The Development of Narrative Macrostructure of Thai Children

Abstract

The present article aims to examine the development of storytelling ability of Thai children. The Thai Frog Story corpus, consisting of a total of 50 narratives by 4-, 6-, 9-, 11- and 20-year-old participants, is used as data for this study. Three main components of narrative macrostructure are employed as the framework for analysis: onset, problem and resolution. Results find that elementary children have shown significant acquisition of narrative macrostructure since the age of 9. In relation to percentage of acquisition, it is found that ‘problem’ is the easiest component to be recognized, followed by ‘onset’ and ‘resolution, respectively. More specifically, it is found that 4- to 6-year-old children tend to rely on immediate contexts and existing components in particular pictures. Accordingly, they fail to recognize the relationship among the protagonists and settings of the story. Moreover, they cannot keep the main plot along continuously until the end.