Chapter 9. Promoting patients in narrative discourse
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Harriet Jisa
Abstract
Languages provide speakers with a number of structural options for manipulating the expression of events in narrative discourse. Underlying narrative competence is the capacity to view events as dynamic actions composed of a bundle of elements such as, agent, patient, affectedness, etc. (Hopper & Thompson 1980). This study examines the grammatical constructions used by children (5–6, 7–8 and 10–11-year-olds) and adult speakers of Amharic, English, French and Hungarian to manipulate the expression of agent and patient participants in the linguistic formulation of events. The narrative task used to elicit the data is composed of a series of pictures which recount the adventures of two principal characters (a boy and a dog) in search of their runaway frog (Frog, Where are you? Mayer 1969). Over the course of the story the boy and the dog encounter a host of secondary characters (a gopher, an owl, a swarm of bees and a deer) and change participant status, going from controlling agent to affected patient of a secondary character’s action. Our interest lies in the structures available in the languages studied and their use by children and adults in narrative discourse. We detail how children and adult native speakers of the four languages use topicalising constructions to promote the patient participant in an event to the “starting point” (Langacker 1998) of the recounting of that event.
Abstract
Languages provide speakers with a number of structural options for manipulating the expression of events in narrative discourse. Underlying narrative competence is the capacity to view events as dynamic actions composed of a bundle of elements such as, agent, patient, affectedness, etc. (Hopper & Thompson 1980). This study examines the grammatical constructions used by children (5–6, 7–8 and 10–11-year-olds) and adult speakers of Amharic, English, French and Hungarian to manipulate the expression of agent and patient participants in the linguistic formulation of events. The narrative task used to elicit the data is composed of a series of pictures which recount the adventures of two principal characters (a boy and a dog) in search of their runaway frog (Frog, Where are you? Mayer 1969). Over the course of the story the boy and the dog encounter a host of secondary characters (a gopher, an owl, a swarm of bees and a deer) and change participant status, going from controlling agent to affected patient of a secondary character’s action. Our interest lies in the structures available in the languages studied and their use by children and adults in narrative discourse. We detail how children and adult native speakers of the four languages use topicalising constructions to promote the patient participant in an event to the “starting point” (Langacker 1998) of the recounting of that event.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction. New perspectives in the study of first and second language acquisition 1
-
Part I. Emergence and dynamics of language acquisition and disorders
- Chapter 1. A tale of two paradigms 17
- Chapter 2. Dynamic systems methods in the study of language acquisition 33
- Chapter 3. Early bootstrapping of syntactic acquisition 53
- Chapter 4. Language acquisition in developmental disorders 67
-
Part II. First language acquisition
- Chapter 5. Language development in a cross-linguistic context 91
- Chapter 6. A typological approach to first language acquisition 109
- Chapter 7. Linguistic relativity in first language acquisition 125
- Chapter 8. On the importance of goals in child language 147
- Chapter 9. Promoting patients in narrative discourse 161
- Chapter 10. On-line grammaticality judgments 179
- Chapter 11. The expression of finiteness by L1 and L2 learners of Dutch, French, and German 205
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Part III. Bilingualism and second language acquisition
- Chapter 12. Age of onset in successive acquisition of bilingualism 225
- Chapter 13. The development of person-number verbal morphology in different types of learners 249
- Chapter 14. Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d) 267
- Chapter 15. Foreign language vocabulary learning 285
- Chapter 16. Cerebral imaging and individual differences in language learning 299
- Chapter 17. The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism 307
- Index of languages 323
- Index of subjects 325
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction. New perspectives in the study of first and second language acquisition 1
-
Part I. Emergence and dynamics of language acquisition and disorders
- Chapter 1. A tale of two paradigms 17
- Chapter 2. Dynamic systems methods in the study of language acquisition 33
- Chapter 3. Early bootstrapping of syntactic acquisition 53
- Chapter 4. Language acquisition in developmental disorders 67
-
Part II. First language acquisition
- Chapter 5. Language development in a cross-linguistic context 91
- Chapter 6. A typological approach to first language acquisition 109
- Chapter 7. Linguistic relativity in first language acquisition 125
- Chapter 8. On the importance of goals in child language 147
- Chapter 9. Promoting patients in narrative discourse 161
- Chapter 10. On-line grammaticality judgments 179
- Chapter 11. The expression of finiteness by L1 and L2 learners of Dutch, French, and German 205
-
Part III. Bilingualism and second language acquisition
- Chapter 12. Age of onset in successive acquisition of bilingualism 225
- Chapter 13. The development of person-number verbal morphology in different types of learners 249
- Chapter 14. Re-thinking the bilingual interactive-activation model from a developmental perspective (BIA-d) 267
- Chapter 15. Foreign language vocabulary learning 285
- Chapter 16. Cerebral imaging and individual differences in language learning 299
- Chapter 17. The cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism 307
- Index of languages 323
- Index of subjects 325
