Comprehension and Production of Pronoun referencing: A Developmental Study of Mandarin-Speaking Children
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Chou, Hsiang-nan
DOI
en-US
Abstract
The present study explores the connection between pronoun comprehension and production. A comprehension task and a production task were conducted to test children of ages 4 and 6. The comprehension task examined children’s comprehension strategies for pronoun references in stories in which there are two competing animate referents. Narratives based on the comprehension stories were assessed in the production task to see if there is consistency between comprehension and production. Four comprehension strategies were identified based on the result of the comprehension task: (1) subject-based strategy, (2) character-based strategy, (3) semantics-based strategy and (4) mixed strategy. It was also observed that character-based comprehension strategy would lead to false comprehension in the present setting because the study involved two animate characters. A shift of comprehension was observed between age 4 and age 6. More children of age 6 adopted semantics-based and mixed comprehension strategy while fewer adopted character-based comprehension strategy. Further examination of narrative produced by children of different comprehension strategies was carried out by analyzing the types of referential expressions used under different contexts (reference introduction, reference maintenance, and reference switching). It was observed that while the use of referential expressions in contexts of reference introduction and reference switching are similar within both age groups, difference of patterns was observed under the context of reference maintenance. Although the rate of using explicit expressions was similar among comprehension strategies at age 4, difference was observed among different strategies for age 6. Six-year-olds with subject, semantic, and mixed strategy use more explicit expressions and combination of explicit expressions than 6-year-olds with character-based comprehension strategies. Subsequent statistical analysis showed that there was a correlation between comprehension strategies and use of explicit referential expressions for children of age 6. On the other hand, no correlation between comprehension strategies and the use of explicit referential expressions was found among children of age 4. The data indicated that as children get older they are more sensitive to the proper discourse cues that would lead to appropriate comprehension of referential relations. As they are more sensitive to these referential relations they pay more attention to the referential expressions used in their narratives and use more explicit expressions to avoid ambiguity in production. The lack of correlation between comprehension strategies and referential use for group of age 4 can be attributed to the lack of language input to shape their language comprehension and production. This finding can be viewed as in line with Clark’s (2003) relationship between C(comprehension) – representation and P(production) – representation. When children grow older, they receive more language input to moderate their comprehension and can further use the way they comprehend referential expressions to monitor their production of referential expressions.
Subjects
語言習得
代名詞指涉
代名詞理解
代名詞使用
理解與使用
Language Acquisition
Referential Expressions
Referential Comprehension
Referential Production
Comprehension and Production
Type
other
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