Macrostructure in the narratives of Indonesian-Dutch bilinguals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Tribushinina ◽  
Mila Irmawati ◽  
Pim Mak
Keyword(s):  
Internal State ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Input Current ◽  
Home Language ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Language Exposure ◽  
Cross Lingual ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
The Relationship

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.

Macrostructure components in narrations of Turkish–German bilingual children

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-89 ◽  
Author(s):  
İLKNUR MAVIŞ ◽  
MÜGE TUNÇER ◽  
NATALIA GAGARINA
Keyword(s):  
Internal State ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Model Condition ◽  
And Task ◽  
Turkish German

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).

Storytelling in bilingual Turkish-Swedish children

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ute Bohnacker ◽  
Josefin Lindgren ◽  
Buket Öztekin
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Oral Narratives ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Language Exposure ◽  
Carry Over

Abstract The empirical evidence for whether narrative macrostructure skills are shared between a bilingual child’s two languages is inconclusive, and it is not known how macrostructure (overall story structure) is influenced by general language proficiency and amount of exposure. The present study investigates these issues in 100 Turkish-Swedish bilingual 4-to-7-year-old children growing up in Sweden. Oral narratives were elicited in both Turkish and Swedish with two picture-based tasks from the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) in the telling mode. We investigated to what extent the language of elicitation influences bilingual children’s macrostructure (story structure, episodic complexity), and explored effects of age, narrative task, narrative length, expressive vocabulary and language exposure, both separately and combined, on macrostructure in the respective language. Story structure and episodic complexity were found to increase similarly with age in both Turkish and Swedish from 4 to 7 years. Scores did not differ between the two MAIN storytelling tasks. Expressive vocabulary and narrative length influenced story structure scores positively and similarly in both languages. Daily language exposure and length of exposure to Swedish did not show any significant effect. The results can be interpreted in support of a carry-over of narrative macrostructural skills between the two languages.

Tell me a story in English or Swedish: Narrative production and comprehension in bilingual preschoolers and first graders

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
UTE BOHNACKER
Keyword(s):  
First Graders ◽  
Age Effects ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Narrative Comprehension ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Goal Directed Behavior ◽  
Fictional Story ◽  
Parallel Fashion

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.

Narrative abilities of preschool bilingual Norwegian-Russian children

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 617-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Rodina
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Narrative Development ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Language Data ◽  
Language Exposure ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interdependence Hypothesis ◽  
Narrative Abilities

Aim and objectives/purpose/research questions: The study aims at conducting a comprehensive examination of the initial stages of narrative development in both languages of typically developing Norwegian-Russian simultaneous bilinguals. The objective of the study was to investigate whether narrative structure (macrostructure) and narrative productivity (microstructure) are language-dependent abilities (cf. The Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis) and to explore language exposure effects on the narrative composites. Design/methodology/approach: The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives was used to assess narrative comprehension and production in preschool Norwegian-Russian children ( N = 16, M = 4;6) as well as in Norwegian- ( N = 16, M = 4;5) and Russian monolinguals ( N = 16, M = 4;5). Data and analysis: Multiple regression and correlation analysis was conducted to establish the relationship between the narrative macro- and microstructure in bilinguals and through the bilingual–monolingual comparison. In addition, more detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis at each level was performed. Individual bilingual children’s data were also considered. Findings/conclusions: Overall the comparison of the narrative macro- and microstructure in the two languages of bilinguals supports the Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis. Norwegian-Russian children’s ability to compose and especially understand a story is equally developed in both languages. Exposure effects revealing the superiority of Norwegian, the majority language, are found primarily for microstructure measures. The complete picture is achieved through the bilingual–monolingual comparison, which suggests that narrative abilities in the minority language are sensitive to the amount of exposure and their acquisition can be vulnerable. Originality and significance/implications: The study provides new evidence on bilinguals’ narrative abilities in a previously unstudied language combination. The new evidence contributes to better understanding of the initial stages of narrative development in typically developing simultaneous bilinguals and establishing the norms for the relevant abilities. Importantly, the study highlights the importance of examining language data in both languages of a bilingual child.

Narratives of Russian–German preschool and primary school bilinguals: Rasskaz and Erzaehlung

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
NATALIA GAGARINA
Keyword(s):  
Early Literacy ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
First Grade ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
Three Components

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.

scholarly journals Macrostructural organization of adults’ oral narrative texts

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 190-208
Author(s):  
Natalia Gagarina ◽  
Ute Bohnacker ◽  
Josefin Lindgren
Keyword(s):  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Maximum Score ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Internal States ◽  
Qualitative Measure ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Universal Nature

This study investigates macrostructure in elicited narratives of 69 monolingual German-, Russian- and Swedish-speaking adults. Using the LITMUS-MAIN (Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives), and its Baby Goats and Baby Birds stories, story structure and story complexity, concerning episodic organization, were examined across the 3 languages. As theoretical underpinnings, a multidimensional model of macrostructure was used. This model includes analyses of story structure (SS), in which a narrative merits a maximum score of 17, based on the occurrence of five types of macrostructural components (Internal states as initiating event and as reaction, Goal, Attempt and Outcome), and of story complexity (SC), which measures combinations of Goals, Attempts and Outcomes within one episode. The highest attainable complexity is the GAO-sequence, when a Goal, Attempt and Outcome are produced within the same episode. The results for SS were similar for German, Russian and Swedish, where adults included 11-12 components per story. A more detailed analysis of the individual components revealed striking similarities across the 3 languages, both for frequently used and seldom occurring components. SC did not differ significantly across languages nor across stories, whilst for SS, a slight difference between the two stories was found. We interpret this finding as story complexity (a qualitative measure of macrostructure) being of a more universal nature. Furthermore, our results indicate that caution is warranted when conclusions about children’s narrative skills are to be drawn on the basis of the MAIN Baby Goats and Baby Birds stories.  

