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Article: Asking for action or information? Crosslinguistic comparison of interrogative functions in early child Cantonese and Mandarin

TitleAsking for action or information? Crosslinguistic comparison of interrogative functions in early child Cantonese and Mandarin
Authors
KeywordsCorpus-based study
early child Cantonese
early child Mandarin
interrogative function
Issue Date2015
PublisherSage Publications Ltd. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journal.aspx?pid=105557
Citation
First Language, 2015 How to Cite?
AbstractRequest for information (RfI) is believed to be the universally dominant function of young children’s questioning, whereas request for action (RfA) has been reported to be the leading interrogative form used in early child Cantonese. The possibility of crosslinguistic variability prompts further research and comparison with additional languages. This study compares the interrogatives elicited from two early Chinese language corpora: Early Childhood Cantonese Corpus (ECCC) and Early Childhood Mandarin (ECMC). Altogether, 1214 and 942 question types were elicited from ECCC and ECMC, respectively. Analyses indicated that: (1) all the interrogative functions identified in an earlier study of Cantonese were also observed in the early Mandarin interrrogatives; and (2) both RfA (49.9%) and RfI (45.5%) were the most frequently observed functions of early child Chinese interrogatives. This crosslinguistic evidence suggests that follow-up studies are needed to further explore the possible influences of language, culture and communication tasks on children’s uses of interrogative forms.
Persistent Identifierhttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/211973
ISSN
2023 Impact Factor: 1.2
2023 SCImago Journal Rankings: 0.561
ISI Accession Number ID

 

DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.authorLi, H-
dc.contributor.authorWong, ECM-
dc.contributor.authorTse, SK-
dc.contributor.authorLeung, SO-
dc.contributor.authorYe, Q-
dc.date.accessioned2015-07-21T02:18:32Z-
dc.date.available2015-07-21T02:18:32Z-
dc.date.issued2015-
dc.identifier.citationFirst Language, 2015-
dc.identifier.issn0142-7237-
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10722/211973-
dc.description.abstractRequest for information (RfI) is believed to be the universally dominant function of young children’s questioning, whereas request for action (RfA) has been reported to be the leading interrogative form used in early child Cantonese. The possibility of crosslinguistic variability prompts further research and comparison with additional languages. This study compares the interrogatives elicited from two early Chinese language corpora: Early Childhood Cantonese Corpus (ECCC) and Early Childhood Mandarin (ECMC). Altogether, 1214 and 942 question types were elicited from ECCC and ECMC, respectively. Analyses indicated that: (1) all the interrogative functions identified in an earlier study of Cantonese were also observed in the early Mandarin interrrogatives; and (2) both RfA (49.9%) and RfI (45.5%) were the most frequently observed functions of early child Chinese interrogatives. This crosslinguistic evidence suggests that follow-up studies are needed to further explore the possible influences of language, culture and communication tasks on children’s uses of interrogative forms.-
dc.languageeng-
dc.publisherSage Publications Ltd. The Journal's web site is located at http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journal.aspx?pid=105557-
dc.relation.ispartofFirst Language-
dc.rightsFirst Language. Copyright © Sage Publications Ltd.-
dc.subjectCorpus-based study-
dc.subjectearly child Cantonese-
dc.subjectearly child Mandarin-
dc.subjectinterrogative function-
dc.titleAsking for action or information? Crosslinguistic comparison of interrogative functions in early child Cantonese and Mandarin-
dc.typeArticle-
dc.identifier.emailLi, H: huili@hkucc.hku.hk-
dc.identifier.emailTse, SK: sktse@hku.hk-
dc.identifier.authorityLi, H=rp00926-
dc.identifier.authorityTse, SK=rp00964-
dc.description.naturepostprint-
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/0142723715579604-
dc.identifier.scopuseid_2-s2.0-84938819007-
dc.identifier.hkuros244477-
dc.identifier.volume2015-
dc.identifier.spage1-
dc.identifier.epage6-
dc.identifier.isiWOS:000359262500002-
dc.publisher.placeUnited Kingdom-
dc.identifier.issnl0142-7237-

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