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Temporal and episodic structure of 5-year olds’ narratives

University of British Columbia

The general purpose of this study was to investigate temporal aspects of 5-year-old children's narrative development. A plot-based analysis was carried out modeled on previous research by Bamberg (1987) and Berman and Slobin (1994) and was used to address the research hypotheses of this study. The first hypothesis was that by the age of 5 most children in this study would ground their narratives in an anchor tense. The second was that the 5-year-olds would use nonanchor tense verbs and temporal connectors to signal specific narrative boundaries such as episode boundaries. The third hypothesis was that the narrative data obtained from 5-year-olds involved in this study would replicate results of previous research with English-speaking and German-speaking 5-year-olds (as far as language differences permit). Twelve 5-year-olds (ages 5;00.16 to;5;11.16) participated in this study. The procedures for narrative elicitation followed those laid out by Berman et al. (1986). Each child was asked to look through the picture book .Frog; where are you? (Mayer, 1969) until he or she knew the book well enough to tell the best story possible. After telling the story, each child had the option of retelling it if so desired. The narratives were then coded for the verb forms used, temporal connectors, plot components, and episodes. The verb forms were analyzed for the presence or absence of an anchor tense and any patterns found in the use of the rarer verb forms. The time expressions and other connectors were examined for their roles in creating narrative coherence, as well as for the signalling functions that these expressions had. The narratives as a whole were analysed for the presence or absence of essential plot components, and particular attention was paid to the clauses occurring at episode boundaries. Results indicated that most children did ground their narratives in an anchor tense, and most assigned signalling functions to rarer verb forms or temporal connectors. The results of this study generally replicated results of previous research.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-02-17

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4738

Audiology and Speech Sciences

University of British Columbia

UBCV

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