本研究的目的為瞭解母子對話中的打斷現象，分析的語料來自於兩對以漢語為母語的母子對話，兩位小孩皆為三歲。首先，為瞭解母親與小孩打斷句之本質，我們採用Goldberg (1990:891)的分類來做判斷，結果顯示兩者在對談中皆大多使用rapport-oriented interruptions，代表在母子對話中，兩方傾向在打斷句中表達對對方話語的興趣與投入，並且藉由著打斷一同建立談話主題。再者，小孩的打斷句更進一步的用Dunn and Shatz’s (1989)的研究方法來分析其與對話言談的語意關連，結果發現小孩的打斷句多數都包含了與之前相關並且新的訊息，而這類的打斷句是最有可能得到母親的注意並且回應。

The purpose of this study is to investigate the nature and function of mother-to-child and child-to-mother interruptions in conversation. The data analyzed are natural conversations from two Mandarin-speaking mother-child dyads. The children are about three years old. Goldberg’s (1990:891) categorization of interruptions is adopted to examine the nature of the mothers’ and children’s interruptions. The results show that both the mothers and the children use more rapport-oriented interruptions than other types of interruptions, which indicates that in mother-child interaction, both parties tend to use interruptions to signal their involvement and interest and to construct a shared topic cooperatively. In addition, the children’s interruptions are further examined based on Dunn and Shatz’s (1989) framework in order to investigate the semantic relations between the children’s interruptions and the conversational discourse. The findings show that most of the children’s interruptions contain relevant new information. Such interruptions are likely to succeed in getting the attention and response from the mothers.

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