John Benjamins Publishing Company
Narrative Development across Cultural Contexts
-
Abstract
Children learn the pragmatic conventions of storytelling during family reminiscing. This chapter discusses differences in narrative development and narrative practices observed during reminiscing in two different cultural groups: children from mainstream, white, Anglo, middle-class families and Latino children and their families. Our review indicates both groups differ with respect to the way they structure, contextualize and evaluate their narratives. Different from European communities, Latinos deemphasize the chronological structuring of their stories. Children in both cultures learn to contextualize information within a narrative, but Latinos emphasize the contextualization of characters, usually their relatives. Both groups introduce evaluation while storytelling, through the use of different strategies. Implications of these differences for the educational context are pointed out.
Abstract
Children learn the pragmatic conventions of storytelling during family reminiscing. This chapter discusses differences in narrative development and narrative practices observed during reminiscing in two different cultural groups: children from mainstream, white, Anglo, middle-class families and Latino children and their families. Our review indicates both groups differ with respect to the way they structure, contextualize and evaluate their narratives. Different from European communities, Latinos deemphasize the chronological structuring of their stories. Children in both cultures learn to contextualize information within a narrative, but Latinos emphasize the contextualization of characters, usually their relatives. Both groups introduce evaluation while storytelling, through the use of different strategies. Implications of these differences for the educational context are pointed out.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The communicative infant from 0-18 months 13
- The development of speech acts 37
- Turn-taking 53
- Conversation Analysis and pragmatic development 71
- Ontogenetic Constraints on Grice’s Theory of Communication 87
- Two Pragmatic Principles in Language Use and Acquisition 105
- Learning conventions and conventionality through conversation 121
- The pragmatics of word learning 139
- The production and comprehension of referring expressions 161
- Scalar Implicature 183
- Children’s pragmatic use of prosodic prominence 199
- The Pragmatic Development of Humor 219
- “The elevator’s buttocks” 239
- Irony production and comprehension 261
- Narrative Development across Cultural Contexts 279
- Children’s understanding of linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality 295
- Crosslinguistic and crosscultural approaches to pragmatic development 317
- Atypical pragmatic development 343
- Assessing pragmatic language functioning in young children 363
- Developmental pragmatics 387
- Index 393
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction 1
- The communicative infant from 0-18 months 13
- The development of speech acts 37
- Turn-taking 53
- Conversation Analysis and pragmatic development 71
- Ontogenetic Constraints on Grice’s Theory of Communication 87
- Two Pragmatic Principles in Language Use and Acquisition 105
- Learning conventions and conventionality through conversation 121
- The pragmatics of word learning 139
- The production and comprehension of referring expressions 161
- Scalar Implicature 183
- Children’s pragmatic use of prosodic prominence 199
- The Pragmatic Development of Humor 219
- “The elevator’s buttocks” 239
- Irony production and comprehension 261
- Narrative Development across Cultural Contexts 279
- Children’s understanding of linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality 295
- Crosslinguistic and crosscultural approaches to pragmatic development 317
- Atypical pragmatic development 343
- Assessing pragmatic language functioning in young children 363
- Developmental pragmatics 387
- Index 393
