組，每組二十人，以及對照組的二十位成人。研究結果顯示，字面意義比隱喻意義容易習得。其中，兒童對語意較模糊的隱喻用語有較多錯誤，兒童的理解能力隨著年齡增長而增加。「老」的生命效應除了與修飾的名詞搭配有關之外，亦與隱喻意義之辨識有關。在題型效應方面，兒童在選擇題測驗的表現比口頭詮釋測驗好，顯示兒童在辨識隱喻用語語意之能力優先於口頭詮釋。最後，年齡是習得隱喻用語的關鍵因素，七歲兒童仍在理解字面語意階段，八歲及九歲兒童雖能理解隱喻用語，但仍未達到成人能力的階段，十歲及十一歲兒童已能理解隱喻用語搭配無生命名詞；總言之，兒童對於「老」隱喻用語之習得能力隨著年齡增長而提升。. 關鍵字：中文、第一語言習得、隱喻用語、生命效應. i.

(3) ABSTRACT The present study focuses on the specific figurative expression lao which can be interpreted both literally and non-literally in Chinese. It aims to investigate Chinese-speaking children’s understanding of lao by examining five factors: the difficulty of metaphoricality, the degree of transparency, animacy effect, task effect, and age effect. Two comprehension tasks (i.e., interpretation and multiple-choice) were conducted and both of them were presented in a designed story scenario. The subjects were one hundred children in the elementary school in Taiwan, and they were further divided into five groups according to their ages (i.e., 7 year-olds to 11-year-olds). Also, twenty adults were recruited as the control group. The results showed that the literal meaning of lao was found easier to comprehend than the non-literal meaning of lao. With regard to the degree of transparency in the non-literal meanings of lao, the opaque non-literal meaning was found to be challenging for all the children. Concerning the task effects, no matter which type of meanings of lao, the subjects performed significantly better on the Multiple-choice task than on the Interpretation task. Finally, the results indicates that children at age 7 could only comprehend the literal meaning of lao, but those 8 to 9-year-olds could comprehend the non-literal meanings of lao and lao with inanimate NPs in particular, although their performances were still not adult-like. Our 10 to 11-year-old subjects were found to be able to comprehend the non-literal meanings of lao with both animate and inanimate NPs.. Keywords: Mandarin Chinese, first language acquisition, figurative expressions, animacy. ii.

(4) ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would never have been able to finish my thesis without the persistent assistance of many people. First and foremost, I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my thesis advisor, Dr. Chun-Yin Doris Chen, for her guidance, patience, and warm encouragement. In the thesis process, she always held constant belief in me and also gave me confidence. Dr. Chen with immense knowledge in L1 acquisition provided the insightful discussions and constructive comments. Her encouragement, comments, and suggestions were invaluable. I cannot find words to express my gratitude to her. Further, I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Rueih-Lirng Sharon Fahn and Dr. Jyun-Gwang Chen. Their invaluable comments and insightful suggestions helped me improve the quality of the thesis. In addition, special thanks go to Hsin-I Chang, Hui-Ling Chen, Mei-Ching Chen, Ching-Hsin Cheng, Hsiao-Ling Hsu, Mei-Chu Lin, and Li-Mei Yu, by alphabetical order. The subject recruitment would have been more difficult without these people’s arrangement and kindly assistance. I would like to thank professors who taught me in NTNU: Dr. Yung-O Biq, Dr. Hsiao-Hui Chan, Dr. Miao-Ling Hsieh, Dr. Shu-Kai Hsieh, Dr. Jen-Yi Li, Dr. Hsueh-O Lin, Dr. Hsi-Yao Su, Dr. Kwock-Ping Tse, and Dr. Hsiao-Hung Iris Wu, by alphabetical order. Besides, I would particularly like to thank Dr. Jason Mattausch, who introduced me to Linguistics when I was an undergraduate student in Providence University. Moreover, I want to thank my classmates in NTNU: Lina Chiu, Abbie Hsu, Sam Jheng, Ann Lee, Vicky Lin, Clare Liu, Stella Liu, Chris Wang, Bonnie Wei, and Bebe Wu, by alphabetical order and dearest roommates Shih-Han Sheila Chen, Ryu Da-Jung, and Chen-Ling Jenny Hsu. Their constant support and encouragement drove iii.

(5) me to give my best. My heartfelt thank goes to my partners Katherine Chen, who has been a source of moral support to me. Working on my thesis would be a lot different without Gina Yang, who helped me particularly in coding the raw data without hesitation and giving generous supports to me. I am fortunate to have them during my graduate school years. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my parents, my brother, my sisters, and my loved one. They have helped me financially and spiritually and always showed faith in me when I almost wanted to give up on my thesis. I don’t imagine a life without their love and encouragements. Without their constant supports and everlasting love, the thesis would not have been possible. This thesis is dedicated to my beloved family.. iv.

(6) TABLE OF CONTENTS CHINESE ABSTRACT ............................................................................................. i ENGLISH ABSTRACT ............................................................................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ..................................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................... viii Chapter One Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 1.1 Motivation .................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Theoretical Framework............................................................................... 4 1.3 Research Questions .................................................................................... 6 1.4 Significance of the Study............................................................................ 6 1.5 Organization of the Thesis .......................................................................... 7 Chapter Two Literature Review .............................................................................. 9 2.1 Theoretical Studies of Lao.......................................................................... 9 2.1.1 Ma (2002) ......................................................................................... 9 2.1.2 Liu (2007) ......................................................................................... 13 2.1.3 Zuo (2009) ........................................................................................ 16 2.1.4 Summary .......................................................................................... 18 2.2 Empirical Studies of First Language Acquisition of Metaphorical Expressions ................................................................................................. 19 2.2.1 Levorato and Cacciari (2002) ........................................................... 19 2.2.2 Hsieh (2004) ..................................................................................... 23 2.2.3 Hsieh (2008) ..................................................................................... 27 2.2.4 Hsieh and Hsu (2010) ....................................................................... 29 2.2.5 Summary .......................................................................................... 32 2.3 A New Classification of Lao....................................................................... 34 2.3.1 Lao with a Literal Meaning .............................................................. 35 2.3.2 Lao with a Non-literal Meaning ....................................................... 36 2.3.2.1 Transparent Non-literal Meaning of Lao ................................ 37 2.3.2.2 Opaque Non-literal Meaning of Lao ...................................... 39 2.4 Summary of Chapter Two........................................................................... 42. v.

(7) Chapter Three Research Design .............................................................................. 43 3.1 Subjects....................................................................................................... 43 3.2 Materials and Methods ............................................................................... 45 3.3 Procedures .................................................................................................. 52 3.3.1 Pilot Study ........................................................................................ 52 3.3.2 Formal Study .................................................................................... 53 3.3.3 Scoring.............................................................................................. 55 3.4 Summary of Chapter Three ........................................................................ 55 Chapter Four Results and Discussion ..................................................................... 57 4.1 Acquisition of Literal and Non-literal Types .............................................. 57 4.1.1 A Comparison between Literal and Non-literal Types ..................... 57 4.1.2 General Discussion ........................................................................... 59 4.2 Acquisition of Transparent and Opaque Types ........................................... 63 4.2.1 A Comparison between Transparent and Opaque Non-literal Meanings ......................................................................................... 64 4.2.2 General Discussion ........................................................................... 66 4.3 Acquisition of the Animacy Effect of Lao .................................................. 70 4.3.1 A Comparison between Animate and Inanimate NPs Modified by Lao .............................................................................................. 70 4.3.2 General Discussion ........................................................................... 73 4.4 Task Effect .................................................................................................. 75 4.4.1 Overall Findings ............................................................................... 76 4.4.2 General Discussion ........................................................................... 81 4.5 Age Effect ................................................................................................... 83 4.6 Summary of Chapter Four .......................................................................... 87 Chapter Five Conclusion......................................................................................... 89 5.1 Summary of the Major Findings................................................................. 89 5.2 Limitations of the Present Study and Suggestions for Further Research ... 90 Bibliography .............................................................................................................. 93 Appendix A: Test Items Used in the Interpretation Task ........................................... 99 Appendix B: Test Items Used in the Multiple-choice Task ....................................... 107 Appendix C: Two Tasks Used in the Pilot Study ....................................................... 111 Appendix D: Results of the Pilot Study ..................................................................... 117 Appendix E: Consent Form ....................................................................................... 119. vi.

