- 55 - growth of linguistic devices that are used for discursive purposes, and the functions these
devices serve as children of different ages begin to strategically employ them in their own productions of cohesivecoherent discourse. 1987:17
Many of his conclusions do not concern us directly. His study of the perfectpresent tense contrast and the pronominalnominal contrast is used as a basis for the investigation of
“the use of grammatical devices in a variety of contexts for a variety of functions.” His aim is to discover the “discourse processes that are involved in the ‘making’ of the child’s
grammar, as well as in the changes in the reorganization” of that grammar as the child matures 1987:202.
Our aims are clearly somewhat different; the first is to characterize the data collected, not only in terms of evaluation, but also in terms of temporal sequencing and participant
reference. In section 2.4.6 p. 51 we mentioned disordered temporal sequencing and ambiguous pronominal reference as examples of faulty plot construction which are found
in the narratives of the less able subjects. The second aim is to offer explanations for the obvious differences in the narrative skills of the eight subjects. Some of these differences
have to do with developmental factors, and these will be discussed in detail as we proceed. Others have to do with factors inherent in the interactive situation, such as interference
from the interlocutor and general breakdown in communication because the speaker does not have the necessary expository skills to proceed any further with the task of telling.
2.6 Summary
We began this chapter by trying to say what narrative is and then went on to talk about two approaches to the analysis of narrative discourses: story grammars or schemas and
Labov’s high-point analysis with its focus on evaluation. As the latter is the particular model we have chosen to work with, most of the space has been given to a fairly detailed
introduction to the operation of evaluation in narrative discourse and its relevance to the data collected. We have also discussed some aspects of plot construction which are not
dealt with at all by Labov; these are equally important if we are to provide a credible account of the data.
In the next chapter, we intend initially to move away from the subject of narrative and its production to look at the art of storytelling, and how it is acquired, in much more general
terms.
- 56 - CHAPTER 3: HOW CHILDREN LEARN THE ART OF STORYTELLING
3.1 Storytelling and Tradition
The relationship between storytelling and emergent literacy, or what Toolan 1988 calls “the child’s nurtured receptiveness to writing and reading”, is an increasingly well-explored
area of child language development. Much current research is based on Vygotsky’s 1962[1932] notion of “the zone of proximal development” and the contention that
cultural development, fostered by valued family members, is the dominant factor in a child’s cognitive development and orientation to literacy.
Heath 1983 found that what actually counts as a story may vary enormously from community to community; she contrasts the storytelling traditions of two neighbouring
working-class communities, Roadville White and Trackton Black, in the rural south-east of the United States.
Roadville parents provide their children with books; they read to them and ask questions about the books’ contents. They choose books which emphasize nursery rhymes, alphabet
learning, animals, and simplified Bible stories, and they require their children to repeat from these books, and to answer formulaic questions about their contents. Roadville
adults similarly ask questions about oral stories which have a point relevant to some marked behavior of a child. They use proverbs and summary statements to remind their
children of stories and to call on them for comparisons of the stories’ contents to their own situations. Roadville parents coach their children in their telling of stories, forcing them to
tell a story of an incident as it has been precomposed in the head of the adult. Trackton children tell story-poems from the age of two, and they embellish these
with gestures, inclusios, questions asked of the audience, and repetitions with variations. They only gradually learn to work their way into any on-going discourse with their stories,
and when they do, they are not asked questions about their stories, nor are they asked to repeat them. They must, however, be highly creative and entertaining to win a way into
an on-going conversation. They practice the skills which they must learn in order to do so through ritualized insults, playsongs, and of course, continued attempts at telling stories to
their peers. Heath 1983:187
- 57 - These are, perhaps, somewhat extreme examples of possible storytelling traditions where
“the form, occasions, content, and functions” of the two kinds of stories “differ greatly”. Put simply, Roadville children grow up with a book-based, adult-oriented, and factual view
of what a story is; Trackton children are introduced in infancy to oral storytelling with its emphasis on entertainment, where reality is used “only as the germ of a highly creative
fictionalized account”. In Roadville, stories are used “to reaffirm group membership and behavioral norms”, while, in Trackton, their purpose is to “assert individual strengths and
powers” p. 184. Heath concludes: “For Roadville, Trackton’s stories would be lies; for Trackton, Roadville’s stories would not even count as stories” 1983:189.
Most English-speaking British children are also introduced to stories and storytelling while they are still in the nursery. Written prose material is presented to them through the spoken
performance of the adults and older siblings around them and the colourful pictures which illustrate the text; these are often “‘read” to the children too, and such children acquire a
sense of description as well as a sense of narrative sequence. Thus, it would seem that the typical British storytelling tradition is a mixture of oral and written modes of expression.
But do ALL children acquire the ability to tell stories or is this ability directly dependent on the amount of exposure each child has to storytelling and storybooks? This is but one of
the questions we hope to address in this chapter. Much of the research we will be referring to was obviously conducted with subjects who spoke English as their mother tongue. Is
the picture so very different for young second-language learners who do not come across English narrative tradition until they start school? There is evidence that it is not.
Cook-Gumperz and Green 1984 note that “much of the influence on children’s knowledge and experience of story forms is strongly mediated by written prose models of
storytelling that are presented in books”; but, since children in their early years cannot read, “they learn to recognize and appreciate stories through their spoken performance as an
oralaural experience” p. 202. Cook-Gumperz and Green do not view oral and written modes of expression as “two separate or even separable entities within the Western
tradition of children’s literature, stories, or tales”. They conclude that: Children who are exposed very early in life to an adult-centred, albeit child-focused
literary culture are likely to be members of an oral and a literate culture simultaneously by experiencing the spoken performance of the written text. Therefore, we can see that the
- 58 - linkage between oral and written influences on children’s knowledge of story forms is a
complex one. This relationship needs to be analyzed if we are to consider some implications of children’s developing knowledge of the adult world of written language for
their progress in many school-based language tasks, such as reading and writing. Cook- Gumperz and Green 1984:202
Young second-language learners are not introduced to this oral and literate English culture until they reach school age, and so they obviously have a lot of catching up to do. But do
they acquire this sense of story more quickly than their monolingual peers and absorb it as part of their total adaptation to the whole environment of school? It would seem that they
do. Storytelling, both oral and written, is a foundational activity in the average Infant School. Children are encouraged to produce both factual and fictional stories in oral and
written modes. Second-language learners learn fast in order to cope in this new world into which they have so suddenly been plunged.
3.2 Experimental Studies of Narrative Ability in Children
