درک تضمنِ مدرج در کودکان 3 تا 7 ساله تک زبانه فارسی زبان (مقاله علمی وزارت علوم)
درجه علمی: نشریه علمی (وزارت علوم)
آرشیو
چکیده
درک تشبیه نیازمند دو مهارت کاربردشناختی مجزا است: درک شباهت موردنظر و استخراج تضمنِ مدرج (مانند «نینا مانند یه خرگوشه» که به طور معمول متضمن «نینا یه خرگوش نیست» است). باوجوداین، مهارت دوم در پژوهش های داخلی تاکنون مطالعه نشده است. هدف از انجام پژوهش حاضر بررسی توانایی کودکان 3 الی 7 ساله و بزرگسالان تک زبانه فارسی زبان در درک تضمنِ مدرج بود. به این منظور، 50 کودک تک زبانه فارسی زبان 3، 4، 5، 6 و 7 ساله به روش نیمه تصادفی انتخاب و با 10 بزرگسال مقایسه شدند. درواقع، عملکرد آزمودنی های پژوهش در آزمایش قضاوت شباهت و در آزمایش دوم که به شکل یک بازی صورت گرفت، بررسی و مقایسه شد. در آزمایش اول، آزمودنی ها باید جمله «x مانند y است» را به عنوان جمله بیان کننده شباهت درک می کردند. در آزمایش دوم، آزمودنی ها با دریافت سرنخ هایی به شکل استعاره (نینا یه خرگوشه) و تشبیه (نینا مانند یه خرگوشه)، باید تصویر متناسب به آن سرنخ (یه خرگوش، یه دختر یا یه دختر خرگوش مانند) را انتخاب می کردند. یافته های پژوهش نشان داد که کودکان 3 ساله قادر به درک تضمنِ مدرجِ «x یک y نیست» بودند، درحالی که کودکان 5 الی 7 ساله، همانند بزرگسالان بیشتر پاسخ های منطقی را انتخاب می کردند. نتایج پژوهش نشان داد که کودکان از همان اوایل کودکی قادر به درک و استخراج تضمنِ مدرج هستند و با افزایش سن، انتخاب معنای تحت اللفظی تشبیه و استعاره کاهش می یابد.Comprehension of Scalar Implicature in 3-7 Mono-Lingual Persian-Speaking Children
Simile understanding requires two distinct pragmatic skills: understanding the intended similarity and deriving a scalar implicature (e.g., “Nina is like a rabbit” normally implies that “Nina is not a rabbit”). However, the second skill has not been studied yet by Iranian researchers. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability of mono-lingual Persian-speaking children aged 3 to 7 years old and adults in understanding scalar implicature. To this aim, 50 Persian-speaking children, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 years old were selected through a semi-random method and were compared with 10 adults. The groups were investigated and compared in the first experiment which was a form of similarity judgment task and in the second experiment, which was in a form of a game. In the first experiment, subjects should understand “x is like a y” as an expression of similarity. In the second experiment, the subjects received metaphors (“Nina is a rabbit”) and similes (“Nina is like a rabbit) as clues to select one of three images (a rabbit, a girl, or a rabbit-looking girl). The results showed that 3-year-old children could understand the implicature “x is not a y”, whereas 5 years old children performed like adults. The results showed that children from early childhood were able to understand and derive scalar implicature, and the literal meaning of simile and metaphor decreased with increasing age.
Keywords: scalar implicature, simile, metaphor, mono-lingual Persian-speaking children.
Introduction
Although people don’t always express their intended meaning when talking with others, they don’t have any problems in everyday communication and the successful interaction continues. According to an influential view on communication, which is expressed by Grice (1975), the reason is that the listener will process the meaning of language in two levels. In other words, the listener understands the literal meaning of utterances, but generally enriches the literal meaning by pragmatic inferences which are influenced by speakers’ intentions. Pragmatic reasoning is the result of the expectation that the speaker, as one of the parties of the conversation, will communicate enough to his audience and try to provide sufficient, correct, and concise information provide sufficient, correct, and concise information about the conversation (Grice, 1975). When these expectations are violated in the context of the speaker’s communicative behavior, the listener tries to compensate for this breach of communication by inference about the intended meaning of the speaker. Studies have explored children’s ability to compare different categories in various communicative contexts, from early overextensions (e.g., calling a horse “doggy”) (Bloom, 2002; Cark, 1973; Gershkoff-Stowe et al., 2006) to pretend play (e.g., calling a bucket a “hat”) (Hudson & Nelson, 1984; Vosniadou, 1987a; Winner et al., 1979) and the comprehension of similes and metaphors (Di Paola et al., 2019; Seidenberg & Bernstein, 1986; Vosniadou et al., 1984).
