| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 語言學研究所 === 98 === This study aims to investigate the children’s refusal performance from a developmental perspective and how the mother’s requests affect children’s refusal strategies. We analyzed a Mandarin-speaking child’s natural conversation with his mother. The data were collected from three time points, that is 2; 7, 3; 1 and 3; 7. The refusal strategies adopted in the present study are mainly based on Wang (2001)’s categorization. After the careful examination, it is observed that the refusal strategies increased with the age. The child decreased his reliance on the most direct way to refuse. In addition, the data also showed the child’s growing ability to take his interlocutor’s perspective into account, which is consistent with previous studies about children’s pragmatic development. The child also applied his knowledge of a sincere request when making refusals.
As for the effect of the mother’s request, it is observed that the force of the mother’s request could be perceived by the child and influenced the way the child refused. When the mother’s requests were imposed, the child would apply more skill strategies to respond. Also, the child would combine refusal strategies to respond when facing more complicated request.
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