- 186 - Silva 1991, discussing simultaneity in children’s narratives, cites the work of Heinamaki
1974 who points out that in sentences involving when-clauses “each clause nails down an interval, which can be a moment” 1974:36. Heinamaki also demonstrates conclusively,
according to Silva 1991, that the intervals defined in the two clauses may overlap or occur in succession. This is precisely the problem with Kenneth’s use of “when” above. Silva goes
on to say that “as denotes merely simultaneity of two situations” 1991:645 and that “a well-formed sentence containing an as-clause specifies events taking place at the same time,
with one event serving as a backdrop to the other” p. 648. Then in a footnote she adds that “just as…can often mark a single point in time”, which is the situation we have above.
The second example is from Shvinder’s Story C: 36
So he said, 37
“Come inside.
38 It’s going to be very hot in there
39 and tomorrow you gotta leave
because 40
otherwise the days will get very cold 41
and it will start snowing.” Shvinder still has to differentiate between the meanings of the conjunctions “because” and
“otherwise”; this use of “otherwise” suggests that Billy-the-Twit’s departure, or non- departure, would have a determining effect on the weather and whether it would snow or
not. The original said, “You must return home straight away, tomorrow, before the winter snows come”. “Otherwise” is equivalent to “if not”, a negative conditional rather than a
causal conjunction like “because”, the intended meaning.
5.4.2.4 Participant Reference
Halliday and Hasan 1976 draw the distinction between exophoric, or situational, reference which plays no part in textual cohesion, and endophoric reference which does pp. 18, 33.
Endophoric relations are of two kinds: anaphoric relations which look back in the text for their interpretation, and cataphoric relations which look forward. Martin 1983, looking
specifically at children’s storytelling, sees reference as a series of options, the most basic being the choice between introducing an entity as new information or alluding to an entity
as given old information which the hearer would already know about. He labels this choice
- 187 - as presenting or presuming. Figure 5.2 below taken from Martin 1983:11 diagrams the various
options facing the young narrator and hisher hearers.
Figure 5.2 As we can see, Martin uses the term “context of situation” for both exophora and
endophora. The verbal context is what Brown and Yule 1983:47 call the co-text, and presuming reference that involves a co-textual verbal tie may be direct e.g. by way of
pronouns such as “he” and “it” or indirect, by sense-making bridging links which the hearer has to supply for himherself. Young narrators, according to Martin, rely on
exophoric reference to immediate context on both first and subsequent mention, by means of a definite noun phrase e.g. “the snowman” where more mature storytellers would
follow the conventional means of presenting the entity as new on first mention, and would thereafter use anaphora in subsequent mentions.
We do not get such a clear picture from our subjects. Kenneth L1, in his Story B, uses “Father Christmas” and “he” for reference to his main character and exophoric reference
for minor characters and props; this use of both sorts of reference produces an interesting error:
14 And he came to London
15 and all the London people were shopping.
16 And
the one lady said, 17
“Oh, not again 18
We only came here for half an hour.” 19
And - and - and the lady said, “... Reference
Presenting
Presuming Context of
Culture homophora
Context of Situation
Verbal endophora
Nonverbal exophora
Direct anaphora
Indirect bridging
- 188 - In 16 he tries to use both exophoric “the” and endophoric “one” at the same time. In
Tammy’s version of the same story we find: 7
and um he saw a lady 8
called Mr. s Roundface. 9
And she said,
10 “What are you doing?” - - -
which exemplifies the adult system. However, Tammy does revert to the exophoric system at the end of her narrative and, by so doing, commits an error:
28 And Father Christmas asked
29 can he borrow one of the balls.
30 The goalkeeper said, “Yes, alright.”
31 And - um - there the Christmas was playing football with his friend.
In 31 she refers to “Father Christmas” as “the Christmas”, which is probably a slip triggered by reference to “the goalkeeper” a homophoric reference understood by all
football fans in the preceding utterance. As expected, the L2 speakers run into more complex problems, and often fail to keep their
chains of reference to two different characters apart, as in Fariba’s Story D below: 6
He walked
7 and walked
8 until he came to a man.
