On Referential Strategies In Personal Narratives Of Children Aged Three To Six Years

Personal narrative has attracted many researchers’ attentions in recent decades. However, while most focus on narratives’macrostructure, few pay attention to such microstructures as reference. Reference is mainly used to introduce new referents, re-introduce and maintain given referents. This study intends to study what referential forms are used by children aged from three to six, how the children use referential forms to achieve the three communicative functions, whether there are any age differences of children’s referential strategies, and what referential forms tend to be used ambiguously. Data in this study are transcribed personal narratives from seventy-four Chinese children aged from three to six. They are coded in terms of twelve types of referential forms and three communicative functions. This thesis gets the following findings:Firstly, the variety of types of referential forms and the total number of referential forms developed in line with age, and were positively correlated with their grammatical ability and lexical ability. Children of three and four were still limited in using all the types of referential forms while children aged five and six had been able to employ all the twelve types. During the age period from age three to age six, children’s personal pronouns developed rapidly. The rapid developmental period of first singular personal pronoun was earlier than that of third personal pronouns and the rapid developmental period of nominal forms was earlier than that of pronominal forms.Secondly, children as young as three years old were sensitive to the accessibility of referential forms. Older children used more types of referential forms to achieve each communicative function. Chinese children’s use of general referential forms for each communicative function agreed with the crosslinguistic referential distribution. They used more nominal forms for introduction and re-introduction, more pronominal forms for maintenance. In addition, Chinese children also used referential forms characterized by Chinese for maintenance. They used more null form for maintenance. Different from previous studies on children’s referential forms in narratives, they used more bare noun phrases than descriptive noun phrases for introduction. For both maintenance and re-introduction, more referential forms characterized by personal narratives were used, i.e. more first singular personal pronoun.Thirdly, when the three general referential forms were used to achieve each communicative function, each age group used more nominal forms for introduction, but for maintenance children aged three used more null form while children aged four, five and six used more pronominal forms; and for re-introduction children aged three and four used more nominal forms while children aged five and six used more pronominal forms. In addition to the three general referential forms, the twelve specific referential forms for each communicative function used by each age group were also explored in this study. Older children used more types of referential forms than younger children for each communicative function. And the core referential forms for each communicative function used by each age group were found to be similar among age groups. For introduction, bare noun phrases excluding kinship terms, modifying noun phrases, classifier noun phrases, and kinship terms were used more often; for maintenance, null form, first singular personal pronoun, third personal pronouns, and bare noun phrases excluding kinship terms were more likely to be used; for re-introduction, first singular personal pronoun, third personal pronouns, bare noun phrases excluding kinship terms, modifying noun phrases, null form and kinship terms tended to be used. Though children of three can differentiate the mapping between referential forms and communicative functions, their personal narratives were limited in their family members, and they were less able to produce personal narratives independently due to their lower linguistic ability. The age period between age three and age four was important for children’s development of bare noun phrases excluding kinship terms and the development of first singular personal pronoun for maintenance. The age period between age five and age six was important for children’s development of third personal pronouns for maintenance.Fourthly, the six-year-old children’s ability to use null form, third personal pronouns and first plural personal pronoun needed further development. Based on the findings, this study suggests that parents and teachers should provide children with more opportunities to independently produce personal narratives, should instruct children to correctly use those referential forms which tend to incur ambiguity, and should pay attention to the rapid developmental periods of certain referential forms.