Zhang Fangfang, McCabe Allyssa, Ye Jiaqi, Wang Yan, Li Xiaoyan
School of Foreign Languages and Cultures, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, 210097, Jiangsu, China.
Department of Psychology, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Lowell, MA, 01854, USA.
J Psycholinguist Res. 2019 Apr;48(2):477-500. doi: 10.1007/s10936-018-9614-3.
To investigate the narrative development of Chinese-speaking children aged 3-6 years, 80 children were prompted to tell personal stories. High point analysis was used and both narrative components and overall narrative patterns were analyzed. In terms of narrative components, Chinese children were more skillful in using complicating action, orientation and evaluation than they were in resolution, direct and reported speech. With age, their narratives were longer and richer in content. No gender differences were found in any of the seven narrative components. For narrative patterns, the most frequent was the two-event pattern at age 3 and the chronological pattern from age 4 to age 6. However, the chronological pattern at age 5 and 6 differed from the chronological pattern at age 4. The proportion of leap-frog, two-event and one-event patterns decreased with age, but most Chinese children at age 6 have yet to develop the ability to tell a classic narrative that includes resolution. These findings provided evidence for a developmental pattern of the narrative development in preschool Chinese children and suggested more attention should be paid to improve children's ability to resolve a story, telling listeners how everything worked out in the end.
为了研究3至6岁说中文儿童的叙事发展情况，80名儿童被要求讲述个人故事。采用了高潮点分析方法，对叙事成分和整体叙事模式进行了分析。在叙事成分方面，中国儿童在使用复杂动作、故事背景和评价方面比在结局、直接引语和间接引语方面更熟练。随着年龄的增长，他们的叙事更长，内容更丰富。在七个叙事成分中均未发现性别差异。在叙事模式方面，最常见的是3岁时的双事件模式以及4至6岁时的时间顺序模式。然而，5岁和6岁时的时间顺序模式与4岁时的不同。跳蛙模式、双事件模式和单事件模式的比例随着年龄的增长而下降，但6岁的大多数中国儿童尚未发展出讲述包含结局的经典叙事的能力。这些发现为学龄前中国儿童叙事发展的模式提供了证据，并建议应更加关注提高儿童解决故事的能力，即告诉听众最终一切是如何解决的。
