小孩敘說過去事件能力之發展 - 政大學術集成

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(2) . National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of Linguistics Master Thesis. . . . : . . . Advisor: Dr. Chiung-chih Huang. 政治大. 立. . . . . . . . . . !. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. . ". n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Children’s narrative performance about past events across time. Ch. engchi. #. : $ %. &. i Un. '. Student: Kuan-chuan Liao ( ) * 99 + 8 , August, 2010. v.

(3) Children’s narrative performance about past events across time. BY Kuan-chuan Liao. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. A thesis Submitted to the Graduate Institute of Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. Ch. engchi. August 2010. i Un. v.

(4) 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. Copyright © 2010 Liao, Kuan-chuan All Rights Reserved. v.

(5) Acknowledgements

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(42) Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………..iv Chinese Abstract………………………………………………………………….viii English Abstract……………………………………………………………………ix Chapter 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………..1 1.1 Background and motivation……………………………………………...1 1.2 Research questions..………………………………………………….......5 1.3 Organization……………………………………………………………....5. 政治大 Mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children………….…...7 立. Chapter 2 Literature Review……………………………………………………......7 2.1. ‧ 國. 學. 2.1.1 Conversational styles….…………………………………………….7 2.1.2 Narrative information………………………………………………10. ‧. 2.2 Children’s narrative performance………………….……………………..12. sit. y. Nat. 2.2.1 Conversational contributions……………………………………….13. n. al. er. io. 2.2.2 Narrative information…………………………………………….....16. v. 2.3 The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives on children’s. Ch. engchi. i Un. narrative performance.................................................................................18 2.4 Vygotskian theory…………………………………………………………21 Chapter 3 Methodology……………………………………………………………...24 3.1 Subjects……………………………………………………………………24 3.2 Procedure………………………………………………………………….24 3.3 Coding scheme…………………………………………………………….26 3.3.1 Conversation codes………………………………………………….26 3.3.2 Narrative information codes…………………………………………28 3.3.3 Reliability……………………………………………………………29 v.

(43) Chapter 4 Results………………………………………………………………….....31 4.1 Analysis of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children…..31 4.1.1 Conversational styles……………………………………………….32 4.1.2 Narrative information types………………………………………...34 4.2 Analysis of children’s narrative performance in researcher-child conversations……………………………………………………………...36 4.2.1 Conversational contributions………………………………………..38 4.2.2 Narrative information types………………………………………....41 4.3 The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with. 治政大 children on children’s narrative performance……………………………..45 立 4.3.1 Effect of mothers’ conversational styles on children’s ‧ 國. 學. conversational contributions…………………………………………45. ‧. 4.3.2 Effect of mothers’ provision/request for narrative information. y. Nat. types on children’s inclusion of narrative information types………...49. er. io. sit. Chapter 5 Discussion………………………………………………………………...56 5.1 Mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children……………….56. al. n. iv n C Children’s narrative performance with the researcher…..58 h e n gincconversations hi U. 5.2. 5.3 The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives on. children’s narrative performance…………………………………………..60 Chapter 6 Conclusion………………………………………………………………...67 6.1 Summary…………………………………………………………………..67 6.2 Limitations of this study…………………………………………………...68 References……………………………………………………………………………70. vi.

(44) List of Tables. Table 1. Number and length of narratives in mother-child conversations….….......31 Table 2. Mean frequencies of maternal utterance types per narrative………..........33 Table 3. Mothers’ elaborations to repetitions ratio…………………………...........33 Table 4. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of mothers’ narrative information types per narrative…………………………...........35 Table 5. Number and length of narratives in researcher-child conversations at three time points…………………………………………………….....37. 政治大. Table 6. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of D’s utterance types. 立. per narrative……………………………………………………………...39. ‧ 國. 學. Table 7. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of Z’s utterance types per narrative……………………………………………………………...39. ‧. Table 8. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of D’s information types. y. Nat. sit. per narrative………………………………………………………….......42. n. al. er. io. Table 9. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of Z’s information types. i Un. v. per narrative………………………………………………………….......42. Ch. engchi. Table 10. Distribution of D’s mother’s and D’s elaborations and repetitions per narrative…………………………………….....................................46 Table 11. Distribution of Z’s mother’s and Z’s elaborations and repetitions per narrative…………………………………….....................................47 Table 12. Distribution of D’s mother’s and D’s narrative information types per narrative…………………………………………………………….50 Table 13. Distribution of Z’s mother’s and Z’s narrative information types per narrative…………………………………………………………….50. vii.

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(62) Abstract This study investigates mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives about the past in mother-child conversations when the children were 3;6 and the children’s narrative performance in researcher-child conversations at three time points when the children were 3;6, 3;9, and 4;0. The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance was also investigated. Mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children were examined in terms of the conversational styles and the narrative information types, and children’s narrative performance was examined in terms of the conversational contributions and the. 治政大 female children (D and Z) narrative information types. Subjects in this study are two 立 and their mothers. The results show that the two mothers displayed the same ‧ 國. 學. conversational style, namely, high-elaborative style termed by Reese, Haden, &. ‧. Fivush (1993). But, they differed in the type of narrative information that they placed. y. Nat. more emphasis on. One of the mothers was particularly concerned about orientation. er. io. sit. information, while the other mother placed more emphasis on complicating actions. As for children’s narrative performance, the two children were very similar about. al. n. iv n C the type of utterances that they contributed h e n gin cthehnarratives i U when having. conversations with the researcher. 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. With respect to the effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance, it was found that 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 ix.

(63) children’s percentage of this narrative information type at Time 3 (4;0). This is in line with Vygotskian theory that early scaffolds provided by mothers would be reflected in children’s performance at a later time.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. x. i Un. v.

(64) Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background and motivation In most societies, narratives are woven into everyday events and interactions (Melzi, 2000). For instance, friends tell stories as a way of sharing aspects of themselves, parents tell stories as a way of transmitting knowledge and wisdom, and children tell stories at school in the process of acquiring literacy. Many researchers. 政治大 have pointed out the importance of narrative competence (Chang, 2004; Michaels, 立. ‧ 國. 學. 1981; Roth, 1986; Snow & Dickinson, 1990). Chang (2004) suggested that this. ‧. competence is important in itself as an aspect of language skill and of personal. sit. y. Nat. identity formation and is closely related to literacy achievement. Snow (1983) also. n. al. er. io. suggested that the ability to structure narratives in ways expected by teachers has been. Ch. i Un. v. seen as important for a smooth transition to literacy. Roth (1986) further pointed out. engchi. that difficulty with oral narrative production is associated with language delay and learning disabilities. Consequently, it is essential for children to acquire the ability to construct the narratives. Several researchers have suggested that children’s narratives move from scriptlike accounts to specific recollections of real past events between the ages of two and three years (Eisenberg 1985; Hudson & Shapiro, 1991). More specifically,. 1.

