Mandarin-speaking children's politeness in requests

Abstract

本研究主要探討台灣漢語兒童在日常家庭對話中，對父母行使請求時的語言表現及禮貌現象，以了解漢語兒童的語用發展歷程與現象。研究的重點主要是在兒童表達請求的言語行為時所使用的語言形式，以及人際關係中會影響兒童禮貌表現的因素及其反應在語言形式的使用情形。透過對兩位以漢語為母語的兒童長期互動的觀察，本研究發現，兒童在表達請求時，採用多元的語言形式，包含祈使句、直述句、帶有語尾助詞的祈使句、以及表達個人慾望或需求的陳述句。考量這些語言形式使用的情境後進一步發現，兒童傾向在一般的日常對話中多以表達個人慾望的陳述句為表達請求的主要語言形式，而在合作互動的情境中，主要的請求語言形式則絕大多數為祈使句；這樣的語言功能分工，在兩歲半左右可以明顯觀察得到。 另外，透過兒童語言形式表達禮貌的觀察顯示，兒童普遍會依照人際互動的一些因素來選擇表達請求時所適用的語言形式，尤以有效性及地位高低為主要的兩個考量因素。觀察中發現，兒童大量使用祈使句及表達個人慾望需求的陳述句來表達請求，而其他的語言型式相對上則少得許多，主要的因素很有可能是這兩類的語言型式，在他們與父母互動中最能有效達到他們的溝通目的。此外，兒童也會依照他們在表達請求時與他們父母間的地位高低來考量請求所要使用的語言形式。儘管觀察結果指出，兒童傾向使用能有效達到溝通互動目的的語言形式來表達他們的請求，必要時，他們也會依照互動雙方的地位關係進行語言形式的微調，這樣的語言表現有明顯的系統性；而這樣的系統性，進而突顯了兒童約略在三歲前即對禮貌在語言形式使用的影響有了初步的系統與了解。 除了句法結構外，兒童也會透過詞彙單位來傳達他們在請求所應注意的禮貌，例如，必要時，他們會使用「幫」、「請」、及「我們」來修飾或削弱請求時可能對對方所造成的影響。這些詞彙的使用在發展上屬於略晚才習得的語言形式。 最後，研究的結果也指出，雖然兒童表達請求時，使用較為間接而有禮的語言形式，未必較能有效地達到他們的溝通目的，但是如果在表達請求的同時，也進一步說明理由者，達到溝通目的的機率則有明顯的增加。另外，從語言形式和表達請求的情境及人際地位的互動中發現，兒童表達請求的基本語言形式極有可能為表達個人的慾望與需求的陳述句，儘管祈使句在所觀察的語料中使用的頻率最高。這樣的論點，不但符合其他文獻中針對兒童語言發展的發現，也貼近兒童語言發展為連續過程的觀點，且也反應了人類語言發展的基本歷程。This study aims to investigate Mandarin-speaking children’s requests and their linguistic politeness so as to contribute to the understanding of children’s pragmatic development as well as linguistic development. The present study is mainly concerned with what linguistic devices children utilize to issue requests in spontaneous interactions with their parents and what interpersonal factors may have an influence on children’s uses of request forms. These two issues were discussed through examinations over children’s spontaneous interactions with their parents in family settings. On the basis of the longitudinal data produced by two children, it has been found that when requesting, children draw upon various linguistic devices, primarily including simple imperatives, WANT statements, imperatives with sentence-final particle, and declaratives. Such a variety of request forms can be observed from an early age on, at around two years old, but demonstrates no remarkable development, judged simply by these formal devices used at different ages. When situational contexts are also taken into account, nevertheless, a developmental pattern regarding the request forms is thus revealed. In terms of situational contexts, children are found to use simple imperatives primarily to convey their requests when involved in interactive activities with their parents, whereas they tend to utilize both simple imperatives and WANT statements when having common talks with their parents. Such a division of labor can be noticeably observed when children are about two and half years old. As to children’s linguistic politeness when making requests, the results reveal that children are aware of the influence of certain interactional and interpersonal factors on the appropriate use of linguistic forms. Children are inclined to draw upon comparatively more effective forms to issue their requests, and therefore children by and large request with pure imperatives and WANT statements, since these two request forms may effectively obtain the desirable compliance from their parents. In addition to effectiveness, children may also take interpersonal status and request cost into consideration when judging which request forms to use in the immediate context. Such consideration of interpersonal status when determining the appropriate request forms to use may thus reflects children’s awareness of politeness at around the age of three. In addition to syntactic structures, children are also found to draw upon lexical items to show their deference to politeness. Children may use such lexical forms as qing ‘please’, bang ‘to help with’ and women ‘let’s; we’ to mitigate the illocutionary force in their requests. These forms, despite their low frequencies in the data, may thus reveal children’s sensitivity to politeness when making such a face-threatening act as requests. The use of these polite lexical forms also discloses a comparatively late development in linguistic politeness; children may not use such polite forms until they reach the second half of their second year. A late development is also observed in the respect of children’s use of reasons to justify their requests. The results show that children’s justification may generally increase the effectiveness of their requests, but such use is infrequent and only observed at a later age, around the age of three. Finally, the results of the investigation into the data may suggest that WANT statements are highly likely an earlier developed request form and the prime linguistic forms children rely on to issue their requests, given the findings that children tend to request with WANT statements when interacting with parents at a lower status as a child and that children’s use of request forms are prone to the effect of interpersonal status. Such a suggestion may not only conform to the findings in previous studies with regard to children’s linguistic development in requests, but also accord with the general developmental pattern of human languages