Anaphoric Reference in Written Narratives by German-Speaking 10-Year-Olds and Adults: The Influence of Referential Function and Character Type

Abstract

It has been suggested that acquiring the appropriate use of referring expressions consists of a shift from an initial focus on global accessibility factors, e.g., animacy or character type, towards primarily considering local accessibility factors, such as information status, referential function and topicality. At which age this shift takes place remains an open question. The present study investigates anaphoric reference in picture-based written narratives by German-speaking 10-year-olds and adults. We analyse and compare the extent to which referential function (maintenance vs. reintroduction), a local accessibility factor, and character type (main character vs. secondary character), a global accessibility factor, influence children’s and adults’ choice of referring expression. The results show that referential function affected referential choice in both children and adults, with significantly higher proportions of pronouns in maintenance than in reintroduction. However, character type only influenced the children, who produced a significantly higher proportion of pronouns with main characters than with secondary characters. These results suggest that children’s referring expression use is not yet fully adultlike at age 10, and that adults and children weigh local and global accessibility factors differently: global factors play a role in children’s referential choice in addition to local ones, whereas adults are primarily influenced by local accessibility factors.