(8) LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1 The Classification of Lao in Ma (2008)..................................................... 10 Table 2-2 Five Developmental Phases in GEM ......................................................... 20 Table 2-3 Major Findings and Limitations of the Previous Studies .......................... 33 Table 2-4 The Linguistic Properties of Lao ............................................................... 42 Table 3-1 Background of the Subjects ....................................................................... 44 Table 3-2 A Classification of Lao .............................................................................. 48 Table 3-3 An Example of the Interpretation Task ...................................................... 50 Table 3-4 An Example of the Multiple-choice Task .................................................. 51 Table 3-5 An Example of a Trial Question ................................................................ 54 Table 4-1 Subjects’ Overall Performances on Literal and Non-literal Meanings of Lao ........................................................................................................ 58 Table 4-2 The p-values for the within-group Differences between Literal and Non-literal Meanings of Lao ..................................................................... 59 Table 4-3 Subjects’ Overall Performances on the Transparent and Opaque Meanings of Lao ........................................................................................ 64 Table 4-4 The p-values for the within-group Differences between Transparent and Opaque Meanings ............................................................................... 65 Table 4-5 Subjects’ Overall Performances on the Animate and Inanimate Features 71 Table 4-6 The p-values for the within-group Differences between the Animate and Inanimate NPs of Lao ......................................................................... 71 Table 4-7 Subjects’ Overall Performances on the IT and MC Tasks ........................ 76 Table 4-8 The p-values for the within-group Differences between the IT Task and the MC Task ....................................................................................... 77. vii.

(9) LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4-1 Overall Performance of Each Group on Literal and Non-literal Meanings of Lao ..................................................................................... 58 Figure 4-2 Overall Performance of Each Group on Transparent and Opaque Meanings of Lao ..................................................................................... 64 Figure 4-3 The Match between the Semantic Field of Lao (Ma 2002) and the Scale for the Grammaticalization Route ........................................... 68 Figure 4-4 Overall Performance of Each Group on Animate NPs and Inanimate NPs of Lao .............................................................................................. 72 Figure 4-5 Subjects’ Overall Performances of the Animacy Effect on the Transparent and Opaque Meanings of Lao ............................................. 72 Figure 4-6 Overall Performance of Each Group on the IT Task and the MC Task ... 77 Figure 4-7 A Comparison of the Literal Meaning in the Two Task Conditions ......... 78 Figure 4-8 A Comparison of the Non-Literal Meaning in the Two Task Conditions 78 Figure 4-9 A Comparison of the Transparent Meaning in the Two Task Conditions among Groups ......................................................................................... 79 Figure 4-10 A Comparison of the Opaque Meaning in the Two Task Conditions among Groups ......................................................................................... 80 Figure 4-11 A Comparison of Animate Lao NPs in the Two Task Conditions among Groups ......................................................................................... 80 Figure 4-12 A Comparison of Inanimate Lao NPs in the Two Task Conditions among Groups ......................................................................................... 81 Figure 4-13 Developmental Stages for Chinese Children’s Acquisition of Lao ....... 86. viii.

(10) Chapter One Introduction 1.1 Motivation Learning a word is a complex process that involves mappings between a form, a meaning, and a sound. The arbitrary relationship between form and meaning results in difficulties for memorization and the process of rote learning is notoriously slow (Bloom 1963). Interpreting the precise meaning of words like adjectives is a challenging process because of the diverse semantic content of adjectives. According to Dixon (1982), there are seven types of adjectives: Dimension, Physical Property, Color, Human Propensity, Age, Value and Speed and the meanings of adjectives vary based on the nouns they modify. For example, the word good in ‘a good teacher’ and ‘a good meal’ denotes different properties (Klibanoff and Waxman 1998). In addition, there are cases that a word may refer to more than one meaning; to be specific, two levels of meanings are composed, literal and non-literal. For example, the word si in Chinese denotes someone’s endpoint of life, which is taken as the literal meaning ‘die.’ On the other hand, si ‘die’ can be non-literal, meaning ‘nasty’ in the specific context (Hsieh 2008). According to the Markedness Theory (Jakobson 1941, Trubetzkoy 1939), a literal meaning is an unmarked form, which is simple, general and natural and thus is early acquired by children. A non-literal meaning presents an infrequent and complex speech form in one language, and thus is a marked form. Although non-literal expressions are marked in one language, they are commonly used in our daily conversation (Lakoff and Johnson 1980); therefore, to know how children interpret non-literal meanings is an intriguing issue in language acquisition. There is a wide range of literature in which different types of metaphorical. 1.

(11) languages 1 have been discussed. Some examined the distinction between literal, metaphorical, and anomalous meanings (Vosniadou and Ortony 1983), some investigated different types of metaphors such as proportional and psychological metaphors (Nippold and colleagues 1984), and some studied proverbs (Honeck and colleagues 1978, Temple and Honeck 1999) and idioms (Prinz 1983, Levorato and Cacciari 1999, Cain and colleagues 2009, Vulchanova and colleagues 2011). Apart from metaphorical expressions in the previous studies, the present study focuses on the word lao in Chinese. Lao can be interpreted literally or non-literally as shown in (1) and (2), respectively: (1) Xiaoming fu Xiaoming place a hand for support. lao xiansheng. guo. malu.. old man. cross. street. ‘Xiaoming helped an old woman cross the street.’ (2) Wang bobo. han Zhang. bobo. shi hen hao de. lao pengyou.. Wang uncle. and Zhang. uncle. are very good DE old friend. ‘Uncle Wang and Uncle Zhang are good old friends.’ In Chinese, lao has two levels of meanings. When lao is interpreted literally, it means someone or something that is ‘old’ or ‘aged’ (Ma 2002). As in (1), lao is used to denote the advanced age of the direct object xiansheng ‘a man.’ Xiansheng ‘a man’ is modified by lao in the literal sense ‘old.’ On the other hand, lao is non-literal, meaning ‘having a long relation with’ as in (2). Thus, if lao in (2) is interpreted literally as ‘old,’ the sentence meaning would become different and non-sensical. We 1. Previous studies have focused mainly on metaphorical expressions like metaphors (Winner and Gardner 1976, Reynolds and Ortony 1980, Vosniadou and colleagues 1984), or conventional expressions like idioms (Ackerman 1982, Prinz 1983, Levorato and Cacciari 1999, Caillies and Sourn-Bissaoui 2008, Cain and colleagues 2009). In the present study, word meanings are introduced in a graded continuum in which the literal meaning at one extreme and the metaphorical meaning at the other. Between them, there exists the non-literal meaning that is further divided into two types based on the directness association to the core meaning. The classification will be further discussed later in Chapter Two.. 2.