(65) children begin to tell personal experience stories at about two years old (Eisenberg 1985; Sachs, 1979, 1983). However, their narratives in this phase are quite short, simple, and fragmented, so they rely heavily on the adults’ support to construct the narratives. In the process of co-constructing the narratives with the adults, children are being tutored in how to remember past experiences, how to participate in the conversations, and what narrative information should be included.. 政治大. However, not all mothers co-construct the narratives with their children in. 立. structurally similar ways. That is, they display different conversational styles when. ‧ 國. 學. having conversations about the past with children: some mothers are elaborative or. ‧. high-elaborative (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993) and. Nat. io. sit. y. extend each narrative topic (McCabe & Peterson, 1991), whereas others are repetitive. er. or low-elaborative (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993) and. al. n. iv n C h e n g&cPeterson, constantly switch narrative topics (McCabe h i U 1991).. In addition, the narrative information type mothers request or provide in the co-constructed narratives is also different. In Peterson and McCabe’s (1992) study, they found that there were individual differences in the narrative information that mothers requested or provided most frequently. That is, the results of their study revealed that the two mothers in the study emphasized different narrative information. One of the mothers focused on the orientation information of the narrative while 2.

(66) placing less emphasis on the descriptions of actions. The other mother, in contrast, elicited more temporally-ordered descriptions of actions than the orientation information. The ways that mothers co-construct narratives with children have been shown to be related to children’s narrative performance (Fivush, 1991; Hudson, 1990; McCabe & Peterson, 1991; Peterson & McCabe, 1994). For instance, Hudson (1990) suggested. 政治大. that children of high elaborative mothers were more engaged and responded to. 立. proportionally more information requests with an experimenter than children of low. ‧ 國. 學. elaborative mothers one year later. In addition, Fivush (1991) noted that children. ‧. whose mothers used a great deal of orienting and evaluative devices also used these. Nat. io. sit. y. devices often in their independent narratives one year later. Peterson and McCabe. er. (1992) also pointed out that the narrative information that the mothers emphasized. al. n. iv n C h enarrative influenced their children’s subsequent performance. i U In their study, one ngch. mother emphasized orientation information, while the other mother elicited more temporally-ordered descriptions of actions. And later on, the child of the former included a great deal of orientation information in her stand-alone narratives to a researcher but produced less sophisticated plot structures. In contrast, the child of the latter provided little orientation information in her subsequent narratives but showed well-developed plots. 3.

(67) Although many studies have investigated the ways mothers co-construct narratives about the past with their children in terms of the conversational styles (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988; Reese & Fivush, 1993) and the narrative information types (Haden, Haine & Fivush, 1997; Peterson & McCabe, 1994), these studies limitedly focused on English-speaking mothers. Few studies have been carried out on Mandarin mothers’ ways of constructing narratives about the past with their children.. 政治大. Therefore, in the present study, the first goal is to explore the conversational styles. 立. that Mandarin mothers demonstrated and the narrative information that Mandarin. ‧ 國. 學. mothers provided or requested from their children in the co-constructed narratives.. io. sit. Nat. the importance of different narrative information types.. y. ‧. We assumed that different mothers may display different styles and they may stress. er. In addition, most of the studies on children’s abilities to construct narratives. al. n. iv n C h e n gconversations without mothers’ support in researcher-child c h i U were conducted on. English-speaking children. Few were made to examine Mandarin children’s abilities to construct independent narratives in researcher-child conversations. And we are interested in what children contributed in the conversation and what narrative information children included in the narratives. Therefore, the second goal is to investigate how children constructed independent narratives in researcher-child conversations in terms of the conversational contributions and the narrative 4.

(68) information types. Finally, the third goal is to examine the effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance in conversation with a researcher. That is, we aim to explore the effect of mothers’ conversational styles on children’s conversational contributions. And we also aim to investigate the effect of mothers’ provision/request for narrative information types on. 政治大. children’s inclusion of narrative information types.. 立. 1.2 Research questions. ‧ 國. 學. The present study is intended to address the following three research questions: How did the mothers co-construct narratives with their children in terms of. ‧. 1.. Nat. sit. io. er. How did the children construct narratives without mothers’ support in. al. iv n C h einnterms researcher-child conversations g c hofitheUconversational contributions n. 2.. y. the conversational styles and the narrative information types?. and the narrative information types? 3.. What is the effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance in conversation with a researcher?. 1.3 Organization The following part of this study is organized as below. In chapter 2, a review of 5.

(69) previous studies related to this study will be presented, including: (1) mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children, (2) children’s narrative performance, (3) relationship between mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children and children’s narrative performance and (4) Vygotskian theory. In chapter 3, the methodology adopted in this study will be presented. In chapter 4, the results of analysis will be shown. In chapter 5, discussion of the results will be presented.. 政治大. Finally, a summary, some limitations, and some suggestions for further research will. 立. be given in chapter 6.. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 6. i Un. v.

(70) Chapter 2 Literature review Previous research has suggested that the ways that mothers co-construct narratives with their children are closely related to children’s narrative performance and that the relationship can be explained by Vygotskian theory. Therefore, we will first review studies on mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children in. 政治大. section 2.1 and children’s narrative performance in section 2.2. And then we will. 立. review research on the effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives on. ‧ 國. 學. children’s narrative performance in section 2.3. Finally, research on Vygotskian theory. ‧. will be presented in section 2.4.. Nat. io. sit. y. 2.1 Mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children. er. A number of researchers have investigated the ways mothers construct. al. n. iv n C narratives about the past with their h children e n gincterms h i ofUthe conversational styles (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988; Reese & Fivush, 1993) and the narrative information types (Haden, Haine & Fivush, 1997; Peterson & McCabe, 1994). In the following, the conversational styles are firstly reviewed in section 2.1.1. And studies on the narrative information types are presented in section 2.1.2. 2.1.1 Conversational styles Many studies have been conducted on the styles parents display when having 7.

