手勢與玩偶線索對幼兒代名詞推論之影響

Effects of Co-Speech Gestures and Doll Cues on Pronoun Resolution in Children

中文口語的第三人稱代名詞沒有語音線索，故非語言結構的外在訊息成為幼兒代名詞推論的關鍵線索。本研究旨在探討搭配敘說使用手勢與玩偶對幼兒代名詞推論的影響。本研究共進行兩個實驗，皆以影音呈現敘說短故事，故事內容由脈絡句、主題句、代名詞句構成，在故事結束後請幼兒進行代名詞推論。實驗一計有4歲組38位及5歲組40位幼兒，探討在代名詞指涉對象不明確時，故事敘說情境（單純手勢、手勢與玩偶）對幼兒進行代名詞推論的影響，是否有明顯的首位偏好現象。結果顯示，不論是單純手勢情境或手勢與玩偶情境，5歲組皆有明顯的首位偏好現象；4歲組僅在手勢與玩偶情境才出現首位偏好現象。實驗二計有4歲組50位及5歲組47位幼兒，沿用與實驗一相同方法，進一步探討當代名詞明確指涉主詞與受詞的推論結果。結果顯示，4歲與5歲組在手勢與玩偶情境的答對率皆高於單純手勢情境。整體而言，在代名詞指涉對象不明確時，5歲組有明顯的首位偏好現象；此外，即使故事中由動詞語意形成主受詞關係來構成代名詞有明確指涉對象，手勢與玩偶線索對幼兒代名詞推論的影響效果仍是大過於語意線索的影響，顯示出幼兒提取語言結構線索作為代名詞推論的能力仍在發展中，且外在的具象視覺線索占有相當的影響力。

No phonetic clues exist for singular pronouns in spoken Chinese. During comprehension for pronoun resolution, nonverbal structural external information is a key cue for pronoun resolution. Two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of co-speech gestures and doll cues on the pronoun resolution of a group of 4- and 5-year-old Chinese speaking children. In each experiment, children watched videos of short stories and were asked pronoun resolution–related questions at the end of each story. In experiment 1 (seventy-eight 4- or 5-year-old children), ambiguous pronoun resolution was reported. The 5-year-old children exhibited first-mention biases when co-speech gestures were used, whereas the 4-year-old children did not do so; however, both age groups exhibited first-mention biases when both co-speech gestures and doll cues were used. In experiment 2 (ninety-seven 4- or 5-year-old children), the identification of subject and object pronouns was observed. Both age groups achieved significantly higher accuracy when both co-speech gestures and doll cues were used. This finding suggests that first-mention biases have a stable effect on ambiguous pronoun resolution in 5-year-old children. In addition, 4- or 5-year-old Chinese-speaking children are more sensitive to co-speech gestures and doll cues than to speech-internal cues.