Benelli Beatrice, Belacchi Carmen, Gini Gianluca, Lucangeli Daniela
University of Padua, Italy.
J Child Lang. 2006 Feb;33(1):71-97. doi: 10.1017/s0305000905007312.
Some authors have suggested that definitional skills include metalinguistic components (Watson, 1985; Snow, 1990; McGhee-Bidlack, 1991). The present study therefore empirically investigated relations between the ability to define words and level of metalinguistic awareness in 280 Italian children (with ages ranging from 5 to 11 years) and in two groups of 40 adults each (with low and high educational levels, respectively). We used a definitional task presenting 24 terms (nouns, verbs, and adjectives, which were either concrete or abstract) and a task examining 6 different aspects of metalinguistic awareness. Our aim was to demonstrate that metalinguistic skills can positively predict the formal quality of definitions and to identify various aspects of metalinguistic skills that might be directly related to definitional skills. Results showed better performance on both tasks as a function of age and educational level; they also confirmed the important roles of metalinguistic ability and educational level in producing well-structured formal definitions.
一些作者认为，定义技能包括元语言成分（沃森，1985年；斯诺，1990年；麦吉-比德拉克，1991年）。因此，本研究对280名意大利儿童（年龄在5至11岁之间）以及两组各40名成年人（分别为低教育水平和高教育水平）的单词定义能力和元语言意识水平之间的关系进行了实证研究。我们使用了一个呈现24个术语（名词、动词和形容词，既有具体的也有抽象的）的定义任务，以及一个考察元语言意识6个不同方面的任务。我们的目的是证明元语言技能能够积极预测定义的形式质量，并确定可能与定义技能直接相关的元语言技能的各个方面。结果表明，随着年龄和教育水平的提高，在这两项任务上的表现都更好；结果还证实了元语言能力和教育水平在生成结构良好的形式定义方面的重要作用。
