Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-12T14:48:22.910Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Macrostructure in the narratives of monolingual Finnish and bilingual Finnish–Swedish children

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2015

SARI KUNNARI ,
TAINA VÄLIMAA  and
PÄIVI LAUKKANEN-NEVALA
SARI KUNNARI*
Affiliation:
University of Oulu
TAINA VÄLIMAA
Affiliation:
University of Oulu
PÄIVI LAUKKANEN-NEVALA
Affiliation:
University of Oulu
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Sari Kunnari, University of Oulu, Faculty of Humanities, Child Language Research Center, PO Box 1000, 90014 University of Oulu, Finland. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The narrative macrostructure of 16 Finnish–Swedish bilingual children (M age = 5 years, 8 months) was assessed in both of their languages. In the case of the Finnish language, the macrostructure was compared with that of 16 monolingual same-age peers. The narratives were analyzed for story structure, structural complexity, and internal state terms in two conditions (telling and retelling). There were no differences in macrostructure between the two languages of bilingual children, or between the monolingual and bilingual children. However, the results revealed differences between elicitation tasks. The story structure score for bilingual children was lower in a telling task than in a retelling task in Finnish. Further, the retelling task elicited higher structural complexity and more internal state terms, regardless of the language.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 1: Narrative abilities in bilingual children , January 2016 , pp. 123 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Bamberg, M., & Damrad-Frye, R. (1991). On the ability to provide evaluative comments: Further explorations of children's narrative competencies. Journal of Child Language, 18, 689–710.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barnes, J., Lombardo, M. V., Wheelwright, S., & Baron-Cohen, S. (2009). Moral dilemmas film task: A study of spontaneous narratives by individuals with autism spectrum conditions. Autism Research, 2, 148–156.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, L., & Yan, R. (2011). Development and use of English evaluative expressions in narratives of Chinese–English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 14, 570–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curenton, S. M. (2004). The association between narratives and theory of mind for low-income preschoolers. Early Education and Development, 15, 124–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curenton, S. M., & Justice, L. M. (2004). African American and Caucasian preschoolers’ use of decontextualized language: Literate language features in oral narratives. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35, 240–253.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Houwer, A. (2009). Bilingual first language acquisition. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durlak, J. A. (2009). How to select, calculate, and interpret effect sizes. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 34, 917–928.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fiestas, C. E., & Peña, E. D. (2004). Narrative discourse in bilingual children: Language and task effects. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35, 155–168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Flavell, J. H. (2004). Theory-of-mind development: Retrospect and prospect. Merrill–Palmer Quarterly, 50, 274–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fusté-Herrmann, B., Silliman, E. R., Bahr, R. H., Fasnacht, K. S., & Federico, J. E. (2006). Mental state verb production in the oral narratives of English- and Spanish-speaking preadolescents: An exploratory study of lexical diversity and depth. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 21, 44–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gagarina, N., Klop, D., Kunnari, S., Tantele, K., Välimaa, T., Balciuniene, I., et al. (2012). Part I. MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. ZAS papers in linguistics 56. Berlin: ZAS.Google Scholar
Gagarina, N., Klop, D., Kunnari, S., Tantele, K., Välimaa, T., Balčiūnienė, I., et al. (2015). Assessment of narrative abilities in bilingual children. In Armon-Lotem, S., de Jong, J., & Meir, N. (Eds.), Methods for assessing multilingual children: Disentangling bilingualism from language impairment. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Greenhalgh, K. S., & Strong, C. J. (2001). Literate language features in spoken narratives of children with typical language and children with language impairments. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 32, 114–125.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gutiérrez-Clellen, V. (2002). Narratives in two languages: Assessing performance of bilingual children. Linguistics and Education, 13, 175–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayward, D., & Schneider, P. (2000). Effectiveness of teaching story grammar knowledge to preschool children with language impairment: An exploratory study. Child Language Teaching and therapy, 16, 255–284.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilmann, J., Miller, J., & Nockerts, A. (2010). Sensitivity of narrative organization measures using narrative retells produced by young school-age children. Language Testing, 27, 603–626.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heilmann, J., Miller, J. F., Nockerts, A., & Dunaway, C. (2010). Properties of the narrative scoring scheme using narrative retells in young school-age children. American Journal of Speech–Language Pathology, 19, 154–166.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hudson, J. A., & Shapiro, L. R. (1991). From knowing to telling: The development of children's scripts, stories, and personal narratives. In McCabe, A. & Peterson, C. (Eds.), Developing narrative structure (pp. 89–135). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hughes, D., McGillvray, L., & Schmidek, M. (1997). Guide to narrative language: Procedures for assessments. Eau Claire, WI: Thinking Publications.Google Scholar
Ilgaz, H., & Aksu-Koç, A. (2005). Episodic development in preschool children's play-prompted and direct-elicited narratives. Cognitive Development, 20, 526–544.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, C. N., & Wellman, H. M. (1980). Children's developing understanding of mental verbs: Remember, know, and guess. Child Development, 51, 1095–1102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Juvonen, P., Lindberg, I., & Viberg, Å. (1989). Narrative skills in two languages. Scandinavian Working Papers on Bilingualism, 8, 49–69.Google Scholar
