華語第三人稱回指分析--以母語者與英、日語背景學習者為例

Abstract

華語話題鏈以主題之連貫作為銜接手段，主題延續性之強弱將影響第三人稱回指詞於篇章中之選用。然而從教學出發之研究尚且不足，使華語教師經常發現中級學習者雖已有足夠的詞彙量，但組織篇章時常有「代詞過多」、「零代詞不足」的問題。有鑑於此，本文從語言類型出發，探討語言以零代詞回指為主的華語、日語者，及代詞為主的英語者，其第三人稱回指詞於華語話題鏈中之表現為何。 本研究的受試對象共有60位，分為華語母語組、英語背景學習者、日語背景學習者組三組。學習者組中，包含中、高級學習者各10位。日語組是英語母語者的控制組，而華語母語組則是分析華語回指的基準組。研究流程包括(i)請60位受試者看影片後寫500字摘要，接著(ii)計算第三人稱回指詞使用的比例，最後(iii)分析話題鏈和第三人稱回指詞之關係，從而探討華語第三人稱回指詞於不同母語組間的差異。 由第三人稱回指比例及話題鏈組織方式發現，中級學習者有代詞過多、零代詞不足的問題，其原因為話題鏈長度過短為1-2小句，因而需要不斷重提代詞而減弱話題延續性。高級學習者之代詞及零代詞比例較接近母語者，其話題鏈長度多為2-3小句，但因話題鏈主題延續性不穩定，使零代詞比例仍低於母語者。 本研究根據上述學習者之話題鏈組織問題，搭配華語母語者話題鏈中第三人稱回指詞之使用原則，根據不同程度之學習者設計話題鏈教學活動。Coherence in Chinese topic chain depends on topic continuity, and the level of continuity affects the types of third-person anaphora in topic chain. However, lack of research in this field makes teaching Chinese writing difficult. Chinese teachers often find intermediate level students having difficulty in organizing Chinese discourse, as they tend to overuse pronominal anaphora while lacking in zero anaphora. In this study, I will investigate third-person anaphora in Chinese topic chain by examining discourse written by English and Japanese learners of Chinese to see what form of pro-drop language transfer occurs in their language acquisition. A total of 60 subjects participated in the study. The subjects were divided into three groups,namely, 20 native Chinese speakers, 20 English learners of Chinese, and 20 Japaneselearners of Chinese. Each group of learners comprised of 10 intermediate level and 10 advanced level learners.The Japanese group was the control group to the English group, while the native Chinese group was the standard reference group. Data collection required participants to watch a 15-minute video and summarize it into 500- to 600-character compositions. The compositions were first examined for the percentage use of third-person anaphora and were then analyzed for topic continuity in topic chain to compare the anaphora performance among the three groups. Results show that there is a tendency for overused pronominal anaphora and missing zero anaphora in intermediate learners’ discourse. This is because the topic chain of their output is too short, which requires pronominal anaphora to maintain coherence. Advanced learners’ use of pronominal and zero anaphora is closer to Chinese native speakers because their length of topic chain is longer. Based on the above results in language transfer of topic chain, I suggest three model teaching plans that aim at the learner’s language level using third-person anaphora principles.