Genre and evaluation in narrative development.
In this study I examine Venezuelan children's developing abilities to use evaluative language in fictional and personal narratives. The questions addressed are: (1) How does the use of evaluative language vary in fictional and personal narratives? (2) Is there a relationship between the use of evaluative language in these two narrative genres and children's age and socio-economic status (SES)? The sample consists of 444 narratives produced by 113 Venezuelan school-age children participating in 4 narrative tasks, in which personal and fictional stories were elicited. Findings suggest that age and socio-economic status have a greater impact on the use of evaluation in fictional stories than in personal narratives. Low SES and younger children are at a greater disadvantage when performing fictional narratives than when performing personal narratives. These results strongly imply that children's narrative competence cannot be assessed in a single story-telling task, given the importance that task-related factors seem to have on narrative abilities.
Shiro
Martha
M
Universidad Central de Venezuela, Instituto de Filología Andrés Bello, Apartado 6339, Caracas 1010/A, Venezuela. mshiro@reacciun.ve
D002648:Child; D002663:Child Language; D003071:Cognition; D006801:Humans; D033262:Narration; D014705:Verbal Behavior