Kaderavek, J. N., & Sulzby, E. 2000. Narrative production by children with and without specific language impairment: Oral narratives and emergent readings. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 43, 34–49.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Labov, W., & Waletzky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. In Helm, J. (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts (pp. 12–44). Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Laing, S. P., & Kamhi, A. (2003). Alternative assessment of language and literacy in culturally and linguistically diverse populations. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 34, 44–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Liles, B. Z. (1993). Narrative discourse in children with language disorders and children with normal language: A critical review of the literature. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 36, 868–882.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liles, B. Z., Duffy, R. J., Merritt, D. D., & Purcell, S. L., (1995). Measurement of narrative discourse ability in children with language disorders. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 38, 415–425.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES project: Tools for analyzing talk. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Mäkinen, L., Loukusa, S., Nieminen, L., Leinonen, E., & Kunnari, S. (2014). The development of narrative productivity, syntactic complexity, event content, and referential cohesion in four- to eight-year-old Finnish children. First Language, 34, 24–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merrit, D. D., & Liles, B. Z. (1989). Narrative analysis: Clinical applications of story generation and story retelling. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54, 438–447.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, M. L., Gillam, R. B., Peña, E. D., & Gulley-Faehnle, A. (2003). Measures of language development in fictional narratives of Latino children. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services at Schools, 34, 332–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pearson, B. Z. (2002). Narrative competence among monolingual and bilingual school children in Miami. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (Eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children (pp. 135–174). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child's narrative. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, J. R., Roberts, J. E., & Jackson, S. C. (2006). Structural development of the fictional narratives of African American preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services at Schools, 37, 178–190.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reese, E., Suggate, S., Long, J., & Schaughency, E. (2010). Children's oral narrative and reading skills in the first 3 years of reading instruction. Reading and Writing, 23, 627–644.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, P. (1996). Effects of pictures versus orally presented stories on story retellings by children with language impairment. American Journal of Speech–Language Pathology, 5, 86–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, P., & Dubé, R. V. (1997). Effect of pictorial versus oral story presentation on children's use of referring expressions in retell. First Language, 5, 283–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schneider, P., & Dubé, R. V. (2005). Story presentation effects on children's retell content. American Journal of Speech–Language Pathology, 14, 52–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schneider, P., Hayward, D., & Dubé, R. V. (2006). Storytelling from pictures using the Edmonton Narrative Norms Instrument. Journal of Speech–Language Pathology and Audiology, 30, 224–238.Google Scholar
Shatz, M., Wellman, H. M., & Silber, S. (1983). The acquisition of mental verbs: A systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state. Cognition, 14, 301–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Silliman, E. R., Huntley Bahr, R., Brea, M. R., Hnath-Chisolm, T., & Mahecha, N. R. (2002). Spanish and English proficiency in the linguistic encoding of mental states in narrative retellings. Linguistics and Education, 13, 199–234.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soodla, P. (2011). Picture-elicited narratives of Estonian children at the kindergarten–school transition as a measure of language competence. Doctoral dissertation, University of Tartu. Dissertationes Pedagogicae Universitatis Tartuensis 12.Google Scholar
Soodla, P., & Kikas, E. (2010). Macrostructure in the narratives of Estonian children with typical development and language impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 1321–1333.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Statistics Finland. (2014). Statistics Finland. Retrieved from http://www.tilastokeskus.fi/til/vaerak/2013/vaerak_2013_014–03–21_tie_001_en.htmlGoogle Scholar
Stein, N. L., & Albro, E. R. (1997). Building complexity and coherence: Children's use of goal-structured knowledge in telling stories. In Bamberg, M. (Ed.), Narrative development: Six approaches (pp. 5–44). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stein, N. L., & Glenn, C. G. (1979). An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children. In Freedle, R. (Ed.), Discourse processing: Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 53–120). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Stein, N. L., & Policastro, M. (1984). The concept of a story: A comparison between children's and teachers’ viewpoints. In Mandl, H., Stein, N. L., & Trabasso, T. (Eds.), Learning and the comprehension of text (pp. 113–155). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Suggate, S. P., Schaughency, E. A., & Reese, E. (2011). The contribution of age and reading instruction to oral narrative and pre-reading skills. First Language, 31, 379–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
To, C. K.-S., Stokes, S. F., Cheung, H.-T., & T'sou, B. (2010). Narrative assessment of Cantonese-speaking children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 53, 648–669.Google ScholarPubMed
Trabasso, T., Stein, N. L., Rodkin, P. C., Park Munger, M., & Baughn, C. R. (1992). Knowledge of goals and plans in the on-line narration of events. Cognitive Development, 7, 133–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uccelli, P., & Páez, M. M. (2007). Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: Developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services at Schools, 38, 225–236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ukrainetz, T. A., Justice, L. M., Kaderavek, J. N., Eisenberg, S. L., Gillam, R. B., & Harm, H. M. (2005). The development of expressive elaboration in fictional narratives. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, 48, 1363–1377.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
UNESCO. (1997). International Standard Classification of Education, ISCED 1997. Retrieved from http://www.uis.unesco.org/Library/Documents/isced97-en.pdfGoogle Scholar
Westby, C. E. (2005). Assessing and facilitating text comprehension problems. In Catts, H. & Kamhi, A. (Eds.), Language and reading disabilities (pp. 157–232). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.Google Scholar