The Human-Animal Bond between Children and Companion Animal
| Autor: | Shih-Yun Chiu, 邱思云 |
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| Rok vydání: | 2011 |
| Druh dokumentu: | 學位論文 ; thesis |
| Popis: | 99 The motivation of this study originated from the researcher’s experiences of interacting with companion animal for many years; its main purpose was to understand human-animal bond between young children and companion animal. Through generalizing the interaction contents, this study investigated the reasons why young children had or didn’t have certain kinds of interaction when interacting with companion animal, analyzed their languages and eye expressions when interacting with companion animal, and understood how they interpreted the roles that companion animal played. Based on the results, the researcher outlined the relationship between young children and companion animal, and finally focused on shaping the contextual factors of human-animal bond. The subjects of this study were 32 young children from 3 kindergartens in Taipei City and 2 young children with human-animal bond. During May to December in 2008, the researcher had interviewed 13 young children of star kindergarten, 12 of moon kindergarten and 7 of sun kindergarten; through the interviews, the researcher had realized the diversity of their interaction contents and various interpretations about the role that companion animal played. Finally, the researcher went to 2 young children’s houses, observed their interactions and interviewed the major adults; the researcher analyzed and shaped the contextual factors of human-animal bond based on the results. The results showed that the interaction contents could be categorized into 3 groups: “young children taking care of companion animal” including “feeding”, “cleaning” and “taking care of sick companion animal”; “companionship of young children and companion animal” including “mutual companionship” and “forming a group”; “young children’s intimate behaviors with companion animal” including “caressing companion animal”, “hugging companion animal” and “kissing companion animal”. Among these 34 young children, 18 used language to communicate with their companion animals and anthropomorphized them; they used second baby talks to speak to their companion animals, and the sentence structures were short and simple; besides, they used repeated or reduplicative words and phrases and extravagant tones. Among them, those who could read their company animals’ eye expressions had sufficient experiences in getting alone with them and understood their personalities and reactions; in addition, they could use gesticulations and tone changes to make their companion animals understand what they expressed easily. For these young children, the role of company animal was multiple; they had different roles in different events and even in the same one their roles would change as things changed. Among these 34 young children, 13 among them thought that their companion animals were their “friends”, 9 thought they were “pets”, 7 thought they were “siblings”, 3 thought they were “babies”, and 2 thought they were “babes” (meaning child); in interpreting their roles, most of them were affected by the adults, but 6 young children expressed their thoughts bravely even though their thoughts were different from the adults’ around them. For the contextual factors of human-animal bond, family structure, financial condition and companion animals’ personalities would affect the relationship between one family and its companion animal; however, the major adults in the same family played different roles and shaped the relationship between young children and companion animal in different ways. The researcher found out that this was because that every adult saw companion animals in different views originating from their own perceptions about them hence different types of relationship between young children and companion animal were shaped after these perceptions were implicated with other factors. Finally, the researcher compared the results with related literature, did a discussion, reflected on the flaws when analyzing data, and shared the difficulties that the researcher encountered in conducting this study. |
| Databáze: | Networked Digital Library of Theses & Dissertations |
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