The Effect of Age and Discourse Position on Referential Adequacy in Filipino Bilingual Children's Oral Narratives in Mandarin  

Oleh:

Tao, Lina ; Lucas, Rochelle Irene

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: TESOL Journal vol. 7 (Dec. 2012), page 43-57.
Fulltext: The Effect of Age.pdf (815.61KB)

Isi artikel

In producing comprehensible narratives, a narrator needs to introduce participants, maintain the reference, and show if a switch in the reference has been made. The present study examines the effect of age and discourse position on referential adequacy in bilingual (L1: Mandarin and L2: English) children’s storytelling in Mandarin and the specific referential expressions that are used in introducing, maintaining, and reintroducing a character, separately. Eighty children aged three, five, seven, and nine (20 children for each age range) were selected from Chinese International School in the Philippines and four wordless picture books were designed based on the three referential functions. Results showed that children’s referential ability developed as they aged. Three-year-olds could only adequately maintain major characters, whereas the nine-year-olds performed all referential functions near ceiling. Out of expectation, children tended to act better when reference occurred later in the discourse. Older children had the tendency to employ more different linguistic forms for each type of referential function than younger ones. Results seem to reflect children’s development of two sorts of cognitive presupposition: the addressee’s knowledge of the referent and the addressee’s attention toward it.

Opini Anda

Klik untuk menuliskan opini Anda tentang koleksi ini!

Kembali