The use of connectives in narrative discourse produced within teacher-children interaction at kindergarten: a comparative study

MANRIQUE, M. S. Y BORZONE, A. M.

Brighton.

Congreso; Language, Communication and Cognition International Conference; 2008

University of Brighton

This study analizes and compares Spanish teachers´ and 5 year-old children´s mechanisms of connection employed during interaction at two situations where narrative discourse is produced at kindergarten: retelling of personal experiences at sharing time and retelling of stories read by the teacher. Five situations of each type were chosen for a quantitative analysis which allowed the identification of the most frequent connectives, and the functions and ways in which they are employed by teachers and children. Results indicate that there were neither differences in the number of connectives used in both situations, nor in the type produced by teachers and children if we consider the two most frequent: “and” - “which/ that”. But there was a difference between situations in the third most frequent connective and in the variety of connectives employed. Differences are explained in terms of the children´s linguistic and cognitive development as well as the features of each interactive situation.