Macrostructure components in narrations of Turkish–German bilingual children

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
İLKNUR MAVIŞ ◽  
MÜGE TUNÇER ◽  
NATALIA GAGARINA

ABSTRACTTwo studies examined the effects of age, gender, and task on Turkish narrative skills of Turkish–German bilingual children. In Study 1, 36 children (2 years, 11 months [2;11]–7;11) told stories in two conditions (“tell-after model” and “tell-no model”) and answered comprehension questions. In Study 2, 13 children (5;5–7;11) participated in two conditions (“tell-no model” and “retell”) and were compared to Study 1 participants’ on tell tasks. The studies showed significant age effects on story complexity and comprehension, but not story structure and internal state terms. There were no significant effects for gender. Comprehension was significantly better in the “tell-after model” than in the “tell-no model” condition (Study 1). For production (storytelling), a trend favoring retell over tell was found (Study 2).

Author(s):  
Elena Tribushinina ◽  
Mila Irmawati ◽  
Pim Mak

Abstract There is no agreement regarding the relationship between narrative abilities in the two languages of a bilingual child. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that such cross-language relationships depend on age and language exposure by studying the narrative skills of 32 Indonesian-Dutch bilinguals (mean age: 8;5, range: 5;0–11;9). The narratives were elicited by means of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) and analysed for story structure, episodic complexity and use of internal state terms (ISTs) in the home language (Indonesian) and majority language (Dutch). The results demonstrate that story structure scores in the home language (but not in the majority language) were positively related to age. Exposure measures (current Dutch/Indonesian input, current richness of Dutch/Indonesian input, and length of exposure to Dutch) did not predict the macrostructure scores. There was a significant positive cross-language relationship in story structure and episodic complexity, and this relationship became stronger as a function of length of exposure to Dutch. There was also a positive cross-lingual relation in IST use, but it became weaker with age. The results support the idea that narrative skills are transferable between languages and suggest that cross-language relationships may interact with age and exposure factors in differential ways.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-144 ◽  
Author(s):  
SARI KUNNARI ◽  
TAINA VÄLIMAA ◽  
PÄIVI LAUKKANEN-NEVALA

ABSTRACTThe narrative macrostructure of 16 Finnish–Swedish bilingual children (M age = 5 years, 8 months) was assessed in both of their languages. In the case of the Finnish language, the macrostructure was compared with that of 16 monolingual same-age peers. The narratives were analyzed for story structure, structural complexity, and internal state terms in two conditions (telling and retelling). There were no differences in macrostructure between the two languages of bilingual children, or between the monolingual and bilingual children. However, the results revealed differences between elicitation tasks. The story structure score for bilingual children was lower in a telling task than in a retelling task in Finnish. Further, the retelling task elicited higher structural complexity and more internal state terms, regardless of the language.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
UTE BOHNACKER

ABSTRACTThis study examines macrostructural aspects of narrative skills in 52 bilingual Swedish- and English-speaking children age 5–7. Elicited fictional story production and comprehension tasks were administered in parallel fashion in both Swedish and English (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives; Gagarina et al., 2012). Scores on the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives were compared across languages; moreover, story structure components in the narratives and answers to probe questions were qualitatively analyzed. Age effects (5-year-olds vs. 6- to 7-year-olds) for macrostructure production and narrative comprehension were evident, but no effect for language (Swedish/English). The results suggest that story structure is invariant across a bilingual child's two languages at a given age, with similar awareness of the intentions and goal-directed behavior of the story protagonists, irrespective of language.


