engleski

A Cross-Linguistic Study of Preschoolers' Narratives and their Development - Emerging narratives: A Cross-Linguistic Study

Narratives are common in everyday discourse and represent the first use of decontextualized language in preschoolers. As such, they are considered critical in the development of literacy. To better understand their early development and the respective roles language typology and cognition in their development, we collected picture stories from 54 children (3 ; 0-6 ; 0 years) in each of 12 languages (Spanish, Italian, French, Danish, Austrian German, Swedish, English, Croatian, Slovak, Turkish, Greek and Mandarin). Stories were transcribed using CHILDES and were analyzed for the occurrence of specific linguistic structures (single word responses, phrases, single clauses, coordinate and subordinate sentences) ; narrative components (setting, characters, initiating event, problem, attempt at resolution, resolution) ; and narrative quality (labeling, describing, relating or motivating). The development for cognitive aspects of narrative, e.g., narrative quality, was broadly consistent across languages and language families, such that three year olds were more likely to label and describe, and five year olds generally used relating and motivating strategies in their stories. With respect to linguistic structures, the specific features of the language played a role. For example, easily accessible subordination, as in Turkish and Mandarin, influenced both linguistic structure and narrative quality. In sum, the language typology and conventions of language use appear to be influential in the child’s mastery of particular discourse genres.

narratives; narrative components; narrative quality

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