Narrative as an index of communicative competence in mildly mentally retarded children

Abstract

This study compared the narrative abilities of mildly mentally retarded and nonretarded children. Twenty mildly mentally retarded children and 20 nonretarded children, matched on mental age, PPVT-R scores, and SES were audiotaped while narrating a wordless picture book story. Results showed no differences between the groups in narrative length, use of tense and conjunctions, and use of narrative devices. However, there were significant differences in use of reference, with the mildly retarded children using more definite article + noun character introductions, showing more pronoun confusion, and more often pronominalizing all references to the story protagonist. Control of reference in narrative is discussed as presenting a particularly challenging set of discourse abilities because it requires the child to integrate knowledge across a number of linguistic and nonlinguistic domains.

How do narrative and language skills relate to each other?

“…Referencing: Each referral to the characters in the story was tallied and coded as either an appropriate or inappropriate reference. Following previous work on referencing (Hemphill, Picardi, & Tager-Flusberg, 1991;McCabe & Bliss, 2003), the use of pronouns without prior introduction of the characters, repetition of full noun phrases in marking anaphoric references, and the use of incorrect pronouns (i.e., the use of "he" to refer to a female character) were characterized as inappro* priate references. The score for referencing for each narrative was computed by subtracting the total number of inappropriate references from the total number of referential expressions used in the whole narrative.…”

Referencing in a Second Language: Korean EFL Learners' Cohesive Use of References in Written Narrative Discourse

“…Thus, the Korean EFL learners' over-reliance on noun phrases observed in the quantitative analysis may seem inappropriate or redundant. However, past research has suggested the use of noun phrases by NES, even after the referents are introduced, is often motivated by specific discourse purposes (Clancy, 1980;Fox, 1987;Hemphill et al, 1991). Therefore, it may be necessary to compare such cases in both Korean EFL learners' and NES' narratives to examine whether the Koreans' use of noun phrases are indeed a simple overuse influenced by their L1 or a reproduction of NES' mature narrative discourse.…”

“…Thus, they mainly used a nominal strategy (Hemphill et al, 1991) in which full noun phrases are used significantly more than pronouns whether or not the focus on the third-person referents is maintained. The following examples best characterize this tendency:…”

“…Reference is an important source of discourse cohesion. It reveals the narrators' linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic competencies in discourse by showing how they manage referential continuity-discontinuity, continuously assess characters' changing relations to the plot, and use alternating linguistic devices to signal shifts in narrative focus (Hemphill, Picardi, & Tager-Flusberg, 1991). Chafe (1976) referred to this ongoing decision making and reference management as the narrator's distinction between "given" and "new information," where "given information is conveyed in a weaker and more attenuated manner than new information" (p. 31).…”

“…However, making appropriate referential choices in distinguishing between given and new information has been shown to be a late development even in first language (L1) development, as adult-like command of reference emerge around the age of 10 (Bamberg, 1986;Hemphill et al, 1991;Karmiloff-Smith, 1981. Hence, we can assume that it may be a challenging linguistic feature even for adult or advanced L2 learners to master.…”