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On the ability to provide evaluative comments: further explorations of children's narrative competencies*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Michael Bamberg  and
Robin Damrad-Frye
Michael Bamberg*
Affiliation:
Clark University
Robin Damrad-Frye
Affiliation:
Clark University
*
Department of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610, USA
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Abstract

This study investigated the changing functions of evaluative devices in children's narratives. The evaluative devices included (a) references to ‘frames of mind’, particularly to emotions, (b) character speech, (c) ‘hedges’, (d) negative qualifiers, and (e) causal connectors. Narratives were elicited from a 24-picture story book. The subjects were three groups of native English-speaking Americans (12 per group): five- and nine-year-old children and college undergraduate students. A quantitative comparison revealed that (i) adults used evaluative devices three times as often as five-year-olds, and two-and-a-half times as often as the nine-year-old children; (ii) adults used significantly more references to ‘frames of mind’ and ‘hedges’ than the children; and (iii) whereas five-year-olds used each evaluative type equally often, nine-year-olds and adults used references to ‘frames of mind’ significantly more than the other four evaluation types. A second analysis, focusing specifically on the discourse functions of references to ‘frames of mind’ revealed that, early on, this particular device is used to express a local evaluative perspective on particular events, while with increasing age it is used to signal the hierarchial organization of the story events. These findings are discussed with regard to two non-linguistic developmental achievements, the formation of event schemas and the formation of a theory of mind.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , October 1991 , pp. 689 - 710
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the SRCD Meeting in Kansas, Missouri, in April 1989 under the title ‘Form and function of evaluative language in narration’. We would like to thank Nancy Budwig, Alison Gopnik, Debra Harkins, Paul Harris, Allyssa McCabe, Judy Reilly and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier draft. Special thanks go to Virginia Marchman and Tanya Renner for making available the data for the analyses.

References

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