Miller Peggy J, Chen Eva Chian-Hui, Olivarez Megan
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
New Dir Child Adolesc Dev. 2014 Fall;2014(145):15-27. doi: 10.1002/cad.20064.
Although very young children are unable to formulate a personal narrative of the life course, their everyday lives are steeped in narratives. Drawing on ethnographic studies in diverse sociocultural worlds, we argue that the early years of life form a vital preamble to the personal narrative. In this phase of life, the universal predisposition to narrative takes root and burgeons as young children step into whichever narrative practices are at hand, practices that are culturally differentiated from the beginning. As children narrate their experiences, they orient themselves in time and establish the interpretive grounds for intelligibility. This process is highly dynamic. Stories recur, stories are repeated, stories are revamped, and stories disappear. These dynamics constitute, for many children, an intense narrative initiation that defines early childhood as a developmental context. By the end of early childhood, they are well versed in making and remaking narratives and show an incipient ability to open a wider temporal window on their own experience.
尽管非常年幼的儿童无法构建关于人生历程的个人叙事，但他们的日常生活却充满了叙事。基于对不同社会文化世界的人种志研究，我们认为生命的早期阶段是个人叙事至关重要的前奏。在人生的这个阶段，叙事的普遍倾向生根发芽并蓬勃发展，因为幼儿开始参与身边的任何叙事实践，这些实践从一开始就存在文化差异。当孩子们讲述他们的经历时，他们在时间中定位自己，并为可理解性奠定解释基础。这个过程极具动态性。故事反复出现、被重复、被修改，然后消失。对许多孩子来说，这些动态构成了一种强烈的叙事启蒙，将幼儿期定义为一个发展背景。到幼儿期结束时，他们已熟练掌握编造和重塑叙事的技巧，并展现出一种初步能力，即能够对自己的经历打开更广阔的时间窗口。
