From images to text: focusing and anaphoric devices usage in child and young adults’ narratives

• Main Authors: Ana Borzone, María Silva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad Santo Tomás 2013-08-01
• Series: Summa Psicologica UST
• Subjects: Anáforas, producción infantil; Focalización; Narrativas infantiles; Lenguaje infantil
• Online Access: http://summapsicologica.cl/index.php/summa/article/view/115

This study aims to analyze the use of anaphoric expressions for introducing, re-introducing and maintaining referents in children and teenagers Spanish-speaking narrative productions from a picture book. We try to explore whether they are able to produce an autonomous narrative text by the adequate use of correferential mechanisms. Four groups of children, aged 5, 8, 11 and 16, took part in his study. Results showed that all groups performance is similar with regard to the prevailing use of FN to introduce and re-introduce agent in focus and subjects omissions for referential continuity. But in 5 years old children narratives, the use of deictic forms is very frequent, fact that indicats their difficulty to produce autonomous texts. In the other group’s narratives a significant increment in the control over the linguistic cohesive resources was observed.