Text Complexity and Variety Factors in Narrative Retelling and Narrative Comprehension among Arabic-Speaking Preschool Children

Autor/inn/en	Kawar, Khaloob; Saiegh-Haddad, Elinor; Armon-Lotem, Sharon
Titel	Text Complexity and Variety Factors in Narrative Retelling and Narrative Comprehension among Arabic-Speaking Preschool Children
Quelle	In: First Language, 43 (2023) 4, S.355-379 (25 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Kawar, Khaloob) ORCID (Armon-Lotem, Sharon)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0142-7237
DOI	10.1177/01427237221149800
Schlagwörter	Story Telling; Preschool Children; Arabic; Language Variation; Language Processing; Narration; Illustrations; Task Analysis; Language Acquisition; Native Language; Theory of Mind; Scores; Age Differences; Foreign Countries; Dialects; Standard Spoken Usage; Contrastive Linguistics; Israel; Palestine + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Arabisch; Sprachenvielfalt; Sprachverarbeitung; Bildliche Darstellung; Aufgabenanalyse; Sprachaneignung; Spracherwerb; Age; Difference; Age difference; Altersunterschied; Ausland; Dialect; Dialekt; Gesprochene Sprache; Umgangssprache; Linguistics; Kontrastive Linguistik; Palästina
Abstract	The current study investigates narrative retelling and comprehension among 30 native Arabic-speaking preschool children with a mean age of 5:10. Narrative features of text-complexity (less-complex and more-complex episodic structure) and language variety (Spoken Palestinian Arabic [PA] and Modern Standard Arabic [MSA]) were analyzed for their effect on narrative retelling and comprehension. Four narratives accompanied by six pictures each (Gagarina et al., 2012) were used. Two were presented in MSA and two in PA, the children's spoken vernacular. Two of them, one per each language variety, matched on episodic structure, were less complex, and two were more complex. Although children were free to choose which language to use for the retelling, they all used PA. Retelling performance was analyzed according to macrostructure, microstructure, and the use of Internal State Terms (ISTs). Comprehension was tested via questions addressing the character's goals, ISTs, and Theory of Mind. With respect to text complexity, the results showed that the participants produced longer texts and demonstrated better comprehension when the narratives were more complex. Language variety was only associated with a difference in comprehension, with higher scores for the narratives presented in MSA. Older children produced longer texts and a higher number of ISTs. Finally, a three-way interaction emerged in the use of ISTs -- while younger children produced more ISTs for the PA narratives, the older ones produced more of those for the MSA narratives. The study suggests that language variety and text complexity may exert different effects on narrative production and comprehension in Arabic-speaking preschool children. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01