幼兒習得母語過程中的一些現象初探

Preliminary Observations of Children's Acquisition of Mandarin Chinese

本研究係以長期定期追蹤的方式，自隨機自然觀察中，錄音取得幼兒習得國語為母語過程中的一些資料，加以整理分析，將幼兒自呀呀發聲起至滿三足歲期間所提供的語言資料挑選，以重覆、模仿、標名、代名詞及屬性觀念形成等語言現象予以討論，並討論幼兒語言發展過程中的個別差異，這些差異包括了各受試幼兒正確使用上述各語言結構時間先後，使用多寡的差異，以及自開始使用第一項結構到完成最後一項結構進程的差異等，並對同一語言表象所可能代表的不同語言意義亦試加討論。這些實例及討論使我們相信，儘管各受試幼兒習得母語的過程中差異極大，但就他們獲得母語而言，似乎並不構成什麼差異，可見語言的發展的過程，是可以包容各種個別性的。

The study reports some preliminary observations of 5 Chinese children acquisiting Mandarin as their native language. Longitudinal studies were conducted biweekly, and at some points weekly, to tape record naturalistic observations of the linguistic activities of the subjects, over the duration from the subjects babbling stages (35 weeks, 38 weeks, 58 weeks, etc.) to a fully communicative stage(156 weeks)outside their homes. We discuss the overlapping emergence of repetition, immitaion, naming, as well as the correct use of personal pronouns and possessive personal pronouns in Mandarin Chinese. Above all, we also discuss subjects' individual variation over each above-mentioned linguistic phenomenon and the course each subject took to acquire these structures. Despite the overwhelming individual variation, these subjects appear to have acquired Mandarin sufficiently by age 3(156 weeks). It seems to provide evidence that an innate ability is being triggered and flourished regardless of differences over the seemingly sporadic linguistic data we obtain.