(71) conversations about past events with children and the findings of these studies suggested that some mothers are reminiscers (Engel, 1986), elaborative or high-elaborative (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988; Hudson, 1990; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993) and topic-extending (McCabe & Peterson, 1991), whereas others are practical rememberers (Engel, 1986), repetitive or low-elaborative (Fivush & Fromhoff, 1988; Hudson, 1990; Reese, Haden, & Fivush, 1993) and topic-switching (McCabe &. 政治大. Peterson, 1991). In these studies, the quantity of talk that mothers elaborated on each. 立. topic has been an important discriminator between groups of mothers.. ‧ 國. 學. In Engel’s (1986) study, she asked mothers to use cues while talking about past. ‧. events with their 2-year-old children, and she classified those mothers into two. Nat. io. sit. y. categories: reminiscers and practical rememberers. The mothers in the former group. er. spent much more time in talking about the event being recalled and they were more. al. n. iv n C U while practical h eabout likely to provide elaborate descriptions h i events, n g cthose. rememeberers had short conversations with their child and provided little embellished information. In short, she found that in parent-child interactions focusing on the narration of personal experiences, the key difference between parents lies in the quantity of discussion held with the child about each experience being recalled. Parallel observations about maternal style differences in co-constructing narratives with children have been made by other investigators. Fivush & Fromhoff 8.

(72) (1988) asked mothers of 2-year-olds to elicit conversations about past experience and they differentiated mothers into two parental styles on the basis of the quantity of talk and the type of question mothers provide their children. One group of mothers was labeled as elaborative because they engaged in lengthy conversations with their children and asked more elaborative questions, while the other group of mothers was labeled as repetitive because they talked less about the past event and tended to ask repetitive questions.. 立. 政治大. Hudson & Sidoti (1988) examined conversations about the past between 10. ‧ 國. 學. mothers and 2-year-old children. They used a measure of elaboration to divide the. ‧. mothers into the following two groups: low elaborators or high elaborators. Both. Nat. io. sit. y. groups of mothers provided a good deal of information and asked many questions, but. er. the high elaborators provided more information per questions and more propositions. al. n. iv n C h eThey per turn than did the low elaborators. i Uthat the two maternal styles n galso c hfound. were not correlated either with age of the children or with children’s mean length of utterance. In addition, Reese, Haden, Fivush (1993) investigated long-term consistency and change in maternal style in conversations about the past. They asked mothers to talk about past experiences with their children when children were 40, 46, 58, and 70 months of age. Across the four time points, these mothers could be consistently 9.

(73) divided into two groups: high-elaborative group or low-elaborative group. The mothers in the former group elaborated much more often than they repeated their requests, while the mothers in the latter group elaborated less often in relation to their repetitions. In McCabe & Peterson’s (1991) study, they asked mothers to elicit narratives from their children when they were approximately 27 and 31 months of age. They. 政治大. found that mothers displayed two different styles: topic-extending style or. 立. topic-switching style. The mothers who displayed topic-extending style asked many. ‧ 國. 學. questions that extended the current topic as well as offered lots of information for. ‧. topic development. In other words, they stayed on each event topic for much longer. Nat. sit. er. io. another topic.. y. than did topic-switching mothers, who asked few questions before moving on to. al. n. iv n C h e nstyles To sum up, mothers display different i Uhaving conversations about g c hwhen. past events with their children and these styles have been classified on the basis of the quantity of talk that mothers elaborated on each topic. 2.1.2 Narrative information In addition to the maternal conversational styles, the content or the narrative information in mothers’ talk is also another important aspect when analyzing the ways in which mothers construct narratives about the past with their children. 10.

(74) Some studies have been conducted on the narrative information parents included in co-constructed narratives with children over time. In Haden, Haine, and Fivush’s (1997) study, they examined the narrative information parents included when children were 40- and 70-months old. It was found that mothers and fathers increased the inclusion of the following three types of information: action, orientation, and evaluation, and no differences between mothers and fathers or with daughters or sons. 政治大. emerged. Furthermore, as far as orientation is concerned, mothers and fathers tended. 立. to increase the provision of spatial-temporal orientations, but not person orientations. ‧ 國. 學. over time. As for evaluation, mothers and fathers tended to increase the following. ‧. four evaluative devices significantly over time: internal states, intensifiers, affect. Nat. io. sit. y. modifiers, and emphasis.. er. Moreover, Chang (2003) examined what type of narrative information Mandarin. al. n. iv n C mothers requested or provided mosthfrequently their children were 3;6, 3;9, 4;0, e n g cwhen hi U and 4;3 in the co-constructed narratives. And the findings suggested that at each time point, the information that mothers requested or provided most frequently was complicating actions. Orientation and evaluation was the second and third most frequently requested or provided. The occurrences of other information such as reported speech and coda were quite low. In addition, she found that across the four time points, there was no significant difference in total number of narrative clauses 11.

(75) and in clauses of each type of narrative information provided or requested by the mothers, suggesting high variability and absence of systematic change in the amount of narrative information the mothers talked about over time. In Peterson and McCabe’s (1992) study, they further pointed out that there were individual differences in what narrative information that mothers requested or provided most frequently. The results of their study revealed that although the two. 政治大. mothers in the study displayed the same elaborative style, the mothers differed in. 立. what narrative information they placed more emphasis on. One of the mothers. ‧ 國. 學. focused on the orientation information of the narrative while placing less emphasis on. ‧. the descriptions of actions. The other mother, in contrast, elicited more. Nat. io. sit. y. temporally-ordered descriptions of actions than the orientation information.. er. To sum up, mothers co-construct narratives about the past with their children in. al. n. iv n C h e ndifferent different ways. That is, they may display styles and may i U g c h conversational include different narrative information when they talk about the past with their children. 2.2 Children’s narrative performance. A number of researchers have found that children as young as two and three years of age can recall and discuss past experiences. For example, Fivush, Gray & Fromhoff (1987) and Todd & Perlmutter (1980) interviewed children aged 2;5-2;11 12.