(12) can use the adjective nianqing ‘young’ to modify laopo meaning ‘a young wife’ and the adjective phrase would be understood with no difficulty. Regarding the comprehension of the polysemy, the underlying relations between different senses within lao’s semantic field are worth discussing. In terms of the relations between senses, the polysemy can be two types: linear polysemy and non-linear polysemy (Cruse 2000: 110). Senses exhibit a linear relation if one sense is a specialization of the other. On the other hand, within the non-linear polysemy, the senses are related in two ways, metaphorically or metonymically (Cruse 2000: 112). When the sense is extended in the metaphorical process, it is used figuratively based on the resemblance from the concrete to the abstract concepts. In addition, the metonymy is the other process in which the sense is used figuratively based on an associated relationship. That is, the metonymy works by contiguity or association from the original sense to the extended sense. In addition to the relationship between different senses in a polysemous word, in the first language acquisition studies, the relationship between literal meaning and figurative meaning has been studied which will be further discussed in Section 1.2 (Gibbs 1987, Nippold 1993). To interpret non-literal meanings of a word is not an easy task for young learners. Specifically, it would become more difficult to interpret the same word with different meanings (Hsieh 2008). Therefore, the present study will investigate a different type of metaphorical expressions different from what has been examined in previous studies (Honeck and colleagues 1978, Prinz 1983, Vosniadou and Ortony 1983, Nippold and colleagues 1984, Levorato and Cacciari 1999, Temple and Honeck 1999, Cain and colleagues 2009, Vulchanova and colleagues 2011). It aims to analyze a specific figurative expression lao in Chinese, and see if Mandarin children would have difficulties in interpreting and comprehending figurative expressions with the aid 3.

(13) of linguistic context.. 1.2 Theoretical Background In the course of language-acquisition, to comprehend the word meaning requires ‘an ability to infer the intention of others, an ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic structure, and certain general learning and memory abilities’ (Bloom 1963: 10). Among various first language acquisition research on comprehension. of. metaphorical. expressions,. some. variables. affecting. the. comprehension of metaphorical languages have been commonly discussed (Reynolds and Ortony 1980, Nippold and colleagues 1984, Gibbs 1987, Vosniadou 1987, Levorato and Cacciari 1999, Hsieh 2008). With regard to the figurative expressions, the degree of transparency is regarded as one of the linguistic properties in the literature (Gibbs 1987, Nippold 1993). Gibbs (1987) claimed that ‘idioms differ in the extent to which their literal meanings relate to their figurative interpretations,’ and classified idioms into two types. One is metaphorically opaque idiom in which its figurative meaning was not apparently related to the literal meaning. The other one is metaphorical transparent idiom in which the figurative meaning was closely related to the literal meaning. It is stated that only after children at age 8 or 9 began to explain the figurative meanings of metaphorical opaque idioms since the obscure historical reasons was involved. Concerning the time point of children’s comprehension of metaphorical expressions, different claims have been proposed. The comprehension of metaphorical expressions has an extended phase of development. The age of comprehension is basically prior to 10 and may differ according to the tasks and materials employed (Vosniadou 1987). For example, Nippold and colleagues (1984) found that children at 4.

(14) age 7 were able to comprehend the proportional and psychological metaphors in the multiple-choice questions. Vosniadou and colleagues (1984) demonstrated that children at age 4 were able to enact their metaphorical interpretations with toys in a special constructed toy world. Levorato and Cacciari (1999) found that the 9-year-olds could understand the meaning of an idiom out of context based on its transparency in the multiple-choice task. Overall speaking, age has been found to be a crucial factor affecting children’s acquisition of metaphorical expressions due to the variety of materials and tasks employed in these previous studies. In addition, some studies have discussed the influence of animacy on children’s comprehension of certain linguistic expressions. Gelman and Koenig (2001) studied children’s preference for the animacy-agency association in interpreting the verb move in English. Hsieh (2008) examined whether children’s comprehension of metaphorical meanings of si would be constrained by animacy of the subject NP and her results showed that the younger children (Grades 1 to 3) had difficulties in interpreting sentences with inanimate NPs. To interpret the non-literal meaning of si with an inanimate subject was challenging. Another concern about language acquisition is the Markedness Theory, which was first proposed by Trubetzkoy (1939) and Jakobson (1941) in Prague school. The markedness value is considered one of the universal principles of grammar and can be used to dictate the acquisition sequences (Goodluck 1991). The unmarked form is regarded as the default form which is more frequent, natural, and predictable than the marked form of the comparison set. For example, the regular plural form of a noun is marked such as cats because it has an extra affix while the singular form cat is the unmarked form. Based on the distributional evidence, it is shown that the unmarked forms are less difficult and early acquired. 5.

(15) To sum up, to see if the issues (i.e., degree of tranparency, age, animacy, task effect, and metaphoricality) are dominant factors in comprehending Chinese words lao, the present study will address these issues in children’s comprehension of a specific expression lao in Mandarin Chinese.. 1.3 Research Questions To examine whether the theoretical background can well account for Chinese children’s comprehension of lao expressions, the following research questions are addressed as follows: 1) Are the non-literal meanings of lao more difficult than the literal meanings of lao for Mandarin-speaking children? 2) When children acquired the non-literal meanings, which type of meaning of lao is more difficult for Mandarin-speaking children to comprehend, transparent or opaque? 3) Does the animate feature of the NP modified by lao affect the interpretation of lao? 4) At what age do children correctly comprehend the non-literal meanings of lao in Mandarin? 5) Is there any task effect between the Interpretation Task and the Multiple-choice Task?. 1.4 Significance of the Study Children’s acquisition of metaphorical expressions has drawn numerous attention and has been analyzed in different perspectives in language acquisition research (Reynolds and Ortony 1980, Ackerman 1982, Prinz 1983, Vosniadou and Ortony 1983, 6.

(16) Vosniadou and colleagues 1984, Gibbs 1987, Vosiadou 1987, Winner 1988, Nippold and Taylor 1995, Levorato and Cacciari 1995, 1999, 2002, 2004, Cain and colleagues 2009). Though the theoretical issues concerning children’s ability to comprehend or produce figurative languages have been largely discussed, these previous studies focus mainly on metaphorical language in English. Few studies have addressed L1 metaphorical language comprehension in Chinese (e.g. Hsieh 2008, Hsieh and Hsu 2010). There was a study looking into the figurative expressions of a word in particular (Hsieh 2008) but lao was not discussed. Though some theoretical studies have discussed the meanings and properties of lao, the developmental stage of how lao is interpreted has not been explored. Therefore, the present study aims to provide a thorough picture of children’s comprehension of the non-literal expression lao in Chinese. By exploring a number of theoretical issues, the present study also aims to fill the research gap in previous studies.. 1.5 Organization of the Thesis This thesis is organized as follows: Chapter Two discusses the syntactic and semantic properties of lao and introduces a new classification of lao. Four empirical studies on L1 acquisition of figurative expressions are reviewed. Chapter Three describes the research design of the present study. Chapter Four reports the results and presents the analysis of non-literal meanings of lao, and followed by a brief summary of the major findings and limitations of the present study in Chapter Five.. 7.

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(18) Chapter Two Literature Review In this chapter, the theoretical background and classification of lao, and L1 acquisition of metaphorical expressions are explored. Section 2.1 reviews four Chinese studies on the semantic and syntactic properties of lao. In Section 2.2, four empirical studies on L1 acquisition of metaphorical expressions are discussed. In Section 2.3, a new classification of the linguistic properties of lao is proposed. Finally, a short summary of this chapter is provided in Section 2.4.. 2.1 Theoretical Studies of Lao Lao is a word with diverse senses and different parts of speech. In spite of its complex linguistic feature, lao is frequently used in the daily conversation. As a result, previous researches have discussed the word lao with different foci (Wang 1996, Ji 2000, Zhou 2000, Dong 2002, Guan 2002, Ma 2002, Yang 2003, Liu 2005, Liu 2007, Feng 2008, Zhang and Yu 2009, Zuo 2009). In this section, three of the related studies (Ma 2002, Liu 2007, Zuo 2009) of lao are reviewed.. 2.1.1 Ma (2002) The Chinese word lao is frequently used in Mandarin Chinese. A total of 17 senses of lao are listed in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian). Lao is defined as a polysemous word that has a complex semantic field in which the diverse senses are linked by its core meaning, „old.‟ Ma (2002) states that lao is a distinct polysemous word and some senses of it are derived from its core meaning while others are associated or deduced from the meaning derived from the core meaning. 9.