Father Christmas
9 Snowman said,
10 “Hello I want to go to a holiday.
11 Will you tell me
12 where I can go?”
13 The snowman said, “India, Pakistan, Australia and America.”
This narrative begins with a disgruntled Father Christmas who disliked seeing his picture on Christmas cards. He was so fed up that he wanted to get away from it all. So the “he” in
6–8 is Father Christmas. The problem clause is 9: “a man” is introduced in 8 who appears
- 189 - to turn into “Snowman” minus the definite article in 9; but it is Father Christmas who
wants to go on holiday, and so the reference to “snowman” in 9 is obviously a tongue slip or a momentary confusion. In 13 Fariba corrects her mistake and has the snowman suggest
four possible holiday locations in answer to Father Christmas’s request for help. Aqeel’s Story A is even more difficult for the hearer to process because he uses “he” for
three different participants, often switching from one to another without employing any device to signal the switch. The only way to keep track of the participants is to number
them as follows: 1 the Chinese man, 2 the Snowman, thought by 1 to be a sack of rice, and 3 Father Christmas:
1 1
1 Once upon a time there was a man
- Chinese man.
1
2 He sold rice.
3 And rice um disappeared.
1 2
4 And
he saw someone else in the morning.
1 2
5 He saw rice.
1 2
6 He opened it.
2 2 1
7 Then
the Snowman - he helped him.
2 3
8 He - um - taked a letter to Father Christmas.
1
9 He wanted some rice krispies -
3
10 rice
- yes,
he bunged from the chimney.
1
11 But
he ate it all up on the food.
1
12 After
all he did have food for Christmas.
However, we are only able to number the participants because we know the original story; David, his interlocutor, also knew the original story and, as we saw in chapter 3, pages 66–
67, he tried to take over and tell the story for Aqeel, which added to Aqeel’s problems. Karmiloff-Smith 1980, 1981 documents the first developmental stage in the acquisition of
pronominal anaphora as the use of pronouns in utterance-initial position, marking the “thematic subject”. There is a change in thematic subject between 8 and 9 which is not
- 190 - signalled phonologically, lexically, or syntactically and this omission constitutes a discourse
error. There is also a momentary switch from participants 1 to 3 in 10. Sheiba, in her Story A which we looked at above, introduces a prop by “this”, rather than
by naming it: 3
He said,
4 “I can put this in my shop.”
5 And the shop people buyed it.
6 The people buyed it
7 and there was no more rice left.
Thus, we would expect her to be making a deictic reference to something in the immediate context but, no, “this” refers forward to “rice” in 7. However, it is not a direct cataphoric
reference but more akin to Martin’s bridging inferences although, from Sheiba’s perspective, it is predominantly exophoric. It would seem that she intends us to bridge
between “this” in 4 and “no more rice” in 7, for we are certainly led by what follows to the assumption that “this” does, in fact, refer to a sack of rice; but because of the amount of
processing we, as hearers, are forced to do, we conclude that this use of a demonstrative without any antecedent amounts to a discourse error.
Toolan 1988 briefly notes the importance of the appropriate and effective use of bridging inferences and other types of participant reference:
… frequency of noun phrases involving bridging is not in itself an index of maturity: rather it is increasingly appropriate recourse to bridging that we should look for.…One
final point to consider would be the ways in which entity introductions that are identical in terms of the system of choices [as set out on p. 281] are yet substantially different as
regards effective storytelling. pp. 208–209 As children mature they use more appropriate and effective ways of introducing their
characters to their hearers; our subjects, both L1 and L2, still have some way to go yet, as evidenced by the kinds of errors which they make.
- 191 -
5.4.2.5 Tense-Aspect Relations