(76) and 2;11-3;2 respectively about past experiences and found that children as young as these ages readily recalled and discussed such events, even those that had occurred more than three months earlier. Other researchers have studied parent-child interactions and have also found that narratives about past personal experience begin to comprise a regular part of this interaction from about two years of age (Sachs, 1983; Eisenberg, 1985).. 政治大. Research on the children’s narrative performance about the past is widely. 立. conducted in terms of the conversational contributions (Hudson, 1990; Reese, Haden,. ‧ 國. 學. & Fivush, 1993) and the narrative information children included in the narratives. ‧. (Chang, 2004; Minami, 1996). In the following, studies on children’s contributions to. Nat. io. sit. y. the conversations about the past are firstly presented in section 2.2.1. And studies on. er. the information children included in the narratives are presented in section 2.2.2.. n. al. 2.2.1. i n C U hengchi Conversational contributions. v. Children’s contributions when having conversations about past experiences could be viewed through different classifications of children’s utterances. In Hudson’s (1990) study, she investigated conversations about past experiences between a mother and a child when the child was 21 to 28 months old. The results revealed that over time, the child produced proportionally fewer yes-no responses which was simply a yes or no in the utterance and fewer no responses but provided more offers which gave new 13.

(77) information in the utterance. What this seemed to indicate is an increasing ability of the child to participate in the conversations in general, and an increasing ability to provide new information, both spontaneously and in response to the mother’s specific requests. Hudson & Sidoti (1988) examined ten 2-year-old children’s contributions in mother-child memory conversations across four sessions and the same ten children’s. 政治大. contributions in experimenter-child conversations at the time of the fourth. 立. mother-child memory session. The findings suggested that in mother-child. ‧ 國. 學. conversations, children’s utterance which responded to the request with appropriate. ‧. information increased over the four sessions, but children’s utterance which provided. Nat. io. sit. y. new information without mothers’ request did not increase over the four sessions. In. er. experimenter-child conversations, children’s utterance which responded to the request. al. n. iv n C U old events than when h e nwhen with appropriate information was higher h i about g casked. asked about new events. As for the utterance which provided new information without request, the number of this kind of utterance for old and new events was not significantly different. In Reese & Fivush’s (1993) study, they examined twenty-four 40-month-old children’s (12 boys and 12 girls) utterances in parent-child memory conversations about past experiences. The findings suggested that there were gender differences in 14.

(78) the types of utterances. With respect to the type of memory elaborations, the frequency of this type in girls’ utterances was higher than that in boys’ utterances. That is, girls provided a greater number of new information about the past experiences than boys did. With respect to the type of memory repetitions, girls also produced this type of utterance more often than boys did. This indicated that girls showed a greater willingness to engage in the conversation even when not providing new memory. 政治大. information. As for off-topic talk, girls and boys did not differ in the number of times. 立. they produced this type of utterance.. ‧ 國. 學. Reese, Haden, & Fivush (1993) also investigated children’s utterances in. ‧. mother-child memory conversations about the past, but they focused on children’s. Nat. io. sit. y. long-term contributions. Hence, they examined children’s utterances at four time. er. points: when children were 40, 46, 58, and 70 months of age. They found that the. al. n. iv n C h eincreased utterance type of memory elaborations i U over time, whereas the n g c hgradually provision of memory repetitions did not change over time. As for the type of off-topic utterances, these utterances decreased from 40 months to 46 months, and then remained relatively stable. These findings suggested that with the growth of age, children contributed to the conversation by elaborating the topic under discussion rather than just repeating previously mentioned information. And they came to have better ability to focus on the topic being discussed over time. 15.

(79) 2.2.2. Narrative information. Haden, Haine, & Fivush (1997) explored children’s narrative skills when children were 40 and 70 months old. The results indicated clear developmental changes in the amount of narrative information children provided in personal narratives across the preschool years. That is, with the growth of age, children included more actions, orientations, and evaluations in narrating personal experiences.. 政治大. In addition, they also found that there were gender differences in the inclusion of. 立. narrative information. Girls included more orientations and evaluations in their. ‧ 國. 學. narratives than did boys. That is, girls’ narratives were more contexted and evaluative. ‧. than boys’ narratives.. Nat. io. sit. y. Minami (1996) examined the content of Japanese two groups of subjects’. er. (children aged 4 and 5, respectively) independent narratives about past experiences.. al. n. iv n C The findings suggested that in bothhgroups e n gof cchildren’s h i U narratives, the proportion of action clauses is high while the proportion of orientation and evaluation clauses is relatively low. That is, when telling a personal narrative, both groups of children tended to provide more information about the temporal sequence of action, but provide less information about the characters or the setting and pay less verbal attention to their own attitudes toward the event. However, compared to four-year-olds, five-year-olds have begun to evaluate at adult-like levels. The study 16.

(80) has revealed age-related differences between four-year-olds and five-year-olds, and more specifically, the transitional nature of five-year-olds; that is, five-year-olds try to express the meaning of the experiences that they had. Studies on Chinese children (Chang, 2004) found that over time children included more narrative information and used more evaluative devices in their narratives of personal experiences. In Chang’s (2004) study, she investigated the. 政治大. growth of 16 children’s narrative competence over a 9-month period. She asked these. 立. children to tell personally experienced narratives at four time points (children aged. ‧ 國. 學. 3;6, 3;9, 4;0, and 4;3) and examined the narrative information they included in the. ‧. narratives and the evaluative devices they used. The findings suggested that with. Nat. io. sit. y. respect to the frequencies of the three major narrative information, that is, event,. er. durative/descriptive and evaluation, event talk occurred the most frequently across. al. n. iv n C h e nmost time, evaluation talk occurred the second h i U and durative/descriptive g cfrequently, talk occurred the least frequently. With respect to the evaluative devices, children used a wider variety of evaluation with the growth of age. She also found that the growth patterns and rates of change for the children’s narrative competence in inclusion of different narrative information and use of evaluative devices were not completely the same across children. With respect to narrative information, the children displayed the most rapid period of growth in each 17.

