Frog Story Research Articles

The expression of temporal relations in Thai children's narratives

The acquisition of temporal relations in the narratives of Thai children (aged 4 years, 6 years and 9 years) and of adults as control was investigated. Narratives were elicited using the `frog story'. Results revealed common and language-specific developmental patterns: (1) a developmental progression from relating events at a local to a more global level; (2) use of fewer forms that have a broader range of functions in the younger children; (3) acquisition of least restricted forms prior to more restricted forms; (4) qualified support for the acquisition of sequentiality prior to simultaneity. In the youngest children there was a greater reliance on usage of grammatical aspect; subsequently, as children acquired the ability to use bi-referential reference, temporal connectives played a more significant role. Eventually mature narrators are able to use a combination of explicit and implicit linguistic devices.

“Frog Story” and “Map Task” in the Russian countryside

This article reports on experimental work with speakers of standard Russian and Russian dialects on the Kola peninsula. The proposed methodology, though showing some difficulties when applied in a Russian dialectological fieldwork setting, provides data on various varieties of Russian that can prove to be a rich source for many kinds of comparative linguistic research.

Referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual English-Italian children and monolingual peers

This study is a cross-linguistic investigation of the nominal expressions used to introduce, re-introduce and maintain reference to animate characters in the Frog Story in English and Italian. Narratives were collected in both languages from a group of twelve simultaneous English-Italian eight-year-old bilinguals, and from two groups of age-matched English-speaking and Italian-speaking monolingual children. Overall the bilingual children used language-specific referring expressions in each of their languages. Similarly to the monolingual children the bilinguals predominantly used noun phrases to introduce new referents and to re-introduce old referents. More interestingly, the bilingual children were able to use overt and null pronominals in language-specific ways. Pronominal forms were used significantly more often in English to re-introduce and maintain reference, while in Italian null pronouns were significantly more frequent than in English in these two contexts. The only significant difference between the two groups was found in referent maintenance in object position in Italian where the bilingual children used a significantly larger proportion of noun phrases. These results show that simultaneous bilingual children can achieve a high degree of language-specific discourse-pragmatic competence in both of their languages, although there may be predictable areas in which their performance differs from their peers.

The Effect of Majority Language Exposure on Minority Language Skills: The Case of Inuktitut

Children who are native speakers of minority languages often experience stagnation or decline in that language when exposed to a majority language in a school or community situation. This paper examines such a situation among the Inuit of arctic Quebec. All 18 participants in the study were native speakers of Inuktitut, living in home environments that were functionally monolingual in Inuktitut. Half lived in communities with relatively high exposure to the majority language (English), while the other half lived in communities with low exposure. One third of each group were in Grade 3 (first year of school exposure to majority language), one third in Grade 8/9 (sixth year of school exposure) and one third were adults. Each participant narrated a 24-page wordless picture book (Frog Story) in Inuktitut. Narrations were analysed for story length, lexical diversity, grammatical complexity and narrative structure – all measures that are expected to increase or show improvement with increased language ability. Results are inconclusive; some suggest that higher exposure to English leads to stagnation in Inuktitut, while others do not. Methodological issues are discussed, and suggestions for further research are provided.

Acquiring motion verbs in a second language: The case of Italian L2

The contribution is devoted to the lexicalization strategies of intransitive motion events in the acquisition of Italian as a second language. According to the theoretical framework of lexical typology here adopted, different lexicalization strategies of the components of the conceptual structure of spatial localization events found to occur in different languages have been subsumed under the types of V-framed and S-framed languages. In V-framed languages the Path component is expressed within the verb root, as in Italian uscire; in S-framed languages it is expressed by another element in the clause, originally called the satellite, as in German ausgehen (Talmy 1991 e 2000b). However, straightforward attribution to a definite type may be challenged, as illustrated by Italian. The data considered consist of audiorecorded narratives of the Frog Story (Mayer 1969) produced by twelve tutored advanced German/Dutch and English learners of Italian L2. The analysis focuses first on the lexical types expressing intransitive motion events found in the data. In a second step, the means used by the learners for the expression of the Path of motion are analyzed: The locus of the expression can be the verbal root, an adverbial phrase or an adnominal phrase, as proposed in Walchli (2001). Further data on motion verbs from a Tigrinya learner, whose acquisition of Italian has been observed longitudinally, will be considered. In their choice of lexicalization strategies learners appear to be sensitive to the ambiguous typological position of Italian, where both V-framed and S-framed patterns are allowed, as well as to the patterns found in their L1s.

Telling a coherent story in a foreign language: analysis of Korean EFL learners’ referential strategies in oral narrative discourse

Abstract The present study aims to examine Korean EFL learners’ ability to achieve discourse cohesion in English through appropriate selection of referential forms and utilization of referential strategies; in particular, it looks into the language-specific aspects of the referential system in their L1, and how these may be evident in their L2 performance. Using “frog story” picturebook prompts, The analyses examine oral narratives produced by Korean adult EFL learners ( N =12) in L1 (Korean) and L2 (English) and adult American native English speakers ( N =12). Quantitative analysis of the narratives shows that the specifically Korean linguistic strategies of heavily relying on nominals are evident in the Korean EFL learners’ English narrative discourse; thus, the resulting stories are relatively less coherent and cohesive than the native English speakers’. However, it is also observed that the Koreans’ English stories tend to diverge from their Korean counterparts in the direction of the target language norms. In addition, both the Korean EFL learners’ English narratives and the English native speakers’ stories showed referent effects which were not present in the Korean stories; this is supposed to be due to the Korean referential system, which prefers explicit reference even when characters have already been introduced and remain in the central plot.

