從語料庫探究以英語為母語的兒童說故事時「然後」的使用

A Corpus Linguistic Study of the Use of Then in English Children’s Storytelling

「連接詞的掌握」在發展孩童第一、第二語言的言談連貫性上，具有非常重要 的地位，許多研究也致力於探討英語為母語的兒童，如何使用連接詞來發展其言談 能力。兒童在說故事時常會用「then」來連結前後情節。本研究檢視母語為英、美 語的孩童如何在口說、書寫方面使用「then」。口說資料取自於兒童語言交換系統語 料庫，以二至十三歲的兒童為主。書寫文本則是由網站上蒐集，以十三歲以下兒童 書寫的故事為主。本研究採用語詞分析軟體WordSmith Tools 來分析文本。另外，我 們用了Schiffrin （1992）的篇章分析架構，來探究兒童說故事時「then」的使用情 形。她認為「then」傳遞了三個層次的意涵：時貌、語篇和認知上。本研究結果指 出，孩童在口述故事時，「then」的使用幾乎全面性都在時貌的層次，而其文字與認 知的層次則出現在書面部分。本研究結果可作為台灣英文教師設計兒童英文課程的 參考。

Mastering the use of conjunctions is crucial to the children’s development of discourse cohesion in both L1 and L2. Many studies examined the development of English-speaking children’s discourse competence in the use of conjunctions. “Then” was found to be a preferred discourse marker in children’s storytelling. This corpus-based study examined the use of then by children aged two to thirteen in the database of the Child Language Data Exchange System and the online stories written by children under 13. WordSmith Tools, lexical analysis software, is employed to analyze the texts. The analysis of the discourse is based on the model postulated by Schiffrin (1992), who claims that then conveys meanings of three levels: aspectual, textual, and epistemic. The results of this study indicate that while the children’s use of then in spoken storytelling concentrated overwhelmingly at the aspectual level, the use of then at textual and epistemic realms was found in the written texts. The results of this study can be good reference for English language teachers to develop their syllabuses for Chinese-speaking children in Taiwan.