(19) The semantic properties of lao can be categorized into three levels and the core meaning of each level refers to (a) old, (b) a long period of time, and (c) change dramatically, respectively. The 17 meanings of lao is summarized in Table 2-1. The first level „old‟ refers to Meaning one (e.g. lao ren „elders‟), Meaning two (e.g. jing lao „to respect elders‟), and Meaning three as in (1). (1) Zhangsan de Zhangsan DE. fuqin. zuotian. lao- le.. father. yesterday. old- ASP. (Ma 2002:96)1. „Zhangsan‟s father died yesterday.‟. Table 2-1 The Classification of Lao in Ma (2008) No.. Definition. No.. Definition. 1. Old. 10. Deterioration of macromolecular compounds. 2. To respect elders. 11. (Colors)To be deeper. 3. To die. 12. (States) For a long time. 4. Experienced. 13. (Actions)To happen repetitively. 5. Someone existed a long time ago. 14. Very; extremely. 6. Outmoded. 15. Someone in the final ranking. 7. Original. 16. Prefix indicating the ranking. 8. (Vegetables)To be over-riped. 17. Surname. 9. (Foods)To be overcooked. The first meaning of lao as in (a) refers to „people who is old,‟ as the opposite of „young‟. The second meaning is „elders,‟ and the third meaning refers to someone who passed away, which is a colloquial usage and lao must be followed by the aspect 1. Lao functioned as a verb meaning „to die‟ in (1) is not applicable in Taiwan.. 10.

(20) marker le. According to XuShen Shuo Wen JieZi 2 , lao originally denotes „old.‟ Therefore, Ma (2002) indicated that the second meaning is the primary meaning of which the intrinsic feature –„old‟ (of an elder) is the core meaning of lao in the semantic field. The core meaning–„old‟ comprises a feature „a prolonged period of time,‟ which constructs the second level in the semantic field. „A prolonged period of time‟ links Meaning four (e.g. laoshou „an experienced expert‟), Meaning five (e.g. laopengyou „an old friend‟), Meaning eight, as in (2), and Meaning 12 (e.g. laozhugu „an old customer‟) together. (2) Cai. tai. lao- le.. (Ma 2002:96). vegetables too old- ASP „The vegetables are too over-ripped.‟ Meaning five refers to „something/ someone existed from a long time ago,‟ which is the opposite of „new.‟ Meaning eight describes „the state of overripe (vegetable),‟ and Meaning 12 describes the state „for a long time.‟ Meaning five, Meaning eight, Meaning 12 shares a notion of „continuing duration,‟ directly relating to the core meaning of the second level. However, Meaning four refers to „one who is experienced at something,‟ showing an indirect relationship with „a long period of time.‟ In addition, Meanings six and, seven also belong to the second level; Meaning six refers to „outmoded‟ (e.g. laonaojin „an outdated brain‟) and Meaning seven refers to „original‟ (e.g. laodifang „an original place‟). Both are deduced from Meaning five. Things change through a long period of time. The core meaning of the second level „a prolonged period of time‟ brings about several types of changes. Therefore, the core meaning of the third level turns into „changing dramatically,‟ which links 2. XuShen defined lao: “Lao, kao ye. Qishiyuelao”which means that lao also named as kao, people who are seventy-year-old can be referred as aged.. 11.

(21) Meanings 9, 10, 11, 13, 14 together. Meaning 9 refers to „foods being overcooked‟, showing the change of degrees as shown in (3); Meaning 10 refers to „deterioration of macromolecular compounds,‟ indicating a change of qualities (e.g. laohua „aging‟); Meaning 11 refers to „(colors) being deeper‟ as a change of quantity (e.g. laohong „deep red‟); Meaning 13 refers to „actions happen repetitively‟ as in (4), showing the change of frequency in which „a prolonged period of time‟ refers to the interval between repetitive actions. Meaning 14 refers to „very,‟ describing a change of degree (e.g. laozao „very early‟). (3) Jidan zhu egg. lao le.. cook. (Ma 2002:96). old ASP. „The egg was overcooked.‟ (4) Renjia. lao. tician. wancheng. renwu,. others. always. ahead. finish. mission,. women. ne?. we. how. (Ma 2002:96). „Others always finish ahead of time, how about us?‟ In addition to the concrete meanings of lao mentioned above, lao can be a derivational prefix as in Meanings 15 and 16. Meaning 15 indicates „someone in the final ranking‟ (e.g. laoerzi „final born son‟), which is grammaticalized from the core meaning of the first level „old.‟ Moreover, Meaning 16 indicates the ranking and it is grammaticalized from the core meaning of the second level „a prolonged period of time.‟ Overall, Ma (2002) proposes a complete semantic field of lao and further analyzes the relationships among the diverse meanings of lao. However, the analysis still has some inadequacies. According to her, lao has 17 meanings but it does not 12.

(22) occur in the same linguistic context. From the perspective of language acquisition, different meanings of lao ought to be systematically categorized into fewer types. Also, although the semantic relation between the three levels of meanings of lao is thoroughly discussed, Ma‟s analysis fails to provide the meanings of lao in the metaphorical context. Moreover, a clear explanation for the grammaticalization of lao is not provided.. 2.1.2 Liu (2007) Lao has been continually used to denote „old, aged,‟ which is regarded as the core meaning in its semantic field. Other meanings of lao are developed and grammaticalized from its core meaning. Liu (2007) summarizes the process of grammaticalization of lao both diachronically and synchronically, and states that the primary semantic feature of lao is „the excess of a certain degree,‟ which further develops multiple meanings of lao. In her study, the motivation and mechanisms of grammaticalization from different perspectives like syntac, semantics, and cognitive semantics are analyzed. First of all, the syntactic context is the inducement of grammaticalization. Lao as an adjective has been frequently used preceding the predicate; thus, as time goes by, lao is steadily regarded as a frequency adverb meaning „often, always,‟ as exemplified in (5). (5) Ta. dui. shei. lao. xiaolianxiangying,. he. meet. whom. always. smile,. you. shuo. you xiao.. with talk. (Liu 2007:4). with laugh. „He is always smiley and talkable to get along with others.‟ In the process of grammaticalization, lao is transformed from a content word into 13.

(23) a derivational affix in a series of shifts. Lao is essentially an adjective modifying nouns such as kinship terms, name initials, career types, or animals. For modifying kinship terms, lao originally keeps the meaning of „aged‟ to denote the elder relationship to the kinship terms as in (6). (6) Dazhangfu. qi. real man. dang. how bear. qiu. ming?. seek. fame. yi. lao jie. by old sister (Liu 2007:10). „How would I bear to seek the fame by my sister? ‟ Liu (2007) claims that lao as in (6) has started to be used as an affix from the Six Dynasties and still keeps the meaning of „elder.‟ In (6), lao carries the meaning of „elder‟ to modify the sister, meaning „elder sister.‟ The syntactic place enables lao to be grammaticalized as an prefix which is attached to the noun. Liu (2007) proposes that lao preceding a specific career category such as jizhe „a reporter‟ as in laoji „a reporter‟ denotes the emotion of „banter.‟ It is worth noting that the grammaticalization of lao preceding the career type is initially from laoshi „teacher,‟ which originally means „an experienced, elder researcher‟ to the Song Dynasty of China when laoshi has been used as „someone who teaches.‟ Until now, the meaning of lao is no longer related to the age or experience of a person. Moreover, lao can precede da „big,‟ yao „youngest,‟ and numerals from two to ten (e.g. laoyao „the last born child‟.) In this type, lao denotes the rank of siblings and is derived from the construction of “lao + kinship terms,” but loses the semantic traits of respect. With regard to lao preceding animal terms as in laohu „tiger,‟ laoshu „mouse,‟ and laoying „eagle,‟ these animal terms (e.g. hu „tiger,‟ shu „mouse,‟ and ying „eagle‟) are originally used as an independent word. Through the morphological process, i.e., 14.

