Children's Narratives in the Conversational Contexts of Families from Poor Urban Communities

ROSEMBERG, CELIA R.; SILVA, MARÍA LUISA

Boston, Massachussets, USA

Congreso; 2007 SCRD Biennial Meeting; 2007

Society for Research in Child Development

  Narrative is not only a type of discourse that organizes linguistic exchanges but also a cognitive structure that organizes the thought process and memory.  The conceptual system is designed to segment experience into events, which are sequences of actions that have an objective, that are organized temporally and are located in space.  Narrative discourse reflects precisely these sequences of actions (Labov, 1972). The development of narrative discourse results from a combination of individual cognitive organization and cultural models that are reflected in linguistic forms and social interaction (Nelson 1996). In this framework the main purposes of this study are to         identify the different ways in which narratives of 4-year-old children from marginalized urban neighborhoods fit functionally into their context of social interaction; and to explore the relationship between the ways in which these children insert narratives into the interactional situation and their use of textualization strategies, such as evaluative procedures and the inclusion of temporal and causal markers. The data of the study consists of 197 narratives of past events produced by 15 children (ages 4:2 to 4:11) in interactions with members of their families or of their communities. All the children live in marginal urban groups in Buenos Aires, Argentina.  Each child was observed during 12 hours and their interactions were audio-recorded.  The units of analysis are interactive episodes that include a child contribution of at least 2 utterances that are temporally and causally related. The analysis can conclude that children’s narratives fit functionally into the social context in which they interact and this is reflected in the narrative textualization process. The analysis can conclude that children’s narratives fit functionally into the social context in which they interact and this is reflected in the narrative textualization process. The analysis can conclude that children’s narratives fit functionally into the social context in which they interact and this is reflected in the narrative textualization process. The analysis can conclude that children’s narratives fit functionally into the social context in which they interact and this is reflected in the narrative textualization process. The analysis can conclude that children’s narratives fit functionally into the social context in which they interact and this is reflected in the narrative textualization process. The analysis can conclude that children’s narratives fit functionally into the social context in which they interact and this is reflected in the narrative textualization process.