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“And they had a big, big, very long fight:” The development of evaluative language in preschoolers' oral fictional stories told in a peer-group context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 April 2021

Ageliki NICOLOPOULOU Open the ORCID record for Ageliki NICOLOPOULOU [Opens in a new window] ,
Hande ILGAZ ,
Marta SHIRO Open the ORCID record for Marta SHIRO [Opens in a new window]  and
Lisa B. HSIN Open the ORCID record for Lisa B. HSIN [Opens in a new window]
Ageliki NICOLOPOULOU*
Affiliation:
Lehigh University, USA
Hande ILGAZ
Affiliation:
Bilkent University, Turkey
Marta SHIRO
Affiliation:
Universidad Central de Venezuela, Venezuela & Florida Atlantic University, USA
Lisa B. HSIN
Affiliation:
Harvard University, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Ageliki Nicolopoulou, Department of Psychology, Lehigh University, 17 Memorial Drive East, Bethlehem, PA 18015-3068, USA. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study examined the development of evaluative language in preschoolers’ oral fictional narratives using a storytelling/story-acting practice where children told stories to and for their friends. Evaluative language orients the audience to the teller's cognitive and emotional engagement with a story's events and characters, and we hypothesized that this STSA context might yield new information about the early development of this language, prior to elementary school. We analyzed 60 stories: the first and last story told by 10 children in each of three preschool classrooms (3-, 4-, and 5-year-old classes) that used STSA throughout the school year. Stories were coded for evaluative expressions and evidential expressions. Five-year-olds used significantly more evaluative language than did 3-year-olds, and children at all ages used significantly more evaluative language at the end than at the beginning of the year. The number of stories told throughout the year explained unique variance in children's evaluative language growth.

Keywords

evaluative expressionsevidential expressionssubjectivitypreschoolersoral fictional storiespeer-group contextstorytelling/story-acting practice
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , May 2022 , pp. 522 - 551
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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