(81) major narrative information from 3;6 to 3;9. During the period from 3;9 to 4;0, the frequencies of each narrative information in the children’s narratives increased at a slower pace. During the period from 4;0 and 4;3, the occurrences of some of the narrative information such as durative/descriptive slightly decreased. With respect to evaluative devices, the children also exhibited the most rapid period of growth in number of evaluative devices from 3;6 to 3;9, with the rate of change decreasing from. 政治大. 3;9 to 4;0. And the children did not show growth in number of evaluative devices. 立. during the period from 4;0 to 4;3. But, the types of evaluative devices that children. ‧ 國. 學. included increased over time.. ‧. 2.3 The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives on children’s. Nat. io. sit. y. narrative performance. er. Previous research has indicated that the ways that mothers talk about the past. al. n. iv n C U performance. Hudson with children have an influence on h children’s e n g clater h inarrative. (1990) suggested that children of high elaborative mothers were more engaged and responded to proportionally more information requests with an experimenter than children of low elaborative mothers one year later. Reese & Fivush (1993) found that the elaborative style was positively correlated with children’s length of conversations, memory elaborations, and evaluations. In other words, the elaborative style was related to children’s participation in event talk. In contrast, the repetitive style was not 18.

(82) correlated with children’s participation in event discussions, but was correlated with children’s tendency not to respond. In addition, Reese, Haden, & Fivush (1993) suggested that mothers’ elaborations at the early time points were correlated with children’s later elaborations. That is, the more the mothers elaborated on the topic under discussion when children were 40 months old, the more elaborations that children provided 1.5 years later. And the. 政治大. mothers’ elaborations when children were 58 months old were also significantly. 立. related to children’s elaborations 1 year later. In contrast, mothers’ repetitions at. ‧ 國. 學. earlier time points were not significantly correlated with children’s elaborations later. ‧. on.. Nat. io. sit. y. In McCabe & Peterson’s (1991) study, they found that some mothers encouraged. er. their children to expand upon the topic extensively, while others rapidly shifted topics. al. n. iv n C of conversation with their two- andh three-year-old i U By the end of four years, e n g c h children.. the children differed from each other. Some children told lengthy narratives that built up to a high point, evaluatively dwelt on it, and then resolved it. Other children struggled to tell a story consisting of more than one event. And those mothers who ranked highest in the frequency of topic-extension for their two- to three-year-old children were the same mothers who had children ranking highest in terms of well-formed narratives when the children were older. 19.

(83) Haden, Haine & Fivush (1997) suggested that mothers who emphasized evaluations when reminiscing with their children at 40 months of age had children who emphasized evaluations in their spontaneously produced narratives at 70 months of age. In addition, Peterson & McCabe (1994) studied specific types of maternal questions about orientation information and their relations to children’s abilities to provide orientation information in personal narratives with an experimenter. Results. 政治大. revealed that the children of mothers who provided many wh-context and yes or no. 立. context questions when children were 26 to 31 months old included much when and. ‧ 國. 學. where information in their narratives with an experimenter at 38 to 43 months. That is,. ‧. the children of mothers who frequently prompted for context orientation came to give. Nat. io. sit. y. much orientation to when and where in their later personal narratives.. er. In Fivush’s (1991) study, she assessed mothers’ provision of orienting, referential,. al. n. iv n C h e n gabout and evaluative information in conversations i Uevents with their 30-month-old c h past children, and children’s abilities to tell independent narratives to an experimenter one year later. The findings suggested that the children of mothers who provided much orienting and evaluative information in the co-constructed narratives included a great deal of orienting and evaluative information in their independent narratives a year later. In addition, Peterson & McCabe (1992) pointed out that mothers who were 20.

(84) classified as having the same elaborative style differed in the methods they utilized for extending the topics and that these mothers had different effects on their children’s later narrative skills. Results revealed that one of the elaborative mothers focused on orientation information, while the other one emphasized temporally ordered descriptions of actions. And one year later, the former’s child was more likely to spontaneously include contextual information in the independent narratives but. 政治大. showed less sophisticated plot structure. In contrast, the narratives of the latter’s child. 立. showed well-developed plots but included less orientation information.. ‧ 國. 學. In sum, the ways mothers talk about the past with their children have an. ‧. influence on children’s later narrative performance when constructing narratives. Nat. sit er. io. 2.4 Vygotskian theory. y. without mothers’ support.. al. n. iv n C h e na conceptual Vygotskian theory (1978) provides framework for the study of the gchi U. developmental process of children’s narrative skill in parent-child interactions. A fundamental concept of this theory is that interpsychological processes (i.e., social interactions) give rise to intrapsychological processes (i.e., cognitive skills). Thus, cognitive skills have their origins in social interactions with more skilled partners. Another important concept is zone of proximal development: “the difference between the child’s actual level of development and the level of performance that the child 21.

(85) achieves in collaboration with the adult” (Rieber & Carton, 1987, p.209), or in other words, the difference between the level of skill spontaneously demonstrated by children and their potential level of skill which is demonstrated only under conditions of external prompting and guidance. In addition, the provision of effective task regulation, guidance and feedback by adults is frequently termed task scaffolding. During the acquisition of any new skill, adults scaffold children’s performance. 政治大. by providing the necessary structure for accomplishing the task. As the children’s. 立. level of skill develops, the adult-provided scaffolding is reduced. Thus, responsibility. ‧ 國. 學. for carrying out the task is progressively handed over to the children as they acquire. ‧. greater competence, until they have internalized the major components of the. Nat. io. sit. y. scaffolding and are able to accomplish the task independently. This process proposed. er. by Vygotsky has been found in the acquisition of a number of skills including memory. al. n. iv n C h ecommunication (Paris, Newman & Jacobs, 1985) and n g c h i Uskills (Bruner, 1983) – both of which are relevant to narration.. Several researchers suggested that parents have been found to scaffold children’s early narratives in ways that are consistent with Vygotskian theory (Eisenberg, 1985; Perlmutter, 1980; Sachs, 1983). For instance, Eisenberg (1985) studied parent-child conversation with two children (1;9-2;7 and 2;0-3;2, respectively) and found that parent-child talk about the past could be classified into three successive phases: (1) 22.

(86) the majority of content and structure was provided by the adult and the child primarily responded to yes/no questions; (2) yes/no questions were increasingly replaced by memory questions requiring the provision of content information in the response but that the overall narrative structure was still provided by the adult; (3) the child began to structure narratives spontaneously. To sum up, Vygotskian theory provides an approach to explain the relationship. 政治大. between parental ways of co-constructing narratives with children and children’s later. 立. narrative performance. In other words, the narrative development of children begins. ‧ 國. 學. in social interactions in which parents guide children’s participation. As children. ‧. develop, the adult scaffolding diminishes and eventually children can complete a task. Nat. io. sit. y. on their own without support. In addition, children internalize the skills gained from. er. the interaction with the parents. Therefore, this theory provides an explanatory. al. n. iv n C h eparents mechanism to account for the key role h i inUfostering children’s narrative n g cplay development.. 23.

(87) Chapter 3 Methodology 3.1. Subjects Two Mandarin-speaking girls and their mothers participated in this study. D1 and. Z were both three years and six months old at the start of this study and were followed for six months. We chose this age because 3-year-olds are able to participate in. 政治大. conversations about past events but are still in the process of internalizing the. 立. necessary memory and narrative skills (Eisenberg, 1985). Both girls are from. ‧ 國. 學. two-parents families in which both mothers are college educated. And both families. ‧. live in Taipei, Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese is the two children’s mother tongue and it is. Nat. sit. er. Procedure. io. al. iv n C U co-constructed narratives In order to collect data on theh ways e ningwhich c h imothers n. 3.2. y. the major language used in the interaction; Southern Min is sometimes spoken.. with their children, mother-child interactions were video and audio-tape recorded at the subjects’ home when children were 3;6 and were transcribed in the CHAT (Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcriptions) format. Mothers were asked to elicit personal experience narratives from their children as naturally as possible, and no more specific instructions were given. The length of conversations collected is 2. 1. D and Z are subject codes.. 24.

(88) hours for each child. In addition, in order to examine children’s abilities to construct narratives without mothers’ support, researcher-child interactions were video and audio-tape recorded at subjects’ home at three time points when the children were 3;6 (Time 1), 3;9 (Time 2), and 4;0 (Time 3). And these tapes were transcribed in the CHAT (Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcriptions) format. At each time point, the researcher. 政治大. played with the children for 1.5 hours. During the course of play, the researcher. 立. prompted personal experience narratives from the children. Examples of prompts. ‧ 國. 學. include the following: ‘Have you ever fallen and hurt yourself? You have? Tell me. ‧. about it.’ ‘What happened on your birthday? Tell me about it.’ Some of the. Nat. io. sit. y. experiences being prompted about were provided by the parents, who listed various. er. experiences that the children had had, and some prompts were the product of the play. al. n. iv n C h eresearcher context. While the child narrated, the i U from prompting the child n g c hrefrained for specific sorts of information but rather provided interested encouragement by means of nonspecific prompts like ‘uh-huh’, ‘and?’, ‘and then what happened?’, or repetitions of what the child had just said. Such a procedure has been found to be. successful at encouraging narration without imposing structure (Peterson & McCabe, 1983).. 25.

(89) 3.3. Coding scheme In the present study, a narrative was defined as an instance of talk about events. removed in time and included at least two utterances on the same topic, similar to the definition of a narrative by Peterson (1990) and Umiker-Sebeok (1979). And these narratives were about specific past events, not routine occurrences. All maternal utterances in the co-constructed narratives with the children and all. 政治大. children’s utterances in the narratives to the researcher were coded for conversation. 立. and narrative information. Conversation codes, which will be shown in section 3.3.1,. ‧ 國. 學. were designed to explore mothers’ conversational styles and to explore what children. ‧. contributed in researcher-child conversations. Narrative information codes, which will. Nat. io. sit. y. be presented in section 3.3.2, were designed to examine the narrative information. er. types that mothers provided or requested from their children and to examine what. al. n. iv n C U independent narratives. h e nincluded narrative information types that children g c hini the 3.3.1 Conversation codes. The coding system is adapted from Reese & Fivush (1993) and Reese, Haden, & Fivush (1993), and is developed from the actual data. There are six types, and examples from maternal utterances and children’s utterances are given for each type: 1.. Elaborations: Speakers either introduce a topic for discussion (e.g., Mother: Let’s talk 26.

(90) something about seeing the dentist. or Child: When I went to see the doctor, he gave me two stickers.) or provide new information about the topic under discussion. 2.. Repetitions: Speakers repeat the exact content or the gist of their own previous. utterances (e.g., Mother: Did the nurse give you stickers? Mother: Did she give. 政治大. you stickers? or Child: The grandmother gave these candies to me. Researcher:. 立. uh-huh. Child: The grandmother gave these candies to me.). Also included are. ‧ 國. 學. speakers’ utterances which provide no new information (e.g., Mother: Do you. Nat. y. Clarification questions:. io. sit. 3.. ‧. remember? or Researcher: And then? Child: I don’t know.).. er. Speakers ask for clarification of what the addressee just said (e.g., Child:. al. n. iv n C h e What Because there was a hole. Mother: i Umean (there was) a hole? or n g cdidhyou Researcher: You said that you went to the park. Child: Huh?). 4.. Evaluations: Speakers confirm, negate, or correct the addressee’s previous utterance (e.g.,. Mother: Where did we go yesterday? Child: The zoo. Mother: Right. or Researcher: You said that you have eaten the chocolates at that day? Child: Right.). 27.

(91) 5.. Associative talk: Speakers’ utterances which are not specifically about the particular event. under discussion but are related to the event in a tangential way, such as general knowledge talk, fantasy talk, and future talk. 6.. Off-topic talk: Speakers’ utterances which are completely unrelated to the topic under. 政治大. discussion (e.g., Mother: Do you want to go to the toilet? or Child: Can you help. 立. 學. ‧ 國. me open it?).. 3.3.2 Narrative information codes. ‧. The coding system is adapted from Chang (2003) and Peterson & McCabe (1983),. Nat. io. sit. y. and is developed from the actual data. There are six types, and examples from. er. maternal utterances and children’s utterances are given for each type:. al. n. iv n C h e n gwhich Complicating action: Utterances i Uto events or actions that c hrefer. 1.. advance the narrative (e.g., Mother: Did you remember what we did that day? or Child: Then I ate the noodles.). 2.. Orientation: Utterances about descriptive or durative information which is related to who/what is involved in the narrated events and when/where the events take place (e.g., Mother: It is in Ilan where we saw dolphins. or Child: It is uncle who bought the chocolate for us.). 28.

