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Syntactic complexity in Spanish narratives: a developmental study
V F Gutierrez-Clellen1, R Hofstetter
1Department of Communicative Disorders, College of Health and Human Services, San Diego State University, CA 92182-0151.
Journal of Speech and Hearing Research
|June 1, 1994
Summary
Syntactic complexity in children's movie retellings shows developmental changes in sentence structure and clause use. Language background also influences these narrative language development patterns.
Area of Science:
- Linguistics
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Language Acquisition
Background:
- Understanding syntactic complexity is crucial for assessing narrative skills in school-age children.
- Spanish-speaking children's language development presents unique linguistic patterns.
- Movie retellings offer a naturalistic context for examining child language production.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate syntactic complexity in movie retellings of Spanish-speaking children.
- To identify developmental trends in syntactic structures.
- To explore variations in syntactic complexity across different Spanish language groups.
Main Methods:
- Structural constituent analysis was employed to examine syntactic features.
- Data were collected from 77 school-age Spanish-speaking children's movie retellings.
- Key linguistic metrics included T-unit length, subordination index, and phrase usage.
Main Results:
- Developmental differences were observed in T-unit length, subordination, relative clauses, and prepositional phrases.
- Significant variations were found in T-unit length, nominal clauses, and adverbial phrases across language groups.
- Subordination emerged as a key cohesive device and indicator of narrative proficiency.
Conclusions:
- Syntactic complexity in children's narratives is influenced by both age and linguistic background.
- Subordination plays a vital role in narrative cohesion and proficiency.
- Further research can explore the impact of bilingualism on syntactic development in narrative tasks.
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