How do age, language, narrative task, language proficiency and exposure affect narrative macrostructure in German-Swedish children aged 4 to 6?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josefin Lindgren ◽  
Ute Bohnacker
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Task Effects ◽  
Language Exposure

Abstract Previous studies show mixed findings concerning whether higher-order story structure (macrostructure) is similar across bilinguals’ two languages. It is not known how macrostructure is influenced by general language proficiency and amount of exposure. The present study investigates these issues in 46 German-Swedish bilingual 4- to 6-year-olds. Narratives were elicited in both languages with two picture-based tasks from the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) in the telling mode. We investigate to what extent the language of elicitation (Swedish vs German) influences bilingual children’s macrostructure (story structure, episodic complexity) and explore effects of narrative task, age, narrative length, expressive vocabulary and estimated language exposure, both separately and combined, on macrostructure in the respective language. Results show that macrostructural skills developed measurably with age from 4 to 6 years in both languages, with no task effects. Story structure scores were higher in the majority language Swedish than in German and developed differently with age. The effect of narrative length on story structure was similar in the two languages. Language exposure did not have any significant effect. Macrostructure scores were significantly affected by expressive vocabulary in German only. Generally, the results may be linked to slightly higher language proficiency in Swedish.

Macrostructural Narrative Skills of Monolingual and Simultaneously Bilingual Preschoolers

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 233-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carina Marie Wehmeier
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Receptive Language ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Story Comprehension ◽  
Story Structure ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Picture Story

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.

scholarly journals Ist der Verbwortschatz entscheidend für die Makrostruktur? Eine Analyse anhand elizitierter Narrative deutsch-russisch bilingualer Vor- und Grundschulkinder

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 89-117
Author(s):  
Natalie Sürmeli
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Internal State ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Structural Complexity ◽  
Assessment Instrument ◽  
Eine Analyse ◽  
Narrative Skills ◽  
Language Effects ◽  
Positive Correlations ◽  
Verb Lexicon

This study explores the relation between the development of narrative skills at the macrostructural level and the productive lexical abilities (verbs) of German-Russian children. The narratives are elicited using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) and the lexical abilities are assessed using different tests. Twenty-one preschoolers (mean age: 3;9), forty-four 1st graders (mean age: 6;11) and twenty-two 3rd graders (mean age: 9;3) were included in the study. Correlation analyses were performed between verb lexicon and the following macrostructural components: Story Structure, Structural Complexity and Internal State Terms. The analysis also targets cross-language effects. In addition, the production of verbs within the elicited narratives was taken into account. Some positive correlations were found; however, no clear pattern across age groups and languages was observed. It is suggested that cognitive abilities might be a more decisive factor than lexical abilities and/or that the verbs assessed via the vocabulary tests are more specific than the ones required to achieve high scores for macrostructure.  

A study of user profile representation for personalized cross-language information retrieval

2016 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Zhou ◽  
Séamus Lawless ◽  
Xuan Wu ◽  
Wenyu Zhao ◽  
Jianxun Liu
Keyword(s):  
Information Retrieval ◽  
Query Expansion ◽  
User Profile ◽  
User Profiles ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Cross Language Information Retrieval ◽  
Cross Lingual ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
Representation Techniques ◽  
Comprehensive Study

Purpose – With an increase in the amount of multilingual content on the World Wide Web, users are often striving to access information provided in a language of which they are non-native speakers. The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive study of user profile representation techniques and investigate their use in personalized cross-language information retrieval (CLIR) systems through the means of personalized query expansion. Design/methodology/approach – The user profiles consist of weighted terms computed by using frequency-based methods such as tf-idf and BM25, as well as various latent semantic models trained on monolingual documents and cross-lingual comparable documents. This paper also proposes an automatic evaluation method for comparing various user profile generation techniques and query expansion methods. Findings – Experimental results suggest that latent semantic-weighted user profile representation techniques are superior to frequency-based methods, and are particularly suitable for users with a sufficient amount of historical data. The study also confirmed that user profiles represented by latent semantic models trained on a cross-lingual level gained better performance than the models trained on a monolingual level. Originality/value – Previous studies on personalized information retrieval systems have primarily investigated user profiles and personalization strategies on a monolingual level. The effect of utilizing such monolingual profiles for personalized CLIR remains unclear. The current study fills the gap by a comprehensive study of user profile representation for personalized CLIR and a novel personalized CLIR evaluation methodology to ensure repeatable and controlled experiments can be conducted.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document