LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 21:6 June 2021
ISSN 1930-2940

Editors:
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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Story Grammar Analysis of Narratives in
Typically Developing Tamil Speaking Children

Ms. Krupa Venkatraman and Dr. V. Thiruvalluvan

Abstract

Narrative has long been considered as one of the first and most skilled uses of language. The primary way in which human beings make sense of their experience is by casting it in a narrative form, ‘this happened and so that happened’ (Pipe et al. 1999). The present study profiled the development of story grammar components of 200 typically developing Tamil speaking children in a story retelling task, in the age range 3 years to 6 years 11 months. The analysis revealed a developmental trend in the acquisition and expression of the story grammar components. The cognitive language interplay in narrative context has been discussed. The patterns of presentation across age groups have been discussed in this paper. This study would provide normative data to evaluate narrative in Tamil speaking children. The pattern of acquisition of narrative would help plan intervention for children with language disorders.

Keywords: story grammar, macrostructures, narratives, story retelling, cognition, memory, Typically Developing Tamil Speaking Children

1. Introduction

Narratives are the earliest monologue discourse form to develop and are used to report, analyse, and regulate daily activities (Ukrainetz et al. 2005). Narratives in the form of storytelling are an inherent part of human culture that has been passed down from generations since ancient times.

Narrative is the first type of extended discourse in which children engage. They first listen to narratives and stories told by others and soon learn to actively participate and construct narratives reflecting their thoughts and musings as they grow older. Narratives also play a significant role in the children’s school education where it is used in interaction with teachers and peers, and between the children and written texts or graphic representations such as drawings, diagrams, and photos. Narratives are also used to evaluate children’s ability to re-tell, summarize, or paraphrase stories and events (Kao M., 2015). The narrative abilities of young children are rooted in the knowledge derived from their mental interpretations of the events and their subsequent verbalization. The academic and language skills of a child are effectively predicted by his or her narrative skills before entering the school (Peterson and McCabe 1994).

Narratives have been analysed primarily in the personal context or using fictional stories. Traditionally, Fictional narratives have the potential for revealing a formal performance aspect lacking in informal personal conversational narratives. Therefore, they are more commonly used in narrative assessment and instruction of young children (Ukrainetz et al. 2005).

Story retelling involves the recall of a story where the topic, content and length of discourse differ across different speakers as they must draw from their lexicon and linguistic skills to retell the story. It is considered as the best predictor of language delays in young children as it reflects their ability to interpret and reconstruct a coherent narrative (Gazella and Stockman 2003). Story generation requires the narrator to invent a narrative using their own words. The narrator must be creative and original in constructing their narrative as generating a story for the first time requires cognitive and linguistic skills (Gazella and Stockman 2003). Owing to the simplicity and use of pre-modelling in elicitation, story retelling task was the choice of elicitation for the present study.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Ms. Krupa Venkatraman
B.A. S.L.P, M.Sc. (Audiology and Speech Language Pathology), M.A. (Linguistics)
Ph.D. Scholar, Department of CAS linguistics
Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu - 608002
krupa1288@gmail.com

Dr. V. Thiruvalluvan
M.A. (Ling.), M.A. (Tamil), M.Phil. (Ling,), Ph.D. (Ling.)
Professor in Linguistics
Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu – 608002
vtvalluvan@yahoo.co.in
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