1 The Acquisition of Narrative Abilities Recommended Reading: Berman, R. A. 1996. Form and function in the development of narrative abilities. In D. I.

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The Acquisition of Narrative Abilities

Recommended Reading:

Berman, R. A. 1996. Form and function in the development of narrative abilities. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratziz, and J. Guo (eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Arvin-Tripp. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Three types of knowledge

• Linguistic knowledge

• Textual knowledge

• Narrative knowledge

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Linguistic knowledge

• How to use the language within the sentence:

– Morphology– Syntax– Semantics

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Textual knowledge

• How to build the discourse?

– Semantic relations between the different sentences (contrast, entailment, induction)

– The relations of these sentences to the discourse topic.

– Cohesion between the different sentences by referencing, ellipsis, conjunctures, repetitions, etc.

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Narrative knowledge

• What makes the narrative a unique genre:

– Description of an event– Temporality – sequencing events– Causality – one event caused the other– Narrative structure – Initiating event, , attempt

to solve the problem, result – coda (the minimal story)

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The Minimal Story

The use of the minimal story by age (in percentage)

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[N=58] 4 [N=36]

5 [N=58]

9 [N=58]

Adults [N=100]

Problem 17 50 78 94 100 Attempt to solve the problem 15 20 52 98 100 Result – coda 10 28 62 41 92 Minimal story 3 14 34 66 92

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The Raven and the Fox

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1 2 3

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Four versions of the storyר: פעם אחת היה עורב שרצה לאכול את הדגים שעל שולחן אוכל קטן שהיה באמצע •

היער. ואז, אחרי שהוא סיים לאכול הוא עף אל העץ. ואז בא השועל ורצה לטרוף את העורב עם העצם של הדג. העורב רצה לפרוס כנפיים ופתאום נפל לו העצם. השועל

חטף את העצם של העורב ואז העורב חטף לו אותה בחזרה ועף.

י: עורב מצא דג על שולחן. הוא לקח אותו עם מקורו ועמד על העץ. הוא אכל את הדג •עד שנשאר רק השלד. הגיע שועל והיה רעב ורצה לאכול את הציפור. ואז נפל לציפור

שלד הדג והשועל לקח אותו על מנת שהעורב ינסה לקחת את השלד חזרה והוא יתפוס את העורב. העורב לקח את השלד מהשועל והשועל רדף אחרי העורב.

ג: בחצר עמד שולחן ועליו דג. פתע פתאום, צלל לו עורב מן השמים ולקח את הדג •והתיישב עמו על ענף. בא שועל רעב מאוד וניסה לקפוץ ולתפוס את העורב. פתאום

נפל מפי העורב הדג. השועל תפס אותו וברח. מיד רדף אחריו העורב והצליח לתפוס את הדג ולברוח עימו.

א: יום אחד טס לו עורב אחד בשמים וראה למטה שולחן ועליו מונח דג. צלל העורב •אל הדג תפס אותו בפיו ועף איתו אל העץ. באותו זמן, עבר שועל למרגלות העץ.

השועל היה רעב מאוד והחליט להשיג את הדג שבפי העורב. "עורב עורב" קרא השועל "ספר לי היכן מצאת דג כזה טעים". העורב שרצה לענות פתח את פיו והדג

צנח לו הישר אל השועל שלמטה. השועל לא המתין רבות, טפס את הדג בפיו והחל לרוץ איתו. העורב המרוגז שהבין שהשועל שיטה בו צלל אל השועל הבורח ודקר אותו

בחוזקה במקורו. השועל שהופתע מעוצמת הדקירה שמט את הדג והעורב תפס את הדג במקורו והתעופף לו לשמים.

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Adults Tense One Anchor tense: past or present Connectives Causality by enablement: adding the background

which makes something possible Coherent global organization Wide reference to psychological state (feelings,

psychological motivations) A wide semantically motivated variety of

linguistic forms: ba-hatxala, kodem, livsof – mirroring the global organization.

