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Young children and the say/mean distinction: verbatim and paraphrase recognition in narrative and nursery rhyme contexts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 June 2001

ELIZABETH A. LEE
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
NANCY TORRANCE
Affiliation:
OISE/University of Toronto
DAVID R. OLSON
Affiliation:
OISE/University of Toronto

Abstract

Children's ability to distinguish between the text, WHAT WAS SAID, and the intentional structure, WHAT WAS MEANT, was interrogated by means of verbatim and paraphrase questions in two types of discourse, narratives and nursery rhymes. Three- to seven-year-olds participated (n = 119, mean age 5·1). There was an interaction between the type of discourse and the younger children's ability to separate wording from intentional structure. In the narrative form they had difficulty rejecting true paraphrases when asked to focus on wording, while in the nursery rhyme form the difficulty was accepting a true paraphrase when asked to focus on intention.

Type
NOTE
Copyright
2001 Cambridge University Press

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