双语(方言)经历对儿童习得名词指称对象的影响

The Effects of Bilingual(Bidialectal) Experience on Children’s Acquisition of Referents for Nouns

在一语习得中,当一个新词在语境中存在多个可能的指称对象时,儿童会根据“一种事物只有一个名称”的相互排斥假定将其判断为指称陌生而非熟悉的事物。针对语言经历不同的三组学前儿童的指图测试表明,双语(方言)经历对儿童根据相互排斥假定消解歧义的影响有限:双语(方言)儿童仅当新词的音系特征与他们所学习的语言不同时才会放弃相互排斥假定,认为该词也可以指称熟悉事物;而当新词符合他们接触过的语言的音系特征时,他们仍然将相互排斥假定作为可靠的词义认知机制,倾向于将新词理解为指称陌生事物。单语儿童则在习得新词指称对象时始终坚持相互排斥假定。各种语言经历的儿童依据相互排斥假定所建立的音-义关系都能得以保留,成为词汇知识的一部分。这说明相互排斥假定是儿童词汇习得的默认机制。

In L1 acquisition, when there are multiple potential referents for a new word in the context, children will interpret the new word as referring to the unfamiliar object rather than to the familiar one, based on the"Mutual Exclusivity"(ME) assumption that one object has only one name. Using object identification tasks, the present study shows that the experience of learning two languages or dialects has only limited influence on children s use of ME: Bilingual(bidialectal)children abandon ME only when the new word does not conform to the phonology of the languages familiar to them. If the new word conforms to the phonology of one language they are learning,they take ME as a reliable mechanism of word learning, interpreting the new word as denoting the unfamiliar object. In contrast, monolingual children stick to ME regardless of the phonological features of new words. The form-meaning mapping established on the basis of ME can be retained and retrieved as part of the lexical knowledge for all children. The results indicate that ME is a default word-learning mechanism in L1 acquisition.