(24) affixation, in which lao is added as a prefix to the main component of the lexicon. In modern Chinese, words following lao can still form a word. Thus, the prefix laoloses its meaning completely and is used as a morphological element to facilitate one-syllable words to transform into two-syllable words. Liu (2007) states that lao has not been used as a prefix until the Tang and Song Dynasties. Liu (2007) proposes that the grammaticalization of lao has underwent the process of metaphor. Grammaticalization is a process of lexical change and also a mental and cognitive process. Lakoff (1987) proposes an idealized cognitive model (ICM), which includes four models: image-schematic, metaphoric, metonymic, and symbolic models. Liu (2007) claimes that the grammaticalization of lao should be formed through a metaphoric process. Metaphor is a cognitive process of transferring meanings from a concrete concept (source) to an abstract concept (target). The main characteristic of metaphor is the similarity between two domains. She suggests that the semantic bleaching is one of the processes of grammaticalization, in which the content of a lexical entity becomes abstract and gradually disappeared. Lao extends its meanings from one meaning to other meanings through this metaphorical process. To be specific, the frequency adverb lao projects its meaning from time domain (meaning „a long period of time‟) into a property domain (denoting „the duration of an action‟). Therefore, it is concluded that a close relationship is found between the semantic extension of lao and man‟s cognitive mechanism. Overall, Liu (2007) focuses on the mechanism of grammaticalization of lao and explains the grammaticalization process of three syntactic categories of lao. She summarizes a complete course of grammaticalization of lao both diachronically and synchronically. There is merely a general explanation for the metaphoric process; however, the process in which the meaning of lao shifts from core to peripheral is not 15.

(25) mentioned. A comprehensive account for the literal and non-literal meanings of lao is still necessary.. 2.1.3 Zuo (2009) In modern Chinese, lao is regarded as a polysemy with a complicated semantic system. Zuo (2009) analyzes the semantic feature of the adjective lao and demonstrates a selection restriction of adjectives on the argument. It is argued that lao has three semantic features: time continuity, self-change, and quantity. Therefore, the argument nouns should be constrained to the features of continuity and changeability. First of all, Zuo (2009) proposes that the core meaning of lao is „old‟ which further encloses another feature „a prolonged period of time.‟ As a result, the adjective lao includes the feature of time continuity. If we employ the “lao + N” structure as the description of the present state of the object (N), the object must undergo a long continuing period of time from the initial state to the present state. That is, lao represents the time continuity from past to now. Owing to the specific semantic feature of lao, the nouns collocated with lao must be semantically restricted to the feature „time continuity.‟ For example, the animate noun, zuxian „the ancestor‟ whose semantic feature includes the time continuity of life, is defined as a person from whom one is descended. In addition, elder kinship terms can co-occur with lao since the feature „a prolonged period of time‟ is deduced from the definition of the kinship term (e.g. zufu „the grandfather‟). Besides, inanimate nouns which are closely related to human beings , so they are able to co-occur with lao because the relation between nouns and human being results in the displacement of a semantic feature. Zuo (2009) states that the semantic feature „time continuity‟ shifts from human beings to inanimate nouns closely related to 16.

(26) human beings. For example, gutou „the bone,‟ tui „legs,‟ or xi guan „habits‟ are given the feature „time continuity‟ by the displacement. As a result, inanimate nouns are able to co-occur with lao. The feature of „time continuity‟ can also shift to nouns relating to human‟s occupation and identity. For example, „someone was a financial worker by occupation for a prolonged period of time‟ can be lao caizheng „financial work‟. Secondly, Zuo (2009) states that there must be a constantly changeable and dynamic process when objects change from the initial state to the present state. This kind of change is formed without external forces; thus, it is called self-change. That is, the semantic feature of lao „a prolonged period of time‟ represents the self-change feature of argument nouns. For example, yuangong „staff‟ in laoyuangong is not old due to the external force; instead, the staff has worked for a long time or the staff is growing old, which is an internal state of change (i.e., self-change). Since nouns co-occuring with lao have the feature of „time continuity,‟ things must change as time elapses. According to Zuo (2009), the way of change includes quality of change and quantity of change; so does self-change over time. For example, lao jingcha „the police officer‟ referring to someone who has been a police officer for a long time, is a type of quantity self-change. According to the degree of vitality, animate nouns are divided into three categories: (a) high degree of vitality, referring to nouns denoting human beings, (b) less high degree of vitality, referring to nouns of animal types, (c) low degree of vitality, referring to nouns of plants types. As the degree of vitality grows higher, the possibility of self-change becomes higher. The states resulting from self-change differ according to the degree of vitality. That is, the higher degree of vitality yields the higher possibility of self-change, and the resulting state becomes more complicated, and vice versa. For example, if we analyze the 17.

(27) phrase lao jingcha „lao police officer‟ independently, four types of self-change take place as presented in (7a)-(7d) (Zuo 2009): (7) a. one who is a police officer for a long period of time b. an aged police officer c. an experienced police officer d. one who retired from being a police officer Since the police officer is a human being with the highest degree of vitality, the resulting state is especially complicated. Zuo (2009) suggests that an appropriate interpretation is made only when the phrase is used in the linguistic context. As a result, lao represents the self-change property of objects resulting from the continuing changes over time. Overall speaking, according to Zuo (2009), lao as an adjective in the “lao + N” construction has several semantic features: time continuity, self-change, and degree of quantity. It is argued that lao semantically constrains the feature of co-occuring nouns. However, her study cannot provide the explanation for the animacy of the noun modified by lao. Moreover, a complete account for literal and metaphorical meanings of lao is not given, either.. 2.1.4 Summary To sum up, in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary, lao has 17 meanings. A close relationship is found between various meanings that form a complicated semantic field of lao (cf. Ma 2000). Lao functions as an adjective, meaning „old,‟ followed by a noun to form a noun phrase. Lao semantically constrains the co-occuring noun (cf. Zuo 2009). In addition to adjectives and adverbs, lao can be an affix which undergoes the process of grammaticalization to form a lexical word. The. 18.

(28) mechanism of grammaticalization is discussed (cf. Liu 2007). Most of these previous studies offer a descriptive rather than theoretical account for the specific properties of lao. Although the semantic features and the relationship of lao are discussed, no researchers have discussed the relationship of lao in literal and non-literal expressions. In the next section, we will review four empirical studies on L1 acquisition of figurative expressions.. 2.2 Empirical Studies of First Language Acquisition of Metaphorical Expressions In this section, four empirical studies on children‟s acquisition of metaphorical language and the development order are reviewed in chronological order (i.e., Levorato and Cacciari 2002, Hsieh 2004, Hsieh 2008, Hsieh and Hsu 2010).. 2.2.1 Levorato and Cacciari (2002) Levorato and Cacciari (2002) proposed a model of the acquisition of figurative language, named the Global Elaboration Model (henceforth GEM) to explicate the development of figurative competence. The GEM is exemplified by five developmental phases which include the abilities and level of knowledge to process language with possible age range, as shown in Table 2-2:. 19.