Deictics as markers of the development of the story-line

Connectives are used for embedding Temporality is marked for sequentiality and

simultaneity. Null subject In third person to enhance the cohesion – one

referent for several utterances (34%)

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3 years old Tense Wide use of past tense

No temporal anchor (50%) Local motivations for tense shifting

Connectives Local-spatial organization Deictics: po, hine, kan, axshav Enumeration of similar situations: gam, od

pa’am Conjunction by (discourse) ve rather than az or

axar-kax. No cause and effect. Utterance initial connectivity

Null subject Rare, mostly ungrammatical (9%)

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5 years old

Tense One dominant anchor tense

Tense shifting (though rare) is motivated by text units

Connectives Connectives are used for chaining utterance into an event

Temporal organization through connectives: yom exad, axar-kax, pit’om …

Causal organization (rare): only physical and local

Null subject Grammatical, in complex and coordinated sentences (16%)

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9 years old Tense Anchor tense – past - the narrative tense

Tense shifting to indicate local temporal relations

Connectives Exaggerated temporal organization through connectives: axarey ze, benatayim …

Causal organization – physical and psychological: kedey.

Global causality – related to the problem rather than immediate events

Many utterance-initial connectives, from different types.

Null subject Grammatical, in complex and coordinated sentences (16%)

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Narrative Abilities in Children with SLI

Wagner, C. R., Sahlén, B. and U. Nettelbladt. 1999. What’s the story? Narration and comprehension in Swedish preschool children with language impairment. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 15(2), pp.113-137

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Research Questions (p. 117)

1) “Is it possible to investigate narratives and document narrative problems in Swedish 5 year olds with language impairment?”

2) “Is there a relationship between narrative comprehension, productivity (amount of words) and narrative organization in this group of children?”

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Method

• Subjects– 28 children (4;11-5;9) with expressive

problems

• Materials– Story retelling (a fable)– Story generation (with pictures)

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Analysis (p.120)• Narrative level analysis: heaps, sequences,

primitive• narrative, unfocused chains, focused chains or

narrative. (Appelbee, 1978).• Story grammar units: setting, initiating event,

response state,• response plan, attempt, consequence and

resolution/reaction. (Stein and Glenn, 1979).• Extended analysis of content (‘relevance’).• Comprehension of content questions• Total number of words

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Results

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(24%)(74%)

(27%)(81%)

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LI-NL (from Nilsson & Vikerson 1998) comparison

Story GrammarTN of words

LINLLINL

Retelling9.715.8680.6162

Generation9.6813.4397.25141.98

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Relationship between story grammar production, comprehension andtotal number of words (p.124)

• Retelling: a correlation between story grammar scores and the scores on total number of content questions (r = 0.60, p < 0.001)

• Generating (frog stories):– no correlation between story grammar scores

and scores on content questions (p > 0.05). – a correlation between story grammar scores

and number of words (p < 0.001)

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Conclusion (p.130-131)

• narrative skills are not age appropriate• good content comprehension is a

prerequisite for good retelling• tapping implicit information were more

difficult than tapping explicit information• Number of words does not reflect the

quality of the narration• Narration is extremely effortful and

demands support from the examiner

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Presentations• Van Der Lely H. 1997. Narrative discourse in Grammatical specific

language impaired children: a modular language deficit? J. Child Lang. 24, 221-256.

• Miranda, A., McCabe, A., and Bliss, L. 1998. Jumping Around and Leaving Things Out: A Profile of the Narrative Abilities of Children with Specific Language Impairment. Applied Psycholinguistics 19, 4, 247-267.

• Kaderavek, J., & Sulzby, E. 2000. Narrative production by children with language impairment: Oral narratives and emergent readings. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research 43, 1, 34-49.

• Botting, N., Faragher, B., Simkin, Z., Knox, E., and G. Conti-Ramsden. 2001. Predicting Pathways of Specific Language Impairment: What Differentiates Good and Poor Outcome? J. ChildPsycho[. Psychiaf. V01 42, No. 8, pp. 1013-1020.

• Reilly, J. Losh, M., Bellugi, U. & B. Wulfeck. 2004. Frog, Where are you? Narratives in children with specific language impairment, early focal brain injury and Williams Syndrome. In B. Wulfeck & J. Reilly (Eds.), Plasticity and development: Language in atypical children. Special issue, Brain & Language.