This study investigated the possibility that the amount of content children include in their stories is affected by how stories are presented. Simple stories were presented to kindergarten and Grade 2 children in 3 conditions: orally (oral only), pictorially (pictures only), and combined oral and pictures. The kindergarteners recalled more content in the combined condition than in pictures, only. The 2nd graders recalled more content in the oral only and combined conditions than in pictures only. The grades differed in both conditions involving oral presentation, but not in the pictures only condition. Thus, children in both grades provided more story information when they retold a story presented orally than when they told the story from pictures alone.
Young children have been found to use referring expressions less adequately than older children to introduce and maintain reference to characters and objects in their stories. Indirect evidence suggests that this tendency may be stronger when children look at pictures as they retell stories; they may tend to presuppose shared knowledge of information in pictures, even when the listener clearly cannot see the pictures. The present study is an investigation of the effects of presenting stories pictorially versus orally on children's use of adequate reference.Retellings of stories by 44 children in Kindergarten and Grade 2 were compared when they were presented: (a) orally, (b) through pictures, and (c) both orally and pictorially. An oral version was created for each of 3 picture sets, representing a single complete episode with 2 characters. Oral versions were controlled for length, story units, and language level. Within-subject comparisons revealed main effects for both presentation type and age, and an interaction. The younger children used a higher percentage of adequate reference in the oral-only than the picture-only condition. Older children used high percentages of adequate reference in all conditions. Thus it appears that older children can Downloaded from 284The way referring expressions are used in a narrative will affect its cohesiveness (Halliday & Hasan 1976), defined as the degree to which parts of a text or discourse are linked together by various linguistic means. How referential cohesiveness is achieved depends on factors such as shared context and mutual knowledge of the interlocutors (Hickmann 1995). In a narrative, for example, new characters and objects must be introduced by some referring expression in such a way that the listener understands that the referents are ncw; thereafter, reference to these characters and objects must be maintained in such a way that the listener can understand that the referent has already been introduced and which previous referent is intended by a particular referring expression. The following example illustrates adequate reference to a story character: 1 a. One day a hippo was going shopping.b. She saw a fruit stand.Such reference is endophoric, that is, it is accomplished by introducing and maintaining reference through language rather than by direct reference to the extra-linguistic context itself (e.rophorcr). Typically, in the absence of shared context, a new referent is introduced endophorically by a noun phrase (NP) with an indefinite article; the use of an indefinite NP implies a presupposition that the referent is unknown to the listener. As illustrated in the following example, the first mention of a person can be made using a pronoun, when the listener can be presumed to know the intended referent due to its presence in the shared context. 2.[while watching a skater on television] He really missed that turn.In subsequent mentions of a referent, speakers must choose among forms appropriate for reference maintenance, most commonly definite NPs and prono...
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