[[alternative]]Children’s Ability to Detect Lexical Ambiguity

[[abstract]]歧義是一種語言形式能傳遞多種語意、具有多種解釋的語言現象。常見的語言歧義包含音韻歧義、詞彙歧義和語法歧義，而其中的詞彙歧義是華語歧義的特色，華語詞彙歧義包含同音同形異義、同音異形異義及部分異形之同音異義三種類型。研究指出詞彙歧義覺察能力因年齡增長、詞彙理解能力提升而發展愈趨成熟，且詞彙歧義類型的不同亦可能影響兒童對詞彙歧義覺察的表現，因此，本研究欲進一步了解國內典型發展兒童對於詞彙歧義語段的覺察表現為何，並探討兒童的詞彙歧義覺察能力與其詞彙理解能力之相關性。本研究的研究對象為80位幼兒園大班和小學二、四、六年級的典型發展兒童，每位受試者分別接受詞彙理解測驗和詞彙歧義覺察測驗，詞彙歧義覺察測驗為研究者自編的內容，包含30題同音詞覺察測驗和21題詞彙歧義句覺察測驗，採電腦作業，由E-prime軟體自動計分，每題分別給予0至2分的分數。本研究結果顯示，同音詞覺察表現與詞彙歧義句覺察表現均隨著年齡增加而顯著提升，尤其以大班至二年級間的成長幅度最為明顯，這兩項覺察能力到了四年級後的發展漸趨穩定。從同音詞與詞彙歧義句類型來看，兒童的同音詞覺察表現因同音詞類型的不同而有顯著差異，其中以在部分異形之同音異義詞的覺察表現為最佳，但是兒童的詞彙歧義句覺察表現並不因句中歧義詞類型的不同而有所差異。此外，二年級與四年級組兒童的同音詞覺察能力與詞彙理解能力呈現顯著的正相關，但大班組和六年級組兒童在這兩項能力上則無顯著相關性。本研究結果或可做為未來兒童語言評估的參考項目之一，有助於語言治療師及相關專業人員了解兒童詞彙歧義覺察能力與後設語言能力的發展趨勢。[[abstract]]Linguistic ambiguity occurs when a given segment represents more than one meaning in either spoken or written language. . There are various types of linguistic ambiguity, including phonological ambiguity, lexical ambiguity, and structural ambiguity. Lexical ambiguity has been considered to be a distinguishing characteristic among the types of linguistic ambiguity in the Mandarin. There are three categories of Mandarin lexical ambiguity: homophonic homographs, homophonic heterographs, and partially-heterographic homophones. The ability to detect lexical ambiguity involves receptive vocabulary ability, which improves as children grow. Types of lexical ambiguity may also influence the performance on lexical ambiguity detection. The present study aims to explore children’s ability to detect lexically ambiguous segments and to investigate the relationship between the ability of lexical ambiguity detection and receptive vocabulary ability.A total of 80 typically developing preschool children (Kindergarteners) and school-age children (Grades 2, 4, and 6) received receptive vocabulary test and lexical ambiguity detection task. The latter task included 30 homophone detection trials and 21 lexically ambiguous sentence detection trials. Participants responses in both trials were automatically recorded and analyzed by E-prime. Participants’ scores for each of their responses ranged from 0 to 2 for both trials.Results revealed that children’s ability to detect homophones and their ability to detect lexically ambiguous sentences improved with the grade level. Both abilities presented a massive increase in Grade 2 and reached a plateau around Grade 4 to Grade 6. With respect to the types of lexical ambiguity, children’s ability to detect partially-heterographic homophones was better than they did to homophonic homographs and homophonic heterographs, whereas their ability to detect lexically ambiguous sentences showed no difference among all types of lexical ambiguity. Findings also revealed a significant correlation between homophone detection ability and receptive vocabulary ability in the Grade 2 and Grade 4 groups, while there was not a significant correlation in the Kindergartener and Grade 6 groups It is expected that the results of the present investigation could expand the literature of language development in Mandarin-speaking children and could also be applicable to clinical practice in speech-language pathology