Children’s encoding of simultaneity in British Sign Language narratives

Narrative discourse in BSL is first analyzed in an adult signer by describing how fixed and shifted sign space is used for reference and the encoding of simultaneity. Although children as young as 4 years old use parts of these sign spaces in isolation their combined use in encoding simultaneity in narrative is a major hurdle to achieving full mastery of British Sign Language (BSL). The paper describes the developmental trends in encoding simultaneity in BSL ‘frog story’ narratives from a group of 12 signing children, aged 4; 3 to 13; 4. We focus on the gradual control of reference in sign space. A transcription framework for recording this aspect of sign discourse is also outlined. The results point away from the role of iconicity and instead toward general patterns in narrative development as driving the organization of sign space and reference.

The expression of motion events in homesign

This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.

The “frog story” narratives of Irish–English bilinguals

Four bilingual speakers of Irish (Gaelic) and English, two men and two women, were audiorecorded as they produced narratives based on pictures from the Mercer Mayer book Frog, where are you? Order of narration was counterbalanced. The narratives were analyzed according to certain features of global and local structure originally identified in Berman and Slobin (1994). Differences within and across narratives emerged in the number of components included, the number of planning components explicitly marked for purpose, the marking of tense and aspect, and the use of extended aspectual categories. These variations were attributed to 1) the order in which the narrative was told (first-told versus second-told versions), 2) the language of the narrative (Irish versus English), and 3) the particular preferences of individual narrators.

Narrative as a tool for the assessment of linguistic and pragmatic impairments

Narrative ability is one of the most interesting and ecologically valid ways in which to measure communicative competence both in normal populations and in clinical groups, since narratives form the basis of many childhood speech acts. Narrative may also prove to be a good tool for distinguishing clinical groups who show overlapping symptoms but who are thought to experience subtly different impairments. This article gives an overview of some of the theoretical reasons for using narrative to assess both linguistic and pragmatic impairments. As part of a preliminary investigation examining possible similarities and differences across groups, five children with severe pragmatic language impairments (PLI) and five with more typical specific language impairments (SLI) completed short picture based narratives using the Bus Story and the Frog Story. These illustrative data are included throughout the paper to highlight features of use to clinicians, particularly with respect to differences in the narratives of children with PLI compared to their peers with SLI. Furthermore, when compared to Tager-Flusberg’s (1995) data from children with autism, SLI narratives seem to be more similar to those of the group with autism than did PLI narratives. Narrative ability was found to relate directly to pragmatic skill but in different ways according to clinical subgroup. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

Narratives validate Communicative Development Inventories

The study explores the criterion-related validity of the Swedish version of the Communicative Development Inventories–Word & Sentences (SECDI-W&S). In two follow-up procedures, SECDI-W&S was used to assess vocabulary and grammar skills in 32 children at ages 1;10 or 2;4. At the first follow-up, 14 months later (at ages 3;0 or 3;6), two grammar tasks from the SECDI-W&S and one narrative task (frog story) were given to 27 children. Predictive validity ranged from .50 to .60 for most assessed skills over the 14-month period, whereas concurrent validity scores at ages 3;0 or 3;6 ranged from .48 to .70. The second follow-up at 26 months (at ages 4;0 or 4;6) was conducted with the narrative task only. Predictive validity from ages 1;10 or 2;4 for the second follow-up remained high for some of the measures; however, for other measures it diminished, which could be partly accounted for by ceiling effects. The overall results confirm that the criterion-related validity of the SECDI is sound.

Ellipsis in Warlpiri children's narratives: an analysis of frog stories

The paper reports on developmental aspects of the ellipsis of core lexical arguments in Warlpiri children's narratives. The children, aged from four to ten years, each told a frog story based on Mayer's Frog, Where Are You? (1969). Stories from six adults were used for comparison. Warlpiri allows ellipsis of lexical subject and object and employs bound pronominals (clitics) to register the number and person of subject and object, although third person forms are zero. Analysis of the stories showed a high percentage of null arguments in the youngest children's stories. The lowest percentage of null lexical arguments was from the seven to eight-year-olds. The older children showed greater flexibility in the ellipsis or overt expression of lexical arguments. Overall, the stories showed no bias toward ellipsis of subject or object; for two-argument verbs, subject and object are equally likely to be null, but more subjects were null in same-subject contexts than in switch-subject contexts. No differences were noted with patterns of lexical ellipsis in sentences with overt or zero bound pronominals. The findings are discussed in relation to Karmiloff-Smith's arguments for a three-phase developmental pattern in narrative organization.

Mark Twain's Use of California Folklore in His Jumping Frog Story

Mark Twain's Use of California Folklore in His Jumping Frog Story