Narrative Production & Social Identity in Second Language Learning

Joel WaltersBar-Ilan University

Oranim Conference on Bilingualism, Diglossia and Multilingualism

May 6, 2009

Research Strategies

Bilinguals vs. MonolingualsL1 vs. L2 Within Subject

Linguistic Models1 Syntax-centered (Chomsky 1965, 1995)Phonology, Syntax, Semantics

2 Lexicon and Grammar (Ullman 2001, 2005)Declarative/Procedural MemoryTemporal-Parietal/Frontal lobe, BA44, BA45

Acquisition/BilingualsAcquisitionVerb inflections, Prepositions, Definiteness, Lexis,

Discourse Markers, Codeswitching, Code Interference

BilingualsDominant/Weak languageChildren: Simultaneous, Sequential, Early, LateAdults: L1 Arabic/Amharic/Hebrew/SpanishAtypical: Aphasics, Schizophrenics, SLI

Why study Narrative Production?

• Multiple linguistic levels and multiple indicators in a single task: lexis, grammar, discourse, fluency

• Grounds language in the social world and allows linguistic performance to be enveloped in pragmatics

WG2 Israeli Narrative Studies

• Lexis and Discourse in Preschool Narratives • Codeswitching in Bilingual Retelling• Autobiographical memory narratives among

Amharic, English, Russian, Georgian and Hebrew Native Speakers

• Health Narratives in Russian-Hebrew Schizophrenics• Children’s Holocaust Testimonies• Story Grammar Recall in Adult EFL learners

Overview of Talk

I Story Grammar Recall in Adult EFL Learners II Lexis and Discourse in Preschool Narratives III Immigration narratives among Ethiopian

College Students I

Four Approaches to Narrative

• Story Grammars (Stein & Glenn 1979)• Labov on Narratives (1967, 1972, 1997)• Text Construction (Ravid & Berman (2009)• Systemic Functional (Martin & Rose 2008)

Stein & Glenn’s (1979) Story Grammar Setting: introduction of characters, time and place

Initiating Event: event or action that sets up a problem or dilemma

Internal Response/Goal: protagonist's reactions to the initiating event

Attempt: An action or plan of the protagonist to solve the problem

Consequence: result of protagonist's actions

Ending: response by the protagonist to the consequence

Walters & Wolf (1986) EFL Story Recall Setting: Once there was a big gray fish named Albert, who lived in an icy

pond at the edge of the forest.

Initiating Event: One day Albert was swimming around and saw a fish near the surface of the pond.

Internal Response: Albert loved worms and wanted to eat that one for his breakfast.

Attempt(s): He swam toward the worm and bit into him.

Consequence: Suddenly Albert was pulled into a boat. He had been caught by a fisherman.

Ending: Albert was sorry and wished he had been more careful.

Story Grammar Categories in G3B Setting: Once upon a time there were three bears, a papa bear, a

momma bear and a little tiny baby bear. They all lived in a tiny house in a great big forest.

Initiating Event: One day a little girl named Goldilocks came walking through the forest.

Internal Response/Goal: She was surprised to see the house and noticed it was empty. She was hungry and tired and wanted to rest.

Attempt(s): Goldilocks went inside, tasted the three bowls of porridge, tried out the three chairs, and tried out the three beds.

Consequence: The bears returned to find the porridge eaten, the baby chair broken and Goldilocks sleeping in the baby bear's bed.

Ending: Goldilocks jumped out of the window and ran away.

Preschool Studies: Overall Design

Language Pairs• English-Hebrew• Russian-Hebrew

Stories• Familiar• Unfamiliar

Tasks• Tell a story from memory• Tell a story from picture stimuli• Tell – retell from memory

Study I: Linguistic indicatorsParticipants

8 SLI English-Hebrew bilinguals9 TD English-Hebrew bilinguals

Stories renderedJungle Book (26)Goldilocks and the Three Bears (18)

LanguagesEnglish (24)Hebrew (24)

Task: Tell story from picture stimuli

Study I: Linguistic measures

Lexical indicatorsMorphosyntactic indicatorsNarrative indicatorsFluency and intelligibilityExperimenter influenceBilingual