中  華  心  理  學  刊
民93，46卷，2期，113-128

Chiung-Chih Huang（Graduate Institute of Linguistic, National Chengchi University, Taiwan）

Abstract

This study investigated Mandarin-speaking three-year-old children's ability to initiate discourse topics in natural mother-child conversation, focusing especially on the types of topics initiated, the kinds of communicative intents conveyed, the references established, and the propositions expressed. The results showed that the children of the study initiated discourse topics mainly with informatives while the mothers initiated discourse topics mainly with questions; these opposite distribution patterns were especially conspicuous in displacement topics. It was also found that the children often did not provide sufficient information about references and propositions when initiating topics; topic establishments often were Co-constructed by both the child and the mother. It was suggested that the mothers' interactive styles may facilitate the children's acquisition of discourse topic skills.

Keywords: discourse topic, topic initiation, mother-child conversation