Cognitive perspective development of Chinese children’s lexicon based on corpus Daddy where are we .doc

1、Cognitive perspective development of Chinese childrens lexicon based on corpus Daddy where are we 【Abstract】The study of children language development has been the hot topic of numerous researchers. The thesis attempts to make analysis to Chinese content words of these five star children from constr

2、uctional approach based on the corpus Daddy where are we going， whose innovation lies in parentage. In this TV， five fathers and their children spend 72 hours in villages personally. Based on the five videos downloaded from the Hunan Satellite official website， and collect more evidences from each c

3、hild. The evidences mainly include Chinese content words and conversations to analyze the cognitive features of these five children from 4-6-year old. 【Key words】cognition； lexicon； cognitive ability 1. Prototype Theory towards Children Language Basically， there are two kinds of different explanatio

4、n of prototype. The first one is that prototype is the classic representative of a category. The classic representative， also being called prototypical exemplar， salient example， etc.， is the clearest case of category membership and the most representative of things included in a category. It is the

5、 representative of the basic-level categories and has the maximum family resemblance. When a category is mentioned， its prototype comes into peoples mind first. The prototype is unmarked and taken to be a reference point for the establishment of a category. Prototype also plays an important part in

6、recognizing a specific category. The second explanation is that prototype is the generative schematic representation of the category members. Therefore， if a member has more attributes of its category， it will be more close to the prototype or the central member. From the above analyses， both the tw

7、o points of view emphasize the important role prototype plays in categories and categorization. We should also notice that the prototypical exemplar of a category may be different of different community， different cultural background and different times. For instance， if bird， is mentioned， the Brit

8、ish will think of “robin” while the Chinese will think of “sparrow”. Prototype theory is very powerful in explaining the forming of polysemous words. From the above analyses， we know that category takes prototype as its center and constantly extends through family resemblance， A polysemous word also

9、 has the same characteristic. It has a central meaning， on which it is constantly extended to form a meaning chain and construct a semantic network through the specific semantic extension mechanism such as fami. 2. In-put of Children Language In the process of children language acquisition， language

10、 in-put is necessary. Obviously， a child must hear （or see， in the case of a sign language） a language in order to learn/acquire it. A demonstration comes to that the constructions what children acquire are highly relevant with the frequency what the children hear under the same conditions. While th

11、e words what children hear in their daily life are mainly nouns and verbs. The following are the selected five terms of the first quarter about nouns used by these five children. For example： The author collected about 203 lexicons from the five video in all. Among these lexicons， The two figures tu

12、rn out that the nouns what children acquire are highly relevant with their own experience. Most of nouns are concrete nouns， while abstract nouns are rare. And the concrete nouns are what children often hear in their daily life. 3. Imitativeness in Lexical Language In reality， no matter the young ch

13、ildren or adults imitate something they like frequently. Generally speaking， the younger the children are， the higher ability the imitation of them. The imitation refers that both imitators and imitatees are face-to-face in a certain condition. 林：老板算便宜一点 老板：2 块 5，现在涨价了。 林：我们只有 50块可以买，Kimi 你说老板你算便宜点。

14、 Kimi：算便宜点。 林：月饼多少钱？ 老板：月饼 2块 5一个 Kimi：便宜点。 （条件反射） In this conversation between Lin and Kimi， when Lin asked Kimi to say “老板你算便宜点”. And Kimi just imitated Lins utterance. Through this time Kimi knows well about that lexicon phonetically， yet he may not know the meaning of that lexicon semantically.

15、That is to say， they can articulate the lexicon words again but they do not know the natural meaning of lexicon. Only under that given bargaining surroundings， do children may say that lexicon again. Nonetheless， they can imitate once more without asking， because the younger children are likely to i

16、mitate lexicon without conversion. A dialogue below can demonstrate such point. 林：几岁了过完今天 Kimi：不知道 田亮：Kimi，来拿着这个你告诉大家 林：来，你这样子你说我几岁 Kimi：我几岁 石头：说 4岁 Angela：这个叫 4 林：Kimi，告诉大家说我四岁了 Kimi：我四岁了 When Lin said “你这样子你说我几岁” which means he wants Kimi to tell his age to the other people， but Kimi just imitated

17、 what Lin said again. Only when Lin said “告诉大家说我四岁了” ， does Kimi pronounce “我四岁了”. Kimi does not know the meaning of the lexicons “几岁” and “四岁了”. Kimi is just four years old， the youngest children among these five children. Maybe such phenomenon takes place because of limited ability to recognize th

18、e world. 4. Significance of the Study This thesis studies Chinese children content words from a constructional approach based on the corpus Daddy where are we going， mainly discussing the words change condition of these five children. And the recognition features as they are growing up. The major fi

19、ndings are summarized as follows： Firstly， children acquire more and more lexicon words when they are growing up， however， the rate of such increase is slowing down. Secondly， the younger children are likely to make more mistakes the elder children， relatively， what they have experienced is less tha

20、n that of elder children. However， due to a lot of uncertain factors in process of children language development， the elements affecting language acquisition are various. This paper tries to find out features in Chinese lexical acquisition based on constructional approach. Firstly， the previous stud

21、y of Children Language mainly focuses on Chomskys Innateness Theory and Skinners Behaviorist Theory. However， the thesis focuses on that of Construction Grammars “Based on Usage”， thus it presents a brand new perspective to investigate Children Language in Lexical Acquisition. Secondly， it is effect

22、ive to take an active action to develop Children Language in Lexical Acquisition by studying the external factor affecting children language， which will drive the development of children language towards an explicit direction.Thirdly， it is not only theoretic but also practical to teach First Langua

23、ge Acquisition on children， Second Language Acquisition on adults and it is benefited to speech therapy of special children by mastering the external factors which make an effect on Morphology. This thesis tries to analyze Chinese children lexicon based on the five video of he program Daddy where ar

24、e we going. And in the process of analysis some other problems turn up which are not mentioned in this paper. Based on the analysis the this thesis， there are at least two issues can be studied in further researches. Firstly， the existing cognitive methods consist of many elements which are uncertai

25、n and changing all the time， therefore， the further researchers can fill in the blank on such point. In other words， the cognitive methods of children can be studied in a fixed form.Secondly， the examples of this thesis are chosen from Daddy where are we going， and the study of the theories of the p

26、rototype theory and image schema can be extended to other kinds of TV programs such as Baobao baobao （宝宝抱抱） which is on show for the first time. 参考文献： 1梁巍.儿童语言习得的基本理论J.中国听力语言康复科学杂志，2004（5）. 2李宇明.儿童语言?导读M.北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2000. 3Good luck，H.Language Acquisition：A Linguistic IntroductionM.Oxford：Blackwell，1991. 4Croft，W.& D.A.Cruse.Cognitive LinguisticsM.Cambridge：Cambridge University Press，2004. 5Halliday，M.A.K.The Language of Early ChildhoodMBeijing：Peking University Press，2007. 作者简介：李娜（1986.7-） ，河南辉县人，助教，武警工程大学，英语语言文学，硕士生。