華語幼兒之新詞學習與表達性詞彙的關係

Relationship between Fast Mapping, Retention, and Expressive Vocabulary in Mandarin-Speaking Toddlers

嬰幼兒早期的詞彙發展能預測未來的語言和閱讀發展，文獻指出新詞學習能力是2~3歲詞彙快速增長的重要機制之一。「快速配對」是幼兒初聽到一個詞彙時，將名稱與物件或動作之語意特徵形成連結，「保留」則是將初始連結整合到已知詞彙的歷程。有研究發現因心理及語言特性不同，動詞習得較名詞困難，此外，華語幼兒早期詞彙庫因較英語系語言有較高的動詞比例、且具論元省略等特性，因此新詞學習表現也可能有所差異。本研究目的在瞭解華語幼兒新詞學習機制以及其與早期詞彙庫之關聯性，以40位平均生理月齡37個月之一般發展幼兒為對象，以華語嬰幼兒溝通發展量表（臺灣版）、自編名詞與動詞之新詞學習作業來檢視其詞彙庫及新詞學習能力的發展，並探討兩者的關聯性。結果發現此階段幼兒的詞類組成以名詞最多、謂詞次之、封閉詞最少。新詞學習則發現此階段幼兒已發展動詞與名詞快速配對能力，但詞彙保留的表現明顯較差，且動詞表徵保留及整合較名詞來得困難。相關分析顯示僅動詞學習能力與詞彙量呈現中高度正相關性且兩者能彼此預測，顯示動詞學習能力較好的華語幼兒其詞彙庫較大，擁有較多詞彙的幼兒也能利用既有詞彙庫來擴增更多新詞，顯示動詞學習對於華語幼兒詞彙發展的重要性。

Vocabulary development is an ongoing process that begins in early infancy and continues into early adulthood. Moreover, early word-learning abilities are strongly related to later literacy performance. Fast mapping (FM) is a critical word-learning mechanism for early vocabulary growth in 2–3-year-old toddlers. Aside from FM, retention is another crucial ability that enables children to retain and integrate a novel word into their lexicon. In the past, word-learning studies focused on how children learn a noun and were mostly based on English acquisition. According to the literature, word class can influence how children learn a new word; for example, among toddlers, learning the word for a novel action is more difficult than learning the word for an object, implying that learning verbs is harder than learning nouns. Some research has explained that many concrete nouns refer to naturally discrete referents. By contrast, even verbs with fairly concrete meanings (such as motion verbs) are more ambiguous than nouns. Owing to the high-frequency input of verbs and their salient position in a sentence, Mandarin is considered a verb-prominent language. Researchers have also discovered that Mandarin-speaking toddlers have a higher ratio of verbs in their lexicon compared with similarly aged speakers of other languages. In the current study, we investigated (1) the scope and composition of toddlers’lexicons; (2) the word-learning performance (FM, Retention, and Production) of 25–45-month-old Mandarin-speaking toddlers; (3) how word class affects toddlers’performance in learning new words; and (4) the relationships between toddlers’intrinsic word-learning abilities and their extrinsic lexicon. This study recruited 40 developmentally typical Taiwanese toddlers who met the following criteria: (1) first language was Mandarin and (2) were not developmentally delayed or physically or mentally impaired. The average participant age was 37 months (standard deviation [SD] = 5.15). We used a standardized assessment, namely the Mandarin Chinese Communicative Development Inventory, Taiwan version, to assess the word composition and lexicon of individual Mandarin-speaking toddlers participating in the present study.