The Development of Phonological Representations among Chinese-Speaking Children

中國孩童音韻表徵之發展

本研究以兩項實驗探討中國孩童隱性與顯性音韻表徵是否會隨閱讀經驗之增長而產生結構性之變化。隱性音韻表徵（implicit phonological representations）乃隱含於聽與說中無法直接操控之音韻表徵，顯性音韻表徵（explicit phonological representations）則為語音操弄時可直接操控之音韻表徵。實驗一以剛上幼稚園中班、無閱讀經驗的孩童為研究對象。實驗二則以一年級初學閱讀的孩童為對象，觀測其由一年級至三年級的發展。結果顯示：中國孩童音韻記憶主要的錯誤形式，為將目標字串中的音節內容（子音、母音）重新組合，形成新音節；就比例而言，這種音節內容重組的錯誤較把整個音節誤植的錯誤為高。其比率在學齡前後顯著增加，且與認讀注音符號能力的增長量相關。顯性表徵之發展順序與隱性表徵相彷：學前孩童在識字之前無法直接操弄語音音節之內在結構；一年級孩童則有此基本能力。此外，操弄語音內在結構的能力與認讀注音符號能力在學齡前最後一次施測時呈顯著相關，此關係並持續至學齡後三年。隱性與顯性音韻表徵之發展順序雖然類似，但並無證據顯示後者之發展建構於前者之上。本文試以語言模組（modularity）的概念解釋兩種音韻表徵發展之異同。

Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that implicit and explicit phonological representations of Chinese speaking children undergo restructuring with reading experience. Implicit representations refer to those that are automatically handled by the language module; explicit representations refer to those that are explicit control units in speech manipulation. Experiment I studied the restructuring process among a group of pre-schoolers who had little knowledge of printed words when they were first tested. Experiment II studied a group of novice readers from the beginning of the first grade until the end of the third grade. The results revealed that children’s memory errors contained more errors in transposing subsyllabic units available in the stimulus strings than errors in misordering entire syllables. The proportion of transposition errors increased significantly from the pre-school age to the first grade and was related to the rapid increase in the children’s ability to read Zhuyin fuhao. The developmental sequence of explicit representations parallels that of implicit representations in that pre-schoolers could not cope with the phonological awareness task at the subsyllabic level at a time before they could demonstrate any ability in reading whereas first-grade children demonstrated fundamental control over the task. Children’s performances on phonological awareness were related to Zhuyin fuhao reading ability at the last testing session of the pre-school age and continued to be evident till the third grade. Though parallel in developmental sequence, there was no evidence that the development of explicit representations depended on the development of implicit representations. The notion of modularity was adopted to account for the gap between the developments.