(29) Table 2-2 Five Developmental Phases in GEM3 The developmental phase. Description of figurative languages. Age. Phase 1. A primitive type of processing is carried out consisting of a piece-by-piece elaboration of the linguistic input; children process language literally even when it does not make sense in the linguistic context (Levorato and Cacciari 2002:129).. 0-7. Children start searching for the clues which could. Phase 2. lead to a non-literal interpretation of the linguistic input. During this phase children to realize that a discrepancy between what is said and what is expected should not always be interpreted as a communicative error (Levorato and Cacciari 2002:129).. 8-10. The child acquires the knowledge that the same communicative intention can be realized through different sentence forms (literally, idiomatically, Phase 3. Phase 4. metaphorically, and so forth). …, in phase 3, the internal state of the speaker, his/her intentions and knowledge, are taken into consideration (Levorato and Cacciari 2002:129).. 10-12. An ability to use a conventional repertoire of figurative expressions is achieved by fifteen-year-olds. The developmental gap between the ability to comprehend and to produce figurative language, still presented in phase 3, is progressively. 15. reduced, particularly as far as idiomatic expressions are concerned (Levorato and Cacciari 2002:130).. Phase 5. 3. An adult-like figurative competence is reached that is characterized by the ability to use figurative language in a creative way and based on a metalinguistic and metasemantic awareness (Gombert, 1992) representing the most mature acquisition is also achieved (Levorato and Cacciari 2002:130).. The statements of Global Elaboration Model (Levorato and Cacciari 2002) are summarized into Table 2-2 for the sake of convenience.. 20. adult.

(30) They investigated the development of meta-linguistic awareness in the creation of figurative expressions with the support of the GEM. Two experiments were conducted in the study. Experiment 1 was an elicitation task in which their subjects were asked to create a new expression to denote the target expression. The targets consisted of two types: (1) nine common actions that were familiar to children, e.g. Rivelare un segreto (revealing a secret), (2) nine common emotions that were generally experienced by children, e.g. Essere felici (being happy). Four age groups were recruited from two schools of Padua (Italy): 108 nine-year-old children (Mean age=9;6), 124 eleven-year-old children (Mean age=11;3), 112 adolescents (Mean age=18;5, range from 14;1 to 19;7), and 100 adults (university students). There were two types of instructions: (1) the nominal instruction: the subjects were allowed to produce a new figurative expression without constraints (e.g. „Target is…‟), (2) the comparative instruction: the subjects were asked to use a comparative structure „Target is like …‟, which the researchers attempted to explore whether the constraint „like‟ would influence the subjects‟ creation of figurative expressions. The answers to new figurative expressions were classified into four categories. The first category is Synecdoches/ Metonymies which refer to expressions “when the part for the whole was referred to, or the opposite” (p. 134). For instance, „having a red face‟ (nine-year-olds), „walking with lowered head‟ (teenagers) are expressions to the target item Being ashamed (common emotion). Secondly, “when the conceptual relation between the target and the new expression was easily inferable” (p.134), it is defined a transparent metaphor, e.g. „putting glue in the pajamas‟, „to be a boiled potato‟ (eleven-year-olds), which is an expression for the common action Sleeping too much. The third type is an opaque metaphor, which is defined as “when a more complex mapping from source to target is required than for a transparent metaphor” 21.

(31) (p. 134). For instance, „being like a glue‟, „being like a blanket of snow that prevents life‟ (adolescents) are productions to the common emotion Being jealous. The fourth type is a convention idiom, which is defined “when the subject used existing idiomatic expressions or slight variants” (p.134), e.g. „being on top of the sky‟ is the production of the common emotion Being happy. The production is similar to the Italian idiom „being in the seventh sky.‟ The results of Experiment 1 showed that the ability to produce new figurative expressions had a developmental trend which was only up to adolescence (9-year-olds=37%, 11-year-olds=42.4%, adolescents=67.5%, and adults=61.3%). In other words, the adolescents behaved similarly to the adults. The comparative instruction („is like‟) was found to produce more figurative expressions for all age groups except the adults since the operator „like‟ provided the young children with the cue of generic cross-domain similarity. Also, the production of transparent metaphors was easier because the conceptual domain between the source and target is already existing and thus easily inferable than opaque metaphors. Experiment 2 investigated the comprehensibility, appropriateness and novelty of examples of transparent and opaque metaphors elicited in Experiment 1. Nearly 50 % of the samples were randomly selected and judged by 240 adults. The subjects were asked to rate on a seven-point scale to each expression (from 1= not at all, to 7= extremely). Results of Experiment 2 showed that the production became more comprehensible, novel, and appropriate with the increasing age. It was unexpected that the production with the nominal instruction obtained the highest scores for three scales than the comparative instruction which elicited more production in Experiment 1. The production of many children went beyond the paraphrase of the target expressions, which supporting the GEM that children are able to go beyond the literal 22.

(32) expressions. To summarize, Levorato and Cacciari (2002) investigated the ability to produce figurative expressions for two targets (i.e., actions and emotions) in two instructions (i.e., nominative and comparative), and judged the answers by the appropriateness, comprehensibility, and novelty. The subjects‟ production was classified into four categories: Synecdoches/ Metonymies, Transparent metaphors, Opaque metaphors, and Conventional idioms. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the subjects produce more transparent metaphors among all types of figurative expressions. However, the lack of other types of figurative expressions (e.g. metonymies or conventional idioms) does not entail the lack of the subjects‟ inability to produce the figurative expression. It may be due to the influences of the instructions involving „is‟ (i.e., nominative) and „is like‟ (i.e., comparative). To be specific, the instruction may impose some constraints on the production of figurative expressions.. 2.2.2 Hsieh (2004) During the course of language acquisition, metaphorical ability is considered to be acquired late. There are considerable studies concerning English metaphors; however, little attention is paid to the development of Chinese metaphors. Hsieh (2004) explored the development of Chinese figurative language, especially metaphors and metonymies by investigating both children‟s comprehension and production. Metaphors and metonymies are both cognitive processes but work in different ways. Metaphors include two conceptual domains in which an abstract concept is understood based on the concrete object; that is, in the mechanism of metaphor, the metaphorical meaning is mapped from the source domain to the target domain. On the other hand, metonymies involve no domain change. Hsieh (2004) 23.

(33) conducted two tasks and recruited 80 subjects. They were divided into four age groups and each group consisted of 20 subjects. Their mean age were 6 (kindergartener), 10 (fourth grade of primary school), 15 (junior high student), and 19 (university student). In Experiment 1, the metaphorical production of all age groups was investigated. The production of metaphorical expression was elicited with two types of instruction: the Nominal instruction (A is B) and the Comparative instruction (A is like B). Sixteen test items were used and classified into two categories: concrete nouns and emotion adjectives. Thus, four factors were discussed between the instruction types and target types. Experiment 1 was conducted to see which type of target item (concrete nouns or emotion adjectives) was better for metaphor elicitation. Test items were selected from Gentner (1988) and Levorato and Cacciari (2002). Since some metaphors were culture-specific, some cultural unrelated items were modified to be close to Taiwanese culture. Besides, the nominal instruction was tested prior to the comparative instruction to make sure that the linguistic pattern „is like‟ does not prompt the mappings. The answers elicited from Experiment 1 were classified into three general categories: literal (including paraphrase, examples, description), metaphorical. (including. attributive,. relational,. double,. conventional),. and. metonymical (synecdoche, producer-product, user-object, cause-effect). Experiment 2 was a comprehension test which consisted of two parts and it was conducted based on the results of Experiment 1. First of all, Hsieh (2004) investigated the subjects‟ preference for comprehending metaphors of concrete nouns. That is, whether the subjects preferred attributive metaphors or relational metaphors was discussed. Two types of metaphors which differed in that attributive metaphors are mapped based on the shape or appearance of an object and relational metaphors are 24.

