新加坡学前英汉双语儿童“扔抛”类手部动作动词使用情况调查研究 = A study of Singaporean preschool English-Chinese bilingual children’s use of “throw verbs”

新加坡是个多元种族的国家，也是个多语社会，英文和华文在当中占有非常重要的地位。中国的崛起也使得华文的地位在新加坡变得日益重要。随着科技的发达和教育制度的进步，越来越多新加坡华族儿童的双语能力也有所提升。然而，新加坡华族儿童双语水平到底处于一个什么样的状态？又有什么因素能够影响新加坡华族儿童的双语能力呢？这些都是值得研究的问题。词汇是语言最基本的要素，手部动作动词则是词汇中较基本的一组词汇。儿童除了较早习得手部动作动词，日常生活的语境中接触与使用此组动词的频率也较高，通过测试能得到比较准确可靠的数据，有助于本研究的进行。本研究以八个“扔抛”类动词，即“丢”、“抛”、“甩”、“摔”、“掷”、“扔”、“投”和“撒”为目标词，利用英汉双语的访谈法，探讨新加坡英汉双语学前儿童“扔抛”类动词的习得情况。研究新加坡双语儿童对“扔抛”类动词的习得，不仅要分析他们的动词使用和理解，也需要充分讨论新加坡多语社会语境、语言变异、语言结构等各种因素之间的交互作用，才能正确认识并解释新加坡英汉双语儿童“扔抛”类动词的习得情况。Singapore is a multi-racial as well as multilingual country, with both English and Chinese holding important roles. Due to the rise of China, the position of Chinese in Singapore has become increasingly important. The bilingual ability of a rising number of Singaporean Chinese children has also improved along with technological advancements and improvements in the education system. However, what level is the bilingual ability of Singaporean Chinese children at? What the factors have impacts on the bilingual ability of Singaporean children? These are questions worth investigating. Lexicon is the key element of language, and hand action verbs, which belong to the more basic group of lexicon. They are not only more quickly acquired by the children, but also more frequently used by the children. Hence, we can have more accurate data that helps to improve our understanding of child language acquisition. Through interview with participants in Chinese and English, this study aims to investigate the application of throw action verbs by Singaporean bilingual Chinese preschooler. To understand the lexical development of throw action verbs in Singaporean bilingual children, we need to focus not only on the acquisition and production of the verbs but also on how other influencing factors like multilingualism and language variation in Singapore interact with each other.Bachelor of Art