An Acquisition Study Of WH-questions By Malaysian-Chinese Children

WH-Question is one of the most basic sentences in interrogative sentences,but second language acquisition research results in this field are few in number.The acquisition research done thus far mainly focuses on adults,whereas research regarding children's acquisition of Chinese as a second language is almost nonexistent.This study utilizes case studies and experimental groups analysis to understand the methods Malaysian-Chinese children utilize to answer these questions as well as their responses.This method was chosen in order to better understand how these children vary in their linguistic development across all ages,as well as age-specific features and rules of second-language acquisition through the comparison of their responses to WH-Questions.The experiment was conducted as follows.A sample size composed of 40 Malaysian-Chinese children who are aged from 3 to 6 years old were selected to form the basis of this study.The subjects were divided into 4 groups based on their ages and each group included 10 children.Each group was provided with five sets of colorful pictures that were selected to best meet the interrogative WH-Question design.Each set of pictures was accompanied by test questions developed to test the children's capability to respond to WH-Questions.Their responses were analyzed in an effort to better understand how they respond to the questions in order to identify the weaknesses in understanding of specific WH-Questions based on their age.Following the group study,a case study analysis was conducted.8 Malaysian-Chinese children were selected for the case study,and ranged between the ages of 3-6 years old.They were split into four groups,composed of two students per age group.These four groups were monitored over a period of five months;specifically,their use of WH-Questions in day-to-day life were recorded and instances of use of WH-Questions were transcribed to create scripts that would later be analyzed.According to the existing limited literature,overall,Malaysian children aged 3-6 years old comprehend WH-Questions better with age.The older they are,the stronger their comprehension grows.These children begin their understanding of WH-Questions in accordance with the following order and scale,ranging from high understanding to lower comprehension.The order is as follows:1.Questions regarding quantity:"How many?"2."What?" questions3."Who?" questions4."Why?" questions5."How?" questions(method):How do you fish?6."How?" questions(mimetic/reason):How do cats sound?How dare you act this way?7."When?" questions8."Where?" questionsReferencing the theory stated above,students comprehend the questions better and more accurately as they grow up.In addition to "how" questions,other questions are understood with the growth of age and are proportional to age.With regard to the specific WH-Questions,the language output from each group based on the case study conducted reveals that there is no obvious correlation between language production and age,as students across the ages of 3-6 years old produced roughly the same amount in total.However,the number of specific WH-Questions asked by the students varied in quantity,and followed the following order,from high to low frequency:1."What" questions2."Why" questions3."Where?" questions4."Who?" questions5.How questions(method)6."How?" questions(mimetic/reason)7."How many?" questions8."When?" questionsFrom these results,I draw the following conclusions."What" and "why" questions decrease in frequency with the increase of age,highlighting an inverse relationship whereas others do not follow the same rules.In addition,the number of standard "why" questions(wei shen me)asked by children is low,and instead,the children ask this same question in their dialect,asking "zuo me?".Additionally,questions regarding quantity reveal an interesting phenomena.When students asked quantity related questions,their questions focused heavily on time and less on actual quantity.For example,instead of asking questions regarding quantity such as"How many?",their questions regarding quantity were tied to time,for example "How early?" and "How long?".This demonstrates that Malaysian-Chinese children are influenced by the Malaysian language in that when asking questions about quantity,they are not always asking about general number or quantity and rather include references to time.