Studies by Happe (1995), Norbury (2005), Reynolds & Ortony (1980), Seidenberg & Bernstein (1986), Siltanen, (1990), Vosniadou & Ortony (1983), Vosniadou et al. (1984) on metaphor and simile comprehension report that for young children, similes are easier to interpret than metaphors, probably because the comparison is explicit. Children’s understanding of similes is related to the development of figurative language (Vosniadou & Ortony, 1983) and analogy (Vosniadou, 1995), both of which require pragmatic reasoning to determine the intended similarity or parallel in a simile or analogy. There are, for example, different ways in which Jack could be like a lion: His hair may be long and messy, resembling a lion’s mane, or he may be strong like a lion (Rubio-Fernandez & Grassmann, 2016). Rubio-Fernandez et al. (2017) have proposed that similes (or comparison statements, more generally) involve another form of pragmatic reasoning that has been overlooked in the literature: the derivation of a scalar implicature. Thus, comparing Jack to a lion (as in “Jack is like a lion”) implies that Jack is not a real lion; otherwise, the speaker would say “Jack is a lion’. In this view, categorization statements of the form “X is a Y” and comparisons of the form “X is like a Y” form a scale in which comparisons are weaker than categorizations, such that their use may imply that the stronger statement does not apply (i.e., describing X as being “like a Y” would imply that X is not a Y). The aim of this study was to investigate preschoolers’ interpretation of similes not only as expressions of similarity (in line with traditional studies of figurative language), but also as scalar expressions that can license the derivation of quantity implicature (Rubio-Fernandez et al., 2017)
Research Hypotheses:
1) It is predicted that even 3-year-old children, like adults in the present study, will understand the sentence “x as a y” as expressessing similarity.
2) It is predicted that literal interpretations of similes (e.g., taking “Melika is like a parrot” as referring to a parrot) in children aged 3 to 7 will decrease with age, revealing a developing ability to derive scalar implicatures (i.e., Meliks is not a parrot).
3) In the metaphor condition, a literal bias is predicted across the preschool years (e.g., understanding “Melika is a parrot” as a literal description of a parrot, rather than a metaphorical description of a parrot-looking girl)
Literature Review
Developmental studies since the 1980s have shown that young children understand similes earlier than metaphors (Vosniadou, 1987a). Supporting the view that literal comparisons and similes are interpreted through similar mechanisms, Vosniadou and Ortony (1983) showed that children aged 3 to 6, like adults, did not prefer literal or figurative continuations in a comparison task. When given statements of the form “X is like Y,” all age groups were as likely to complete the comparison with a literal continuation (e.g., “Rain is like snow”) than with a figurative continuation (e.g., “Rain is like tears”), only dispreferring anomalous comparisons (e.g., “Rain is like a chair”). Öz alıskan and Goldin-Meadow (2006) and Öz alıskan, et al. (2009) investigated the emergence of comparisons of the form “X is like Y” in the spontaneous speech of 40 English-speaking children during a period of 2 years: from ages 1;2 to 2;10. The “X is like Y” construction had an early onset, with children routinely using it by age 2;2. Interestingly, early similarity comparisons were holistic, often highlighting strong overall similarity between objects of the same category. However, by 30 months, most comparisons were between objects that belonged to different categories, focusing on a single dimension (e.g., “Brown crayon is brown like my hair”). This developmental trajectory suggests that feature-based comparisons are precursors to more analogical reasoning (Öz alıskan and Goldin-Meadow (2006); Öz alıskan et al. (2009).
Methodology
Fifteen Persian-speaking children aged 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 years were selected through a semi-random method and compared with 10 adults. The groups participated in two experiments: a similarity judgment task adapted from Long et al. (2021) and a game also adapted from Long et al. (2021). In the first experiment, subjects were asked to understand “x is like a y” as an expression of similarity. In the second experiment, subjects received metaphors (“Nina is a rabbit”) and similes (“Nina is like a rabbit) as clues to select one of three images (a rabbit, a girl, or a rabbit-looking girl).
Conclusion
The results showed that 3-year-old children could understand the implicature “x is not a y”, while 5-year-old children performed like adults. The results also showed that children from early childhood could understand and derive scalar implicature, with the literal interpretations of simile and metaphor decreased with age.
تبلیغات