(92) 3.. Evaluation: Utterances which are non-events and contain only evaluation such as descriptions of internal states (emotions, cognitions, and physical states), intentions, intensifiers, compulsions, explicit negatives, etc. (e.g., Mother: You were scared at that time, right? or Child: I was very happy.).. 4.. Speech: Utterances which include direct or reported character speech (e.g., Mother: The doctor said you should take the medicine. or Child: The uncle. 政治大. told her that she should be careful.).. 立. Coda: Utterances which serve to mark an explicit conclusion (e.g., Mother:. 學. ‧ 國. 5.. That’s all. or Child: That’s all what I remembered.).. Non-narrative talk: Utterances which are completely unrelated to the. ‧. 6.. Nat. io. sit. y. narration of the story (e.g., Mother: Do you want to eat the pudding now? or. er. Child: I want to eat the bread.). Also included are utterances which are. al. n. iv n C U as general knowledge talk, related to the narrative in ahtangential e n g cway, h i such fantasy talk, and future talk. 3.3.3 Reliability About one-third of the mothers’ data in the co-constructed narratives and one-third of the children’s data in the independent narratives to the researcher were randomly selected and then coded independently by another trained rater in accordance with the coding schemes described earlier. The rater is also a Mandarin 29.

(93) speaker. Then, Cohen’s Kappa was used to calculate the reliability of the data. The inter-coder reliability reaches 0.86, which represents a considerably high agreement between the two coders.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. 30. i Un. v.

(94) Chapter 4 Results Analysis of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children and analysis of children’s narrative performance in researcher-child conversations will be shown in section 4.1 and section 4.2, respectively. The effect of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children on children’s narrative performance will be presented in section 4.3.. 立. 政治大. 4.1 Analysis of mothers’ ways of co-constructing narratives with children. ‧ 國. 學. At first, we presented the number of co-constructed narratives in mother-child. ‧. conversations, the number of total utterances per narrative, and the number of. Nat. io. sit. y. utterances that the mothers and the children produced per narrative when the children. n. al. er. were 3;6, as shown in Table 1.. Ch. i Un. v. Table 1. Number and length of narratives in mother-child conversations. engchi. Conversation. Conversation. between D’s mother. between Z’s mother. and D. and Z. 21. 16. 28.6. 33.9. Maternal utterances per narrative. 18.0 (62.9%). 20.6 (60.7%). Child utterances per narrative. 10.6 (37.1%). 13.3 (39.2%). Category. Number of narratives Utterances per narrative. Note. The ratios of maternal/child utterances per narrative to total utterances per narrative are given in parentheses. 31.

(95) Table 1 shows that in conversation between D’s mother and D, they co-constructed 21 narratives, while in conversation between Z’s mother and Z, they co-constructed 16 narratives. As for the ratio of maternal utterances per narrative to total utterances per narrative, D’s mother is 62.9% and Z’s mother is 60.7%. This suggested that the two mothers produced quite similar proportion of utterances per narrative. As for the ratio of child utterances per narrative to total utterances per. 政治大. narrative, D is 37.1% and Z is 39.2%. This indicated that the two children were also. 立. quite similar about the proportion of utterances that they produced per narrative when. ‧ 國. 學. they were 3;6. In addition, it is worth noting that the proportion of utterances that both. ‧. mothers produced per narrative is higher than the proportion of utterances that both. Nat. than children did in co-constructed narratives.. al. er. io. sit. y. children produced per narrative, suggesting that mothers contributed more utterances. n. iv n C h epresent In the following section, we will i U of the two mothers’ ways of n g cthehfindings. co-constructing narrative with their children in terms of the conversational styles, which will be shown in section 4.1.1 and in terms of the narrative information types, which will be presented in section 4.1.2. 4.1.1. Conversational styles. Maternal utterances were classified into six types. The mean frequencies and distribution of utterance types per narrative are presented in Table 2. 32.

(96) Table 2. Mean frequencies of maternal utterance types per narrative Category. D’s mother. Z’s mother. Elaborations. 9.0. 14.1. Repetitions. 1.3. 1.9. Clarification questions. 2.4. 1.0. Evaluations. 3.8. 2.7. Associative talk. 0.7. 0.6. Off-topic talk. 0.8. 0.2. 政治大. Table 2 revealed that the highest mean frequency of the two mothers’ utterances. 立. ‧ 國. 學. was elaborations. This suggested that they often elaborated on the narrative topic when they talked about past events. Repetitions seldom occurred in the two mothers’. ‧. utterances. With regard to clarification questions and evaluations, D’s mother clarified. sit. y. Nat. n. al. er. io. and evaluated her child’s utterances more often than Z’s mother did. As for associative. i Un. v. talk and off-topic talk, both mothers seldom made these kinds of utterances.. Ch. engchi. Furthermore, in order to determine the two mothers’ conversational styles on the basis of Reese, Haden, & Fivush’s (1993) classification, the ratio of elaborations to repetitions is presented in Table 3. Table 3. Mothers’ elaborations to repetitions ratio. Ratio of elaborations to repetitions. 33. D’s mother. Z’s mother. 6.92. 7.42.

(97) Based on Reese, Haden, & Fivush’s (1993) study, if mothers used at least twice as many elaborations as repetitions, they would be classified as high-elaborative mothers; if mothers’ use of elaborations was nearly equal to the use of repetitions, they would be classified as low-elaborative mothers. As a result, according to this classification, the results in Table 3 reveal that the two mothers were both high-elaborative mothers because the ratios of elaborations to repetitions were higher. 政治大. than 2. That is, both mothers used more than twice as many elaborations as. 立. repetitions.. ‧ 國. 學. To sum up, on the basis of the quantity of talk that the two mothers elaborated on. ‧. the topic, they could be viewed as displaying the same conversational style:. Nat. io. sit. y. high-elaborative style. In order to gain more insight into how the two mothers. er. co-constructed narratives about the past with their children, we further analyzed the. al. n. iv n C U from their children in the h eprovided type of narrative information that they n g c hor irequested co-constructed narratives. 4.1.2. Narrative information types. The mean frequencies and standard deviations of the narrative information that were provided by or requested by the mothers per narrative are shown in Table 4.. 34.

