Is there really an asymmetry in the acquisition of the focus-to-accentuation mapping?
Is there really an asymmetry in the acquisition of the focus-to-accentuation mapping?
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DOI：
10.1016/j.lingua.2010.02.012
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发表时间：
2010-08-01
期刊：
影响因子：
1.1
通讯作者：
Chen, Aoju
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Chen, Aoju
本文旨在澄清焦点到强调映射习得中关于产生和理解之间关系的误解，并以荷兰语儿童的实验数据为基础，对这一问题作出新的解释。对儿童和成人焦点语调标记的最新数据的重新分析表明，4-5岁儿童在问答对话中可以使用重音标记非对比狭义焦点，尽管他们在句首和句末重读焦点名词的频率略低于成人，并倾向于重读句尾位置的名词以寻求确认。在理解方面，通过RT技术考察了问答对话中作为非对比狭义焦点线索的重读加工。研究发现，尽管4-5岁儿童比成人需要更长的加工时间，但他们能够加工非对比性窄焦点到强调的映射。基于这些结果，我们认为儿童在4、5岁时的理解能力与他们在4岁或5岁时的产出性相似，这与早先的观点相反，即在获得焦点-强调映射时，产出性先于理解。在生产和理解方面，儿童都表现出与成年人相似的模式，但还不完全像成年人一样。然而，成人和儿童之间的差异主要是梯度性质的。(C)2010爱思唯尔B.V.保留所有权利。
This article aims to clarify misunderstandings over the relation between production and comprehension in the acquisition of the focus-to-accentuation mapping and shed new light on this issue on the basis of experimental data obtained from Dutch-speaking children. The reanalysis of recent production data on children's and adult's intonational marking of focus reveals that 4- to 5-year-olds can use accentuation to mark noncontrastive narrow focus in question-answer dialogues, although they accent the focal noun slightly less frequently than adults in both sentence-initial and sentence-final positions and tend to accent the noun in sentence-final position to seek confirmation. Regarding comprehension, the processing of accentuation as a cue to non-contrastive narrow focus was examined in question-answer dialogues by means of the RT technique. It was found that 4- to 5-year-olds can process the mapping of non-contrastive narrow focus to accentuation although they need longer processing time than adults. Based on these results, it is argued that children's comprehension is similar to their production at the age of 4 or 5, contra the earlier claim that production precedes comprehension in the acquisition of the focus-to-accentuation mapping. In both production and comprehension, children exhibit similar patterns to adults but are not yet fully adult-like. However, the difference between adults and children is mainly of a gradient nature. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.