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On the development of narrative structure in child L1 and adult L2 acquisition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sven Strömqvist  and
Dennis Day
Sven Strömqvist*
Affiliation:
University of Göteborg.
Dennis Day*
Affiliation:
University of Göteborg.
*
Sven Strömqvist, Department of Linguistics, University of Göteborg, 412 98 Göteborg, Sweden
Sven Strömqvist, Department of Linguistics, University of Göteborg, 412 98 Göteborg, Sweden
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Abstract

The present study investigates the development of grammatical aspects of narrative structure in child L1 and adult L2 acquisition in a comparative perspective. The narratives were elicited through a picture story task. In the theoretical part of the study, this task is analyzed in semantic and psycholinguistic terms. In the empirical part of the study, it is demonstrated that narratives relating to an early phase of adult L2 acquisition show strong global cohesion, whereas narratives by child L1 learners tend to have very weak cohesion up to around 5 years of age. In a second developmental phase, however, the situation is observed to be the reverse: whereas child L1 learners become very much concerned with narrative structure and accomplish very strong cohesion, adult L2 learners tend to experience a dip in performance. The observed developmental asymmetry is interpreted as indicative of a difference in cognitive resources and sociocommunicative skills between the two types of learners.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , April 1993 , pp. 135 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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