The Acquisition Of Demonstrative Pronouns By Mandarin-speaking Children

Both �zhe� and �na� are demonstrative pronouns.Because demonstrative pronouns are widely used in our social life and they have characteristic grammar and pragmatic functions.Therefore researchers will never stop researching the demonstrative pronouns.And many articles of demonstrative pronouns have appeared.Demonstrative pronoun is a kind of content words with its particular characteristics,which is often used in child language.Through previous studies on the acquisition of demonstrative pronouns by Mandarin-speaking children,the onset time and acquisition order of demonstrative pronouns were found.However,these studies did not involve the use of demonstrative pronouns under controlled experiments among various age groups.This thesis is committed to through controlled experiments,exploring the influence of distance and number on the use of demonstrative pronouns by Mandarin-speaking children.There are three major research questions: 1)Whether the distance influences the choice of demonstrative pronouns by Mandarin-speaking children of different ages? 2)Whether the number of objects influences the choice of demonstrative pronouns by Mandarin-speaking children of different ages? 3)Whether there are differences in using demonstrative pronouns among various age groups?The present study consists of two experiments.Under each experiment,there are19 scenes.Ten of them are designed when the number of the objects is controlled while the distance between the objects and the participants is changed.Rest 9 scenes are designed when the distance is controlled,while the number of the objects is changed.Subjects were required to answer the researcher's questions using set answer patterns.Compared with the previous studies,this study strengthens on the experiment.So the result is more convincing and reasonable.The experimental data shows that: the distance between the subjects and the objects is the most important factor that influences the use of the demonstrative pronouns by Mandarin-speaking children;Mandarin-speaking children tend to use �zhe� to refer to objects or objects' places that are closer to them and to use �na� to refer to objects or objects' places that are relatively farther to them;there is no big difference of using demonstrative pronouns among various age groups.