The Development of Figurative Meanings in Children: A Case Study of L1 'Lao'

兒童的喻義理解發展：以「老」字之母語習得為例

徐佩瑜(Pei-Yu Hsu)；陳純音(Doris Chun-Yin Chen)

隱喻意義 ； 語意透明度 ； 生命效應 ； 華語 ； 第一語言習得 ； metaphoricity ； transparency ； animacy ； Mandarin Chinese ； first language acquisition

華語文教學研究

13卷3期（2016 / 09 / 01）

1 - 45

英文

本研究旨在探討以中文為母語之兒童對「老」字的喻義理解，主要探討的議題包括隱喻意義、語意透明度和生命效應等因素。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。最後，研究發現，七歲兒童仍在理解字面語意階段，兒童十歲後方能理解隱喻用語搭配有生命與無生命名詞；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。

The present study aims to investigate Chinese-speaking children's understanding of lao, which can be interpreted both literally (as meaning ＂old＂) and non-literally in Chinese. Two comprehension tasks were conducted to examine three factors: metaphoricity, transparency and animacy. The subjects were one hundred elementary school children, between 7 and 11 years old, and they were further divided into five age groups. And twenty adults made up the adult group. The results showed that the literal meaning of lao was found easier to comprehend than its non-literal meaning. The opaque non-literal meaning of lao was more challenging than the transparent literal meaning for all the children. With regard to animacy, our children tended to comprehend lao when used in animate noun phrases (NPs) more easily than when used in inanimate NPs. Finally, the results indicate that children at age 7 could only comprehend the literal meaning of lao, and that the non-literal meanings of lao when used in both animate and inanimate NPs could not be fully acquired until age 10.

1. Ackerman, Brian P.(1982).On comprehending idioms: Do children get the picture?.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,33,439-54.
2. Berma, R. A.(ed.)(2004).Language Development across Childhood and Adolescence.Amsterdam, The Netherlands:John Benjamins Publishing Company.
3. Bloom, Paul(1963).How Children Learn the Meanings of Words.London:The MIT Press.
4. Cain, Kate,Towse, Andrea S.,Knight, Rachael S.(2009).The development of idiom comprehension: an investigation of semantic and contextual processing skills.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,102,280-98.
5. Durkin, Kevin,Crowther, Robert,Shire, Beatrice,Riem, Roland,Nash, Penelope R. G.(1985).Polysemy in mathematical and musical education.Applied Linguistics,6,147-61.
6. Eckman, Fred R.(1977).Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis.Language Learning,27,315-330.
7. Feng, Jin-E.(2008).Hubei, China,Central China Normal University.
8. Gardner, Howard,Winner, Ellen(1978).The development of metaphoric competence: implications for humanistic disciplines.Critical Inquiry,5,123-41.
9. Gibbs, Raymond W.(1987).Linguistic factors in children's understanding of idioms.Journal of Child Language,14,569-86.
10. Goswami, Usha(ed.)(2002).Blackwell Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development.New York:Wiley-Blackwell.
11. Greenberg, Joseph(1963).Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements.Universals of Language,Cambridge, MA:
12. Hamp, Beate(ed.)(2006).From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics.Berlin:Mouton de Gruyter.
13. Heine, Bernd,Claudi, Ulrike,Hünnemeyer, Friederike(1991).Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework.Chicago:The University of Chicago Press.
14. Hsieh, Ching-Yu,Hsu, Chun-Chieh(2010).Idiom comprehension in Mandarin-speaking children.Journal of Psycholinguistic Research,39,505-22.
15. Hsieh, I-hua(2004).Taipei,National Taiwan Normal University.
16. Hsieh, Meng-Hsuan(2008).Taipei,National Taiwan Normal University.
17. Lakoff, George,Johnson, Mark(1980).Metaphors We Live by.Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
18. Levorato, M. Chiara,Cacciari, Cristina(2002).The creation of new figurative expressions: psycholinguistic evidence in Italian children, adolescents and adults.Journal of Child Language,29,127-50.
19. Levorato, M. Chiara,Cacciari, Cristina(1999).Idiom comprehension in children: Are the effects of semantic analyzability and context separable?.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,11,51-66.
20. Levorato, M. Chiara,Cacciari, Cristina(1995).The effects of different tasks on the comprehension and production of idioms in children.Journal of Experimental Child Psychology,60,261-83.
21. Liu, Yi-Fei(2007).Jilin, China,Northeast Normal University.
22. Ma, Hui-Ling(2002)."Lao" yuyi tanwei.Yindu Journal,2002,96-8.
23. Nippold, Marilyn A.,Rudzinski, Michelle(1993).Familiarity and transparency in idiom explanation: a developmental study of children and adolescents.Journal of Speech and Hearing Research,36,728-37.
24. Nippold, Marilyn A.,Taylor, Catherine L.(1995).Idiom understanding in youth: further examination of familiarity and transparency.Journal of Speech and Hearing Research,38,426-43.
25. Prinz, Philip M.(1983).The development of idiomatic meaning in children.Language and Speech,26,263-72.
26. Schwartz, Richard G.(1980).Presuppositions and children's metalinguistic judgments: concepts of life and the awareness of animacy restrictions.Child Development,51,364-71.
27. Temple, Jon G.,Honeck, Richard P.(1999).Proverb comprehension: the primacy of literal meaning.Journal of Psycholinguistic Research,28,41-70.
28. Vosniadou, Stella(1987).Children and metaphor.Child Development,58,870-85.
29. Vosniadou, Stella,Ortony, Andrew(1983).The emergence of the literal-metaphorical-anomalous distinction in young children.Child Development,54,154-61.
30. Vulchanova, Mila,Vulchanov, Valentin,Stankova, Margarita(2011).Idiom comprehension in the first language: a developmental study.Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics,8,207-34.
31. Winner, Ellen(1988).The Point of Words: Children's Understanding of Metaphor and Irony.Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.
32. Zhao, Dongni(2013).Hunan, China,Hunan Normal University.
33. Zuo, Shuang-Ju(2009).Lunxingmingzupei de yuyi hudongxing-yi "lao + N" jiegou weili.Journal of Changsha Social Work College,16,120-23.

1. 張榮興、林建宏(2018)。從篇章角度分析概念多義之現象─以華語名前形容詞「老」為例。華語文教學研究，15(3)，49-83。