(34) mapped based on their function. The second part was to discover the subjects‟ preferences for metaphors or metonymies when they comprehended emotion adjectives. In Experiment 2, 16 questions were given altogether with three choices: in the comprehension of concrete nouns, choices including (a) attributive metaphor, (b) relational metaphor, and (c) nonsense mapping, as in (8); as for the comprehension of emotion adjectives, choices comprised differently (a) metaphoric expression, (b) metonymic expression, and (c) nonsense item, as shown in (9). In addition to the eliciting questions, the subjects were asked to justify their answers to confirm the meaningful mappings and exhibit the mapping processes. (8) The moon is like A. a ball B. a light bulb C. a rice dumpling, because … (Hsieh 2004:41) (9) Being happy is like A. a smile face B. singing birds C. head down, because … (Hsieh 2004:42) The results of Experiment 1 indicated that under concrete nouns, targets with comparable instructions (X2 value = 110.35, df = 9, p < .05) triggered more metaphors than nominal instructions (X2 value = 109.98, df = 9, p < .05). The results were collaborated by Levorato and Cacciari (2002) that the comparative instruction which served as a prompt indeed enhanced the performance in mapping domains. Moreover, the elicitation under concrete nouns with the nominal instruction, the younger children (Mean ages = 6;7, 10;11) used attributive metaphors more frequently (6-year-olds: N=73, 45.625% and 10-year-olds: N=61, 38.125%) than relational-nominal metaphors (6-year-olds:N= 6, 3.75% and 10-year-olds: N=18, 11.25%); on the contrary, the rest of the age groups (mean ages = 15;10, 19;05) preferred to use relational-nominal metaphors (15-year-olds: N=51, 31.875% and 19-year-olds: N=30, 18.75%) than 25.

(35) attributive metaphors (15-year-olds: N=13, 8.125% and 19-year-olds: N=20, 12.5%). Under the elicitation of emotion adjectives with comparative instruction, the elder groups (Mean ages = 15;10, 19;05) produced more metaphors (15-year-olds: N=94, 58.75% and 19-year-olds: N=82, 51.025%) than the younger groups (6-year-olds: N=2, 1.25% and 10-year-olds N=16, 10.00%). Generally speaking, the emotion adjectives with the nominal instruction triggered metonymies frequently (N=16.25%, 21.25%, 21.25%, 26.25%, in four groups respecitvely) than metaphors (N= 0%, 2.5%, 7.5%, 15.625%). The triggered metonymy was only limited to the subtype- cause and effect. Overall, the junior high students (Mean age = 15;10) produced the most metaphors of the age groups. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the younger children tended to comprehend concrete nouns based on the shape or appearance of the object (i.e., attributive metaphors) (6-year-olds: P = 81.875% and 10-year-olds: P = 76.875%). On the other hand, when comprehending emotion adjectives, the younger children preferred metaphoric mapping (6-year-olds: P = 57.5% and 10-year-olds: P = 55.625%) than metonymical mapping (6-year-olds: P = 39.375% and 10-year-olds: P = 43.75%); with the growth of age, metonymical expressions were preferred (15-year-olds: P=59.375% and 19-year-olds: P = 53.125%). Overall, Hsieh (2004) indicated that the children inclined to elicit metaphors based on the appearance of the objects. Besides, concrete nouns were prone to elicit metaphors whereas emotion adjectives were apt to elicit metonymies. However, Hsieh‟s research design was inconsistent. For example, in the production task, the instruction was differently made for different age groups, resulting in a bias in the findings.. 26.

(36) 2.2.3 Hsieh (2008) Metaphors are non-literal uses of linguistic expressions. In order to comprehend the metaphorical expressions, meta-linguistic ability needs to be developed. Since the simple processing ability may not be able to comprehend metaphorical expressions, it is considered that metaphors are acquired late in children‟s language development. Few studies have been conducted on the first language acquisition of metaphorical expressions in Chinese. Instead of looking into metaphor phrases and idiomatic phrases, Hsieh (2008) focused on a single word si „die‟ and reclassified its syntactic and semantic properties. She investigated the acquisition of Chinese word si with metaphorical meanings. One hundred forty-four subjects were recruited from Grades 1 to 6 in an elementary school, which were divided into six age groups (Mean ages = 6;4, 7;7, 8;7, 9;7, 10;7, 11;6). Five issues were discussed in the study: Markedness Theory, context effect, animacy effect, age effect, and categorical effect. Two tasks were employed; Words in Isolation (WII) and Words in Context (WIC). (10) Si-diao „die off‟ (11) Jinxian hen shangxin, yinwei tade xiaomao zuotien si-diao le. „Jinxian was sad, because her kitten died last night.‟ The first task consisted of si items in isolation as in (10) and the second task presented si items in context with animate or inanimate NP subjects as in (11). Both tasks included multiple-choice questions. In order to test the subjects‟ comprehension of the literal and metaphorical meanings of si, three options were given in each question: (a) literal meaning, (b) metaphorical meaning, and (c) irrelevant meaning. Hsieh (2008) categorized si into three types based on its syntactic categories: Type 1 as a verb (which further classified into three subtypes: Type 1-1 a single verb, Type 27.

(37) 1-2 in an RVC construction (V+si), and Type 1-3 followed by a verb (si+V)), Typ2 as an adjective, and Type 3 as an adverb. Each type was divided into literal and non-literal meanings based on the semantic properties of si. The results showed that the literal expressions were easier to comprehend than metaphorical expressions which supported the Markedness Theory that as long as the marked form was acquired (i.e., the non-literal meaning), the unmarked form would be acquired (Hsieh 2008: 69). Moreover, it was found that the children‟s performance was remarkably enhanced by the contextual clues (i.e., WIC task). The overall results for the comprehension of metaphorical meanings indicated that the children performed better on the WIC task than on the WII task, supporting previous literature that metaphors were found much easier to comprehend in context than in isolation (Gardner and Winner 1978). As far as the animacy effect is concerned, the younger children (i.e., Grades 1 to 3) encountered more difficulties in comprehending sentences with inanimate NPs than animate NPs. Hsieh claimed that since the animacy effect was violated, the children failed to interpret the non-literal meanings of si. On the other hand, the elder children (i.e., Grades 4 to 6) had no difficulties in comprehending sentences with inanimate NPs, showing that the NP with an animate feature can determine the meanings of si. In addition, regarding the categorical effect, the answers to metaphorical meanings of si followed a difficulty hierarchy in which Type 1 (si as a verb) > Type 2 (adjective) > Type 3 (adverb). This tendency corresponded to the acquisition of word class that verbs and nouns were frequently used; thus acquired earlier than other syntactic categories. The fact that adverbs that were the most difficult to comprehend might be due to the peripheral and optional contribution to the meanings of si. Among the subtypes of si as a verb, Type 1-3 (si+V) was the easiest to interpret. Overall 28.

(38) speaking, it was found that the subjects‟ metaphorical ability was constrained by the categorical type of si. Furthermore, age was found to play an influencing role in the development of metaphorical ability. For the children at higher grades, they were performed better at interpreting both literal and metaphorical meanings; also, they comprehended the syntactic types of si better than the younger children. The age of 10 was found to be the breakthrough of interpreting children‟s metaphorical ability. This finding was consistent with the previous results (Gardner and Winner 1978, Gibbs 1987, Levorato and Cacciari 2002, Prinz 1983). On the whole, Hsieh (2008) investigated the acquisition of si in Chinese and discussed five issues. She discussed si expressions in three types of parts of speech: as a verb, as an adjective, and as an adverb; thus, different syntactic constructions of si were compared. Although similar linguistic expressions (i.e., single word with different meanings) were discussed, whether the findings of si apply to the results of lao remains an issue.. 2.2.4 Hsieh and Hsu (2010) Much attention is paid to the studies of the development of idiomatic expressions in production and comprehension. Most of the studies of idiomatic development focused on the native speakers of English, French, and Italian. There was little research of the idiomatic expression comprehended by Mandarin-speaking children. Thus, Hsieh and Hsu (2010) conducted two experiments to investigate the effect of familiarity, context, and linguistic convention on L1 idiom comprehension of Mandarin-speaking children. A total of 32 subjects were recruited from an elementary school and divided into two age groups: the mean age of the first group was 6;1, and the second was 9;6.. 29.