2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATALIA GAGARINA

ABSTRACTThe goal of this study was to trace the dual language development of the narrative macrostructure in three age groups of Russian–German bilingual children and to compare the performance of simultaneous and sequential bilinguals. Fine-grained analyses of macrostructure included three components: story structure, story complexity, and internal state terms. Oral narratives were elicited via the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. Fifty-eight Russian–German speaking bilingual children from three age groups participated: preschoolers (mean age = 45 months) and elementary school pupils (mean age first grade = 84 months, mean age third grade = 111 months); and there were 34 simultaneous and 24 sequential bilinguals. The results showed significant improvement for all three components of macrostructure between the preschool and first-grade period. Additional significant development from first to third graders was found only for story complexity in Russian. This is explained by the Russian curriculum explicitly teaching narrative skills during early literacy training. In the two older groups, simultaneous bilinguals showed advantages over sequential bilinguals, for story complexity only. This finding suggests considering bilingual type when evaluating narrative skills of bilinguals. The results indicate cross-language association of only some components of narrative score across languages. The findings support the examination of various constituents of macrostructure when evaluating its development as well as the progression of narrative skills.


2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-156
Author(s):  
Audrey Lucero ◽  
Yuuko Uchikoshi

Abstract This study used qualitative analyses to investigate similarities and differences in narrative production across two task conditions for four first grade Spanish-English emergent bilingual children. Task conditions were spontaneous story generation and retelling using the same story. Spanish stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in vocabulary, while English stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in overall discourse skills. Results show that when the total number of words used was similar across Spanish narratives, the retell included more different words and higher quality story structure than the spontaneous story. When overall discourse scores in the English examples were similar, the spontaneous story required more words than the retell, but also included more central events and greater detail. Yet, the retell included more advanced narrative components. This study contributes to our understanding of narrative skills in young Spanish-English bilinguals across task conditions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina Marie Wehmeier

Abstract. This article compares the development of macrostructural narrative skills of monolingual and simultaneously bilingual preschoolers in telling a picture story. It also addresses the connections between macrostructural narrative skills, receptive and productive language skills (LiSe DaZ), and auditory perception and processing skills (HASE). The narrative skills were collected using the Baby Birds picture story of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS-MAIN) and analyzed regarding the macrostructural components of story structure, story complexity, and story comprehension. This contribution includes data from 229 monolingual and 76 simultaneously bilingual children. The comparison of the three age groups (4;6 – 4;11, 5;0 – 5;5, 5;6 – 5;11 years) indicates significant developmental increases in the performance of monolingual children regarding story structure, story complexity, and story comprehension, while no clear age trends are apparent for the simultaneously bilingual children. Correlations are found for the story structure and story comprehension of monolingual and simultaneously bilingual children with individual receptive language skills and language-processing skills.


1979 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-249 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erica Mcclure ◽  
Jana Mason ◽  
John Barnitz

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
SVETLANA KAPALKOVÁ ◽  
KAMILA POLIŠENSKÁ ◽  
LENKA MARKOVÁ ◽  
JAMES FENTON

ABSTRACTThis study investigates macrostructure skill transfer in successive bilingual children speaking Slovak and English, a new language combination for narrative research. We examined whether narrative performance reflected language dominance and assessed relationships between nonword repetition (NWR) and narrative skills within and across languages. Forty typically developing Slovak–English bilingual children (mean age = 5 years, 10 months) were evaluated for microstructure and macrostructure performance in both languages through story telling and retelling tasks. In addition, NWR was assessed in Slovak, the children's first language (L1). Macrostructure scores were higher in their L1 than in their second language (L2), but comprehension did not differ across languages. L1 NWR was significantly related to L1 microstructure scores, but not to L1/L2 macrostructure or L2 microstructure. Implications for assessing bilingual children's language are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 64 ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Alondra Camus ◽  
Melina Aparici

The adaptation of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (LITMUS- MAIN; Gagarina, et al., 2019) to Catalan contributes to advancing our knowledge of the development of children’s narrative skills in a diversity of languages using the same protocol, making it possible to evaluate narratives also in Catalan-speakers. The adaptation of MAIN will be very useful in Catalonia, because it is a region where two official languages (Catalan and Spanish) coexist, Catalan being the language of schooling, so that most of the population is bilingual. However, currently there is no instrument for assessing narrative skills that allows for parallel assessment of Catalan in bilingual children. For these reasons, this adaptation will be of great value to promote the study of narratives in the bilingual population considering Catalan within the possible language combinations. The present paper describes the process of adapting MAIN to Catalan and reports results from the first pilot study using the Catalan MAIN.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document