A Developmental Analysis of Children's Narratives

Narratives have been studied from an increasing variety of perspectives. Long studied by literary critics ( Smith, 1980 ), narratives have been analyzed more recently for their importance in socialization and enculturation ( Gardner, Winner, Bechhofer, & Wolf, 1978 ; Polanyi, 1979 ), in conversations ( Beach, 1983 ; Burton, 1981 ), and in the processing and storing of complex information ( van Dijk, 1977a , b; 1980a, b). Narratives provide more explicit, limited texts for analysis than do conversational texts whose interpretation relies on more indirect, variable knowledge structures ( van Dijk, 1980b ). In addition, narrative structures may be studied in a wide range of contexts, including both oral and written modes of communication ( Haslett, 1983 ; Tannen, 1979 ). The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the narrative structures used by children in their storytelling and, in particular, to assess developmental changes in these structures. In what follows, I first present a brief theoretical overview of approaches to narrative comprehension and production, especially among children. Secondly, I present and discuss the results of my analysis of children’s original narratives, and finally discuss the implications of this line of research for the acquisition of communicative competence and for models of human communicative processes.