Chapter 5 Discussion
5.3 The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives on
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frequencies of this information type were quite low at each time point. This is in line with Chang’s (2003) study. Over time, the results showed that the mean frequencies of both children’s complicating action and orientation increased, which supports many researcher’s claims that children included more actions and orientations in
constructing personal experience narratives with the growth of age (Chang, 2004;
Haden, Haine, & Fivush, 1997).
5.3 The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives on children’s narrative performance
The findings indicated that differences between the two mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with their children would be reflected in children’s
narrative performance in conversations with the researcher. With respect to the effect of mothers’ conversational styles on children’s conversational contributions, results revealed that the difference that Z’s mother’s elaborations were higher than D’s mother’s elaborations at Time 1 (3;6) would be reflected in their children’s performance. That is, it was found that Z’s elaborations were higher than D’s
elaborations when having conversation with the researcher. And it is worth noting that at Time 1 (3;6), D and Z did not differ much. But at Time 2 (3;9) and Time 3 (4;0), the difference between the two children’s percentage of elaborations was more apparent.
This suggested that the difference between the two mothers’ elaborations would be
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reflected in their children’s contributions of elaborations more obviously at later time points. This is consistent with Reese, Haden, and Fivush’s (1993) study that mothers’
provision of elaborations was significantly correlated with children’s elaborations at later time points. That is, the more elaborations that mothers provided, the more elaborations that children provided in their later narratives.
As for the utterance type of repetition, there was not much difference between the two mothers’ percentage of this utterance type at Time 1 (3;6). And it was found that there was no consistent difference between the two children’s repetitions at three time points. That is, at Time 1 (3;6), the percentage of D’s repetitions was higher than the percentage of Z’s repetitions. At Time 2 (3;9), the percentage of Z’s repetitions became higher than the percentage of D’s repetitions. But at Time 3 (4;0), the percentage of D’s repetitions was higher than the percentage of Z’s repetitions. The inconsistent difference between the two children’s percentage of repetitions may be due to the slight difference between the two mothers’ percentage of this utterance type.
With regard to the effect of mothers’ provision/request for narrative information types on children’s inclusion of narrative information types. Results revealed that the mother who provided/requested for certain narrative information type much more often than the other mother had the child who included this narrative information type
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more often than the other child. For instance, D’s mother provided or requested for complicating actions much more often than Z’s mother did at Time 1 (3;6). Then, it was found that the percentage of D’s complicating actions was higher than the
percentage of Z’s complicating actions at Time 3 (4;0). This is in line with Peterson &
McCabe’s (1992) study that the mother who emphasized complicating actions in the co-constructed narratives had the child who included much information about complicating actions in the narratives when having conversation with the researcher.
In addition, results revealed that the difference between the two mothers’
provision/request for narrative information type would be reflected in their children’s performance more obviously at later time point. For instance, Z’s mother provided or requested for orientation much more often than D’s mother did at Time 1 (3;6). Then, it was found that the difference that the percentage of Z’s orientation was higher than the percentage of D’s orientation was more apparent at Time 3 (4;0) than that at Time 1 (3;6). This finding lends its support to many previous studies that the children of mothers who provided or requested much orientation information in the
co-constructed narratives included a great deal of orientation information in their later independent narratives (Fivush, 1991; Peterson & McCabe, 1992).
According to Vygotskian (1986) theory, it proposes that interpersonal processes become internalized into intrapersonal processes. Generalizing to narration, this
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theory would predict that the way a child comes to internally construct his or her narrative should reflect the social interactions that the child has experienced. For instance, mother-child conversations would influence the child’s internalization of how to construct a narrative. That is, the questions that asked and statements that made by mothers would direct the child’s attention to what is important in a narrative.
Thus, the narrating child is responding to an internal sense of audience, which has developed in accordance with the real external audience that the child has been exposed to.
As an example of the predictions of Vygotskian theory, consider the orientation information that was included in the narratives by Child D and Child Z at each time point. Neither of them was proficient in the provision of orientation at Time 1 (3;6).
And complicating action was higher than orientation for both of them. However, at Time 3 (4;0), Z’s orientation became higher than complicating action, while D’s complicating action was still higher than orientation. This suggested that because Z’s mother placed more emphasis on orientation than D’s mother did, Z then increasingly incorporated much more orientation than complicating action in the narratives as she got older. That is, Z came to internalize which narrative information type was
important through the way that her mother co-constructed narratives with her.
Therefore, Z’s orientation became the most frequently included narrative information
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at Time 3 (4;0).
