NEGATIVE EXPRESSIONS IN THE SPEECH OF ONE BRAZILIAN AND ONE FRENCH CHILD: CASE STUDIES

ABSTRACT: This work is a longitudinal study of two children, one Brazilian and the other French. It focuses on the development of the expressions of negation in their early speech. It aims at showing that, in the beginning, gesture and vocalization are indissociable and they are provided with meaning through the other's interpretation. We call those expressions “proto-negation”. The functions of the first negative particles uttered by the children are based on the socio-pragmatic classification system of negation developed by Beaupoil-Hourdel (2013). The following categories are considered: rejection/refusal; failed expectations; absence/disappearance; prohibition/command; opposition/correction; negative pleading; epistemic negation; functional negation. The results show that rejection/refusal was the first function to emerge in the speech of both children whereas absence/disappearance was rather late. The progressive complexity of the negations may be dependent on the introduction of personal pronouns in the child's utterances, and on more syntactic and lexical complexity, independently of the target language. On the other hand, actions and vocalizations by the children contribute to the delimitation of a meaningful whole, even with a rather restricted lexicon.

摘要：本研究为一项针对两名儿童的纵向研究，其中一名为巴西儿童，另一名为法国儿童，聚焦于二人早期言语中否定表达的发展脉络。本研究旨在证明：在言语发展初期，儿童的手势与发声本为不可分割的整体，二者需经由互动对象的解读方能承载意义，我们将此类表达称为“前否定（proto-negation）”。
两名儿童首次产出的否定小品词的功能，均基于Beaupoil-Hourdel（2013）提出的否定表达社会语用分类体系，本研究涵盖以下八类否定功能：拒绝/回绝、期待落空、缺失/消失、禁令/指令、反对/纠正、否定性恳求、认知否定（epistemic negation）以及功能否定（functional negation）。
研究结果显示，拒绝/回绝是两名儿童言语中最早出现的否定功能，而缺失/消失类否定则出现得相对较晚。否定表达的复杂度随发展逐步提升，这一过程可能取决于儿童言语中人称代词的引入，以及句法与词汇复杂度的提升，且该相关性不受儿童所习得的目标语言的影响。另一方面，即便儿童的词汇量相对有限，其肢体动作与发声仍有助于构建出具备完整意义的表达单元。