School of Education, University of California, Irvine.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2024 Nov 7;67(11):4504-4517. doi: 10.1044/2024_JSLHR-23-00778. Epub 2024 Oct 22.
We investigate the relationship between narrative macrostructure, current language exposure, and microstructure in second-grade Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States. Macrostructure knowledge has been claimed to be shared across languages in multilingual individuals. We examine the role of current language exposure and microstructure on macrostructure and how individual children organize their stories in English and Spanish. We use sociocultural theory to investigate differences in the macrostructural elements children choose to include in their stories by language.
Using existing data, we used a two-sample -test to compare average macrostructure and microstructure performance in English and Spanish in addition to performance on subcomponents of macrostructure. A correlational analysis was used to compare narrative performance in both languages. We used regression analysis to investigate to what extent current language exposure and microstructure influenced the macrostructure of 62 Spanish-English bilingual second graders' stories.
Children used more words and a greater variety of words in Spanish compared to English. However, they demonstrated comparable use of overall macrostructure across languages, in addition to variation in what macrostructure subcomponents they use by language of story elicitation. No statistically significant relationship was found between current language exposure and macrostructure, except for Spanish story structure. Correlational analysis revealed a significant relationship between macrostructure performance in English and Spanish. A significant relationship was found within languages between microstructure and macrostructure and across languages between Spanish microstructure and English internal state terms.
Findings are consistent with extant literature that claims macrostructure is shared across languages. Children require lexical diversity across languages to express their ideas organized within macrostructural elements. Although bilingual children tell comparably complex stories, they may be making culturally and linguistically specific decisions about what macrostructure components to include in their stories.
我们调查了美国二年级西班牙语-英语双语儿童的叙事宏观结构、当前语言接触和微观结构之间的关系。有人声称，在双语个体中，宏观结构知识在语言之间是共享的。我们研究了当前语言接触和微观结构对宏观结构的作用，以及个体儿童如何用英语和西班牙语组织他们的故事。我们使用社会文化理论来研究儿童在其故事中选择包含的宏观结构元素的语言差异。
我们使用现有数据，使用两样本检验比较了英语和西班牙语在宏观结构和微观结构表现上的差异，以及宏观结构子成分的表现。相关性分析用于比较两种语言的叙事表现。我们使用回归分析来调查当前语言接触和微观结构在多大程度上影响了 62 名西班牙语-英语双语二年级学生故事的宏观结构。
与英语相比，儿童在西班牙语中使用的单词更多，词汇种类也更多。然而，他们在两种语言中都表现出相似的整体宏观结构使用情况，除了在他们所讲述的故事的语言诱发下使用的宏观结构子成分方面存在差异。除了西班牙语故事结构外，当前语言接触与宏观结构之间没有发现统计学上的显著关系。相关性分析显示英语和西班牙语的宏观结构表现之间存在显著关系。在语言内部，微观结构和宏观结构之间以及语言之间的西班牙语微观结构和英语内部状态术语之间都存在显著关系。
研究结果与声称宏观结构在语言之间共享的现有文献一致。儿童需要跨语言的词汇多样性来表达他们用宏观结构元素组织的想法。尽管双语儿童讲述的故事同样复杂，但他们可能会根据自己的文化和语言背景做出关于要在故事中包含哪些宏观结构成分的特定决定。