To summarize, a mother who frequently provided or asked for orientation information about participants, place, time, and objects stressed the importance of such information to her child. These then were the components that the child came to stress in her own independent narratives to the researcher; such is the case with Z’s mother and Z. On the other hand, a mother who paid less attention on orientation but stressed complicating actions indirectly taught her child that complicating actions were quite crucial; such is the case with D’s mother and D.
In addition, Vygotskian theory predicts that there is a time-lag relationship between parental behavior and subsequent child performance. In our data, it was found that the difference between the two mothers’ elaborations would be reflected in their children’s contributions of this utterance type more obviously at later time points.
And the difference that D’s mother provided or requested for complicating actions much more often than Z’s mother did at Time 1 (3;6) was reflected in the two children’s percentage of this narrative information type at Time 3 (4;0). And the difference that Z’s mother provided or requested for orientation more often than D’s mother did at Time 1 (3;6) would be reflected in the two children’s percentage of this narrative information type more apparently at Time 3 (4;0).These findings are
consistent with Vygotskian theory that early scaffolds provided by mothers would be
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reflected in children’s performance at a later time.
One thing should be noted is that although there was a close correspondence between the mothers’ provision/request for narrative information types in the co-constructed narratives and their children’s later narrative performance in conversation with the researcher in this study, such correspondence was not
necessarily to be expected in other studies. The reason is that the two mothers in this study were both high-elaborative mothers. That is, they devoted considerable time to talking about past events with their children and elaborated the topic under discussion.
Thus, their children were exposed to frequent narrative scaffolds. In contrast, mothers in other studies may devote little time to such discourse and show low-elaborative style. Then, the concordance between these mothers’ provision/request for narrative information types and their children’s later narrative performance would be
considerably diminished. For instance, in McCabe & Peterson’s (1991) study, they examined the children’s narrative performance of high-elaborative mothers and low-elaborative mothers. And the findings suggested that the important predictor of the children’s narrative performance of low-elaborative mothers was not the same as that of the children’s narrative performance of high-elaborative mothers. That is, the important predictor of the children’s performance of low-elaborative mothers was not the specific type of narrative information that their mothers scaffolded frequently, but
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the lack of many prompts of any sort, i.e., an impoverished scaffold.
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Chapter 6 Conclusion
In this chapter, the summary of the findings of the present study will be given.
Then some limitations will be pointed out and a few suggestions for further research will be made.
6.1 Summary
This thesis attempted to investigate (1) mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with their children in terms of the conversational styles and the narrative information types, (2) children’s narrative performance without mothers’ support in researcher-child conversations in terms of the conversational contributions and the narrative information types, (3) the effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance in conversation with a researcher. Results revealed that the two mothers displayed the same conversational style, namely, high-elaborative style termed by Reese, Haden, & Fivush (1993). But, they differed in the type of narrative information that they placed more emphasis on.
One of the mothers was particularly concerned about orientation information, while the other mother placed more emphasis on complicating actions. As for children’s narrative performance, the two children were very similar about the type of utterances that they contributed in the narratives when having conversations with the researcher.
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More specifically, they both frequently produced the type of elaborations, which was much higher than repetitions at each time point. In terms of narrative information types, at Time 1 (3;6) and Time 2 (3;9), D and Z were similar in that complicating action was higher than orientation. However, at Time 3 (4;0), Z’s orientation was higher than complicating action, while D’s complicating action was still higher than orientation. That is, at Time 3 (4;0), Z placed more emphasis on orientation than complicating action, while D focused on complicating action just as she did at Time 1 (3;6) and Time 2 (3;9).
With respect to the effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance in conversation with a researcher, it was found that the difference between the two mothers’ elaborations would be reflected in their children’s contributions of this utterance type more obviously at later time points.
And the difference that D’s mother provided or requested for complicating actions much more often than Z’s mother did at Time 1 (3;6) was reflected in the two children’s percentage of this narrative information type at Time 3 (4;0). These findings are in line with Vygotskian theory that early scaffolds provided by mothers would be reflected in children’s performance at a later time.
6.2 Limitations of this study
Despite all the findings, this study leaves room for improvement and further
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inquiry. First of all, the sample size of this study is too small, so the generalizability of the findings remains a question. Therefore, it is suggested that more subjects should be included in future research. Second, the time span for observation in this study is too short. Change in mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children and children's narrative performance in conversations with the researcher may only be obvious over a long period of time. Third, this study only examines the effect of mother-child conversation on children’s narrative performance. Even though mothers are generally the primary caregivers, children may be exposed to many other people, including fathers, preschool teachers, and baby-sitters who might also have an influence on children's narrative performance.
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