Chinese children's acquisition of the meanings of transitive Kai

• Main Authors: Hsuan-mei Hong, 洪萱眉
• Other Authors: Jenny Yi-Chun Kuo
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/70749905051524448593

碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 外國語言學系研究所 === 100 === Words are necessary tools for communication for people and also play an essential role in language acquisition. Children utter their first word at around age one, but they do not actually know the meanings of the words they utter due to limited experience. Gradually, they acquire the meanings of words as the adults’ use through accumulating the features of word meanings. They broaden the scope of the words at beginning, then gradually, they would narrow the scope (Clark, 1973). For example, Bowerman & Choi (2001) found that English-speaking children overextended the use of open, which denotes object-separation. Furthermore, Sullivan (2006) noted that the words with multiple meanings are common in the daily life, and their meanings are understood relying on the context. Based on the core meaning, the multiple meanings of words are extended via metonymy, or via metaphor. Therefore, the aim of the present study is to figure out Chinese-speaking children’s order of acquisition of different senses of Chinese kai. Forty participants were selected from different age groups (2-,3-,4-,and 5-year-olds). Picture naming task and picture identification task were conducted. Eighteen phrases of kai based on Wang’s categorization (1995) were selected, and according to those eighteen phrases, the pictures were designed. Each sense includes two pictures— one is related to true sense of kai, and the other is not. The results of the present study showed that the meanings extended by analogy are easily acquired, and then metonymy follows. The meanings extended by metaphor are difficult to acquire by children. The study provide the process of the extended meanings of verb in lexical acquisition.