(39) Besides, 16 adults were recruited as a control group. In Experiment 1, the subjects were asked to answer the meanings of chosen idiomatic expressions without any linguistic context. In Experiment 1, a list of 30 plant name idioms was selected from the Academia Sinica Balanced Corpus of Mandarin Chinese. These idioms were rated on a four-point scale by 45 elementary school teachers to confirm the familiarity degree to children. A total of 14 idioms were chosen from the assessment: seven familiar and seven unfamiliar. The subjects‟ answers were coded and classified into two categories: „Correct‟ (i.e., correct idiomatic meaning) and „other‟ (i.e., literal meaning or unrelated meaning). In Experiment 2, a comprehension task along with a meta-pragmatic task was conducted. Hsieh and Hsu (2010) aimed to investigate how context and familiarity influenced children‟s comprehension and children‟s meta-pragmatic knowledge. The children were asked to choose a picture describing either the literal meaning or the idiomatic meaning. The selected 14 idioms were embedded in two different stories: one depicting the literal meaning of the idiom and one depicting the idiomatic meaning. Each idiom with a story included four pictures in which the fourth picture contained two sub-pictures: one describing the literal meaning of the idiom and the other the idiomatic meaning. The subjects were asked to choose one of the sub-pictures based on their comprehension of the idiom. After the picture selection, they needed to give explanations for their choice which was a meta-pragmatic task. In the meta-pragmatic task, the subjects‟ explanations were classified into four categories: (1) relating to linguistic convention, (2) relating to literal meaning, (3) relating to the context, (4) relating to other factors like story setting or ambiguous explanations. The results of Experiment 1 showed that the 6-year-olds and 9-year-olds 30.

(40) comprehended familiar idioms better than unfamiliar ones with no context; however, in the familiarity condition, the 6-year-old children produced more „Other‟ answers whereas the 9-year-old children produced more „Correct‟ answers. It was found that familiarity played an influential role affecting the children‟s comprehension of idiomatic expressions. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the idiomatic context was a significant factor in the comprehension of idiomatic meanings. For the 6-year-olds, although they chose more literal answers in both contexts, the increasing proportion of idiomatic answers in literal and idiomatic context (literal context: 8.48%, idiomatic context: 25.43%, t (15) = 2.78, p = 0.013 in both familiar and unfamiliar conditions) indicated that the idiomatic context was indeed a useful aid to comprehend idioms. Regarding the familiarity, only the 9-year-olds performed significantly better on the unfamiliar idioms than on the familiar ones (F (1,15) = 7.079, p < .05). Although the results were not significant, the familiarity effect was found at the age of 6 in that the 6-year-olds chose more correct answers to unfamiliar idioms than to familiar ones. As for the meta-pragmatic task, the 6-year-olds explained their reasons mostly related to the context, the 9-year-olds provided explanations related to the context and linguistic conventions, the adults‟ explanations were more related to linguistic conventions, showing that linguistic convention developed significantly at the age of 9. In brief, the overall results showed that the familiarity effect was found at the age of 6. The context was indeed an important factor in the comprehension of idiomatic meanings at the age of 6, which was evidenced by Gibbs (1991), Abkarian and colleagues (1992), and Levorato and Cacciari (1995, 1999). The results of Experiment 2 showed that all the groups performed better on the idiomatic context condition than on the literal context condition. However, the results are convincing because the 31.

(41) design of the literal context is a great interruption which mislead the subjects to choose the literal meanings rather than idiomatic meanings.. 2.2.5 Summary Table 2-3 summarizes the major findings and limitations of the four empirical studies reviewed in this section.. 32.

(42) Table 2-3 Major Findings and Limitations of the Previous Studies Major findings. Limitations. Levorato 1. Linguistic aid: The instruction „is like‟ and (i.e., comparative instruction) is a Cacciari crucial cue to motivate the metaphor (2002) mappings. 2. Age: A developmental trend is found in the creation of figurative expressions. 3. Type: Transparent metaphors were Hsieh (2004). 1. Subjects: Three age groups (Mean ages=9;6, 11;3, 18;5) and adults 2. Materials: 9 common actions and 9 common emotions 3. Tasks: (1) A Production Task. easier to produce than opague ones.. (2) A Judgment Task (by adults). 1. Linguistic aid: The instruction „is like‟ triggers more metaphors. 2. Age: A development trend of ability is found to produce metaphors for concrete nouns. 3. Type: Concrete nouns were prone to elicit metaphors whereas emotion adjectives were apt to elicit. 1. Subjects: Four age groups (Mean ages=6;7, 10;11, 15;10, 19;05) 2. Materials: concrete nouns and emotion adjectives 3. Tasks: (1) A Production Task (2) A Comprehension Task. metonymies. Hsieh (2008). 1. Context: Metaphors were much easier to comprehend in context than in isolation. 2. Age: The age of 10 was the breakthrough of interpreting the metaphorical meaning. 3. Type: The metaphorical ability was constrained by the categorical type of. 1. Subjects: Six age groups (Mean ages= 6;4, 7;7, 8;7, 9;7, 10;7, 11;6) and adults 2. Materials: Chinese si expressions 3. Tasks: (1) A Word-in-Isolation Task (2) A Word-in-Context Task. si. Hsieh and Hsu (2010). 1. Context: The idiomatic context was important by the age of 6. 2. Familiarity: The familiarity effect was found at the age of 6. 3. Convention: Convention is a significant factor at the age of 9.. 1. Subjects: Two age groups (Mean ages= 6;1. 9;6) and adults 2. Materials: 14 plant name idioms 3. Tasks: (1) A Word-Card Task without context (2) A Story Picture Selection Task in literal and idiomatic context (3) A Meta-pragmatic Task. 33.

(43) Generally speaking, in L1 acquisition of metaphorical language, some aids were found to help children in the process of acquisition. First, the word „like‟ was favored in producing metaphorical language (Levorato and Cacciari 2002, Hsieh 2004). Second, the linguistic context was found to be an influencial clue to help comprehend metaphors (Hsieh 2008, Hsieh and Hsu 2010). Influencing effects have also been discussed thoroughly, such as familiarity (Hsieh and Hsu 2010), categorical types (Hsieh 2004, Hsieh 2008), and age (Hsieh 2008, Hsieh and Hsu 2010). As for the limitations of these studies, although these researches have studied metaphorical language, their research designs were different. First, the materials were extremely distinct. For example, some investigated the type of metaphors (Levorato and Cacciari 2002, Hsieh 2004), some studied the single word expression (Hsieh 2008), and some looked into the specific type of idioms (Hsieh and Hsu 2010). Second, different task types were employed in these studies; for example, some used only a comprehension task (Hsieh 2008, Hsieh and Hsu 2010), some employed only a production task (Levorato and Cacciari 2002), and only one of these previous studies employed both tasks (Hsieh 2004). Last but not the least, the age groups recruited in these studies were not the same. With different research methods, diverse types of figurative expressions, and different age groups, the findings varied as well. Yet, the influential factors like context, age, and type effect have not been commonly discussed.. 2.3 A New Classification of Lao In Section 2.1, several studies of the semantic features of lao in different syntactic constructions have been reviewed. It is argued that lao has diverse meanings and it collocates with different types of nouns (Ma 2002, Zuo 2009). Its meanings 34.