(98) Table 4. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of mothers’ narrative information types per narrative D’s mother. Z’s mother. M. SD. M. SD. t. Complicating action. 7.6. 4.4. 4.9. 7.4. 0.33. Orientation. 5.1. 2.8. 10.1. 13.6. -2.07*. Evaluation. 2.9. 0.9. 2.6. 0.7. 0.29. Speech. 0.2. 0.1. 0.9. 0.6. -1.49. 0. 0. 0. 0. -. 2.6. 0.32. Variable. Coda Non-narrative talk. 立. 2.2. 政 1.8治大 2.0. ‧ 國. 學. * p < .05 Note. t values refer to tests for the significance of the difference between the two mothers.. ‧. As shown in Table 4, the two mothers both frequently provided or requested. Nat. io. sit. y. information about complicating action and orientation, which were the two frequently. er. mentioned information types. But the mean frequencies of the two narrative. al. n. iv n C h eutterances information types in the two mothers’ i Uquite different. Z’s mother n g c hwere specifically focused on orientation (M = 10.1), with more than twice as many as complicating action (M = 4.9). In contrast, D’s mother placed more emphasis on complicating action (M = 7.6) than on orientation (M = 5.1). Furthermore, differences between the two mothers in orientation (t = -2.07, p < 0.05) reached statistical significance. With regard to evaluation and non-narrative talk, the two mothers sometimes provided or requested these types of narrative information. As for speech 35.

(99) and coda, the occurrences of these information types were all very low in the two mothers’ utterances. In sum, Z’s mother and D’s mother emphasized different narrative information. Z’s mother focused on the orientation information of the narratives. In contrast, D’s mother, while providing or requesting some orientation information, focused on describing the actions and events in the narratives. To sum up, the two mothers were similar in that they frequently elaborated on. 政治大. the narrative topic under discussion. That is, they demonstrated the style termed. 立. high-elaborative by Reese, Haden, & Fivush. But there were differences in how they. ‧ 國. 學. elaborated on the topic. Z’s mother was particularly concerned about orientation. ‧. information. She frequently provided or requested information about the context of. Nat. io. sit. y. the narratives. In contrast, D’s mother placed more emphasis on complicating actions.. er. As a result, although the two mothers could be classified as having the same. al. n. iv n C high-elaborative style, they differedhinethe type of i U information that they ng c h narrative placed more emphasis on when co-constructing narratives about the past with their children. 4.2 Analysis of children’s narrative performance in researcher-child conversations We firstly presented the number of narratives in researcher-child conversations, the number of total utterances per narrative, and the number of utterances that the 36.

(100) researcher and children produced per narrative at three time points, as shown in Table 5. Table 5. Number and length of narratives in researcher-child conversations at three time points. Category Number of narratives Utterances per narrative Researcher utterances per. narrative. researcher and D. researcher and Z. Time 1. Time 2. Time 3. Time 1. Time 2. Time 3. (3;6). (3;9). (4;0). (3;6). (3;9). (4;0). 7. 6. 6. 6. 6. 5. 9.83. 25.16. 47.60. 2.00. 6.83. 14.20. 9.71 15.00 27.16 治政 3.57 4.50 大 10.00 (36.7%). (30%). (36.8%). (20.3%). (27.1%). (29.8%). 6.14. 10.50. 17.16. 7.83. 18.33. 33.40. (63.2%). (70%). (63.1%). (79.6%). (72.9%). (70.2%). ‧. ‧ 國. Child utterances per. Conversation between the. 學. narrative. 立. Conversation between the. io. sit. y. Nat. Note. The ratios of researcher/child utterances per narrative to total utterances per narrative are given in parentheses.. er. Table 5 shows that in conversations between the researcher and D/Z, the number. al. n. iv n C h e nover of total utterances per narrative increased h i InUaddition, the ratio of child g ctime.. utterances per narrative to total utterances per narrative for both children is higher than the ratio of researcher utterances per narrative to total utterances per narrative at three time points. That is, both children contributed more proportion of utterances per narrative than the researcher did at each time point. This suggested that the major narrator in researcher-child conversations was the children, not the researcher. In the following section, we will present the findings of the two children’s 37.

(101) narrative performance in researcher-child conversations in terms of the conversational contributions, which will be shown in section 4.2.1 and in terms of the narrative information types, which will be presented in section 4.2.2. 4.2.1. Conversational contributions. The utterances that the two children produced in the narratives when having conversations with the researcher were classified into six types. And the. 政治大. conversational contributions were analyzed through the classification of utterance. 立. types. One way ANOVA was performed for each type to determine if there was. ‧ 國. 學. significant difference in the two children’s utterance types over time. The mean. ‧. frequencies and standard deviations of the utterance types per narrative at three time. Nat. io. sit. y. points (3;6, 3;9 and 4;0) are presented in Table 6 and Table 7. Table 6 and Table 7. n. al. er. exhibit the findings of the child D and the child Z, respectively.. Ch. engchi. 38. i Un. v.

(102) Table 6. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of D’s utterance types per narrative D. Variable. Time 1. Time 2. Time 3. (3;6). (3;9). (4;0). M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. F. Elaborations. 3.57. 0.53. 6.66. 3.26. 10.83. 5.56. 6.50*. Repetitions. 0.28. 0.48. 0.50. 0.83. 2.50. 1.76. 7.25*. Clarification questions. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. -. Evaluations. 0.85. 0.69. 1.50. 0.54. 2.16. 2.56. 1.19. Associative talk. 0.28. 0.83. 2.89. 0.38. 0.83. 2.04. 0.07. 政0.48 治 0.33 2.04 大. 立 1.14. 3.02. 1.50. 3.67. 學. ‧ 國. Off-topic talk. * p < .05 Note. F values refer to tests for effects of time.. ‧. Table 7. Mean frequencies and standard deviations of Z’s utterance types per narrative. er. io. sit. y. Nat. Z. n. Time 2 a lTime 1 iv n C (3;6)h e n hi U g c(3;9). Variable. Time 3 (4;0). M. SD. M. SD. M. SD. F. Elaborations. 5.33. 1.21. 15.00. 3.03. 27.00. 14.94. 9.46*. Repetitions. 0.33. 0.81. 1.16. 1.60. 4.20. 3.70. 4.34*. Clarification questions. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. 0.00. -. Evaluations. 0.16. 0.40. 0.83. 0.75. 1.00. 1.22. 1.60. Associative talk. 0.00. 0.00. 0.50. 0.83. 0.60. 0.89. 1.23. Off-topic talk. 2.00. 4.89. 0.83. 2.04. 0.60. 1.34. 0.30. * p < .05 Note. F values refer to tests for effects of time. 39.