Narrative Performance in Monolingual Spanish and Bilingual Spanish-English Children
Research on bilingualism/multiculturalism, specifically focusing on oral narrative characteristics in Spanish speaking children, is an important area when assessing language development. By using oral storytelling, children are able to develop and strengthen some of the skills involved in various language areas (e.g., semantics, articulation, and reading). The purpose of this research is to investigate the oral narrative performance of Spanish-English bilingual children. The use of oral narratives or storytelling is commonly used with people of all ages to examine language skills. Using the Child Language Data Exchange System (CHILDES), oral narratives produced by 6-8 year-old Spanish speakers were identified and analyzed for production styles by examining narrative clauses and story episodes. CHILDES is a collection of records and media data that have been gathered and collated from various interactions with young children and participants in different languages. It was shown in this study that monolingual Spanish-speaking children use more clauses in their narrative productions than do bilingual Spanish-speaking children, in spite of age. We could possibly conclude that the knowledge of a second language influences narrative performance in bilingual Spanish-English speakers.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
Speech and Hearing Science
Research Advisor:
Adele Proctor
Department of Research Advisor:
Speech and Hearing Science
Year of Publication:
2005