Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-03T15:00:02.817Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Narrative competence of Italian–English bilingual children between 5 and 7 years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2015

MAJA ROCH ,
ELENA FLORIT  and
CHIARA LEVORATO
MAJA ROCH*
Affiliation:
University of Padova
ELENA FLORIT
Affiliation:
University of Padova
CHIARA LEVORATO
Affiliation:
University of Padova
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Maja Roch, Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova, Via Venezia 8, Padova 35131, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The study explored narrative production and comprehension in typically developing Italian–English sequential bilinguals. Thirty 5- to 6-year-olds and 32 6- to 7-year-olds were presented with story telling and retelling tasks, each followed by comprehension questions in Italian (their first language) and English (their second language). The macrostructure of narratives produced was analyzed, considering total amount of relevant information, story complexity, and mental state terms. Comprehension questions focused on implicit story information (i.e., characters’ mental states and goals). The results indicated that (a) older children outperformed younger ones on all measures; (b) an advantage of first language (Italian) over second language (English) emerged for younger children; and (c) comprehension and production were both more accurate in story retelling than in telling. Theoretical and methodological implications of these results are discussed.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 1: Narrative abilities in bilingual children , January 2016 , pp. 49 - 67
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Berman, R. (1988). On the ability to relate events in narrative. Discourse Processes, 11, 469–497.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Craik, F. I. M. (2010). Cognitive and linguistic processing in the bilingual mind. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 19–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, K. (2003). Text comprehension and its relation to coherence and cohesion in children's fictional narratives. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21, 335–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cain, K., & Oakhill, J. V. (1996). The nature of the relationship between comprehension skills and the ability to tell a story. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 14, 187–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222–251.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, L., & Dunn, L. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Fiestas, C. E., & Peña, E. D. (2004). Narrative discourse in bilingual children: Language and task effects. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 35, 155–168.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Florit, E., Roch, M., & Levorato, M. C. (2014). Listening text comprehension in preschoolers: A longitudinal study on the role of semantic components. Reading and Writing, 27, 793–817.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gagarina, N., Klop, D., Kunnari, S., Tantele, K., Välimaa, T., Balciuniene, I., et al. (2012). MAIN: Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. ZAS papers in linguistics 56. Berlin: ZAS.Google Scholar
Gagarina, N., Klop, D., Tsimpli, I. M., & Walters, J. (2016). Narrative abilities in bilingual children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37, 11–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gutiérrez-Clellen, V. F. (2002). Narratives in two languages: Assessing performance of bilingual children. Linguistics and Education, 13, 175–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iluz-Cohen, P., & Walters, J. (2012). Telling stories in two languages: Narratives of preschool children with typical and impaired language. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 15, 58–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kintsch, W. (1988). The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A construction-integration model. Psychological Review, 95, 163–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levelt, W. (1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lever, R., & Sénéchal, M. (2011). Discussing stories: On how a dialogic reading intervention improves kindergartners’ oral narrative construction. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 108, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, K. (2007). Young minds in social worlds: Experience, meaning, and memory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oakhill, J. V., & Cain, K. (2012). The precursors of reading comprehension and word reading in young readers: Evidence from a four-year longitudinal study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 6, 91–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Neill, D. K., Pearce, M. J., & Pick, J. L. (2004). Preschool children's narratives and performance on the Peabody Individualized Achievement Test Revised: Evidence of a relation between early narrative and later mathematical ability. First Language, 24, 149–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orsini, A., & Picone, L. (2006). WISC-III. Italian Adaptation. Firenze: Organizzazioni speciali.Google Scholar
Pearson, B. Z. (2002). Narrative competence among monolingual and bilingual school children in Miami. In Oller, D. K. and Eilers, R. E. (Eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children (pp. 135–174). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, C. (1994). Narrative skills and social class. Canadian Journal of Education, 19, 251–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child's narratives. New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, F. P., Speece, D. L., & Cooper, D. H. (2002). A longitudinal analysis of the connection between oral language and early reading. Journal of Educational Research, 95, 259–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silva, M., Strasser, K., & Cain, K. (2014). Early narrative skills in Chilean preschool: Questions scaffold the production of coherent narratives. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 29, 205–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Squires, K. E., Lugo-Neris, M. J., Peña, E. D., Bedore, L. M., Bohman, T. M., & Gilliam, R. B. (2014). Story retelling by bilingual children with language impairments and typically developing controls. International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 49, 60–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stein, N. L., & Glenn, C. G. (1979). An analysis of story comprehension in elementary school children. In Freedle, R. O. (Ed.), New directions in discourse processing (Vol. 2, pp. 53–120). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Stella, G., Pizzoli, C., & Tressoldi, P. E. (2000). Peabody—Test di vocabolario recettivo—PPVT-R. Turin: Omega.Google Scholar
Trabasso, T., Stein, N. L., & Johnson, N. S. (1981). Children's knowledge of events: A causal structure. In Bower, G. (Ed.), Learning and motivation (Vol. 15, pp. 237–282). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Uccelli, P., & Páez, M. M. (2007). Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: Developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 38, 225–236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed