The L1 And L2 Interpretations Of The Non-interrogative Meanings Of Chinese Wh-word Shei

The interrogative use and non-interrogative use of Chinese wh-words have been a controversial topic in Chinese linguistics,as well as in language acquisition and development.Recent studies are mostly concentrated on analyzing the error types and describing the acquisition order of the non-interrogative uses of Chinese wh-words,with few studies devoted to investigating the psychological and cognitive mechanisms of the relevant L1 and L2 development.Chinese universal quantifier dou and the negative adverb meiyou can both be used together with Chinese wh-word shei to express the non-interrogative meaning.However,studies on the development of Chinese wh-word shei haven't paid enough attention to this phenomenon,making it worthwhile to be further studied.The present study attempts to investigate the L1 children's and L2 learners' interpretation and development of the interrogative and non-interrogative meaning of Chinese shei,analyzing and probing into the major factors affecting the L1 and L2 interpretation of the non-interrogative meanings of shei from a language processing perspective.50 L1 children,26 L1 adults and 10 L2 learners participated into the present study.All subjects were required to complete the Question-Statement Task.The purpose of this task is to investigate the L1 children's and L2 learners' interpretation of three different meanings of Chinese wh-word shei: the interrogative meaning,the universal meaning and the existential meaning.In the task,all subjects were required to look at the pictures and listened to the stories.They were then asked to judge whether the targeted sentence is a question or a statement: if it is a question,the subject should answer the question according to the story;if it is a statement,the subject should make a truth-value judgment based on the story.Two experiments were conducted.Experiment 1 investigated the participants' interpretation of the interrogative meaning and the universal meaning of shei.12 items were used as test materials,with each item being composed of two pictures,a story and one targeted sentence.The targeted sentences of 3 items were used to test the participants' interpretation of the interrogative meaning of shei,while those of 3 other items were used to test their interpretation of the universal meaning.The rest 6 items were used as fillers.Two test versions were used to avoid the participants' interference to each other.Experiment 2investigated the participants' interpretation of the interrogative meaning and the existential meaning of shei.12 other items,similar in structure to the items of Experiment 1,were used as test materials.The targeted sentences of 3 items were used to test the participants' interpretation of the interrogative meaning of shei,while those of 3 other items were used to test their interpretation of the existential meaning.The rest 6 items were used as fillers.Two test versions were also used.The results of this experiment were analyzed using SPSS 16.0.Major findings of the present study are as follows: First,L1 children at the age from 5 to7 were sensitive to the licensing environment of the universal meaning,being L1 adult-like,so that they could differentiate the interrogative meaning and the universal meaning of shei.However,they were not sensitive to the licensing environment of the existential meaning so that they failed to interpret the existential meaning of shei.Second,the mid-level L2 learners were sensitive to the licensing environment of the existential meaning of shei like L1 adults so that they could differentiate the interrogative meaning and the existential meaning of shei.By contrast,L2 learners were not sensitive to the licensing environment of the universal meaning so that they failed to interpret the universal meaning of shei.Third,L1 children and L2 learners differed in their interpretations and developmental sequences of the non-interrogative meanings of shei.Specifically,on the one hand,L1 children could interpret the universal meaning of shei,but not the existential meaning,presenting a developmental sequence of “the universal meaning>the existential meaning”;on the other hand,L2 learners could interpret the existential meaning of shei,but not the universal meaning,presenting a developmental sequence of “the existential meaning>the universal meaning”.The present paper discussed the preceding findings on the basis of an analysis of the relationship between language processing and language development.It was proposed that the working memory load in language processing,the extreme complexity and the low frequency of the non-interrogative meanings of shei,and the different cognitive abilities of L1 children and L2 learners are the major factors leading to the differences between the L1 and L2 interpretations of the non-interrogative meanings of Chinese wh-word shei.The findings of the present study have both theoretical and pedagogical implications.Theoretically,the present study attempts to probe into the relationship between language processing and language development,while trying to provide empirical evidence to the claim that the course of development is shaped by processing pressures,as stated in the Processing Determinism theory proposed by O'Grady(2015).Pedagogically,the present study is conducive to better understanding the L1 and L2 interpretation and development of the non-interrogative meanings of Chinese wh-word shei,providing some guidelines for Chinese teaching to L1 children and L2 learners.