Mandarin-speaking children’s expression of negation in mother-child conversation

• Main Author: 陳亭伊
• Other Authors: 黃瓊之
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/01641803608043643729

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 語言學研究所 === 104 === 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 to use single strategy to negate, unlike adults. In contrast with peer interaction in which children preferred to use indirect strategy to maintain their friendship, the amount of direct strategy and indirect strategy were quite even in our data. Their indirect strategies tended to appear in negation meanings that are potentially face-threatening (rejection and denial) or reveal their own insufficiency (inability and epistemic negation). They also inclined to use a combination of strategies to deliver 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 less than boys did, mainly using indirect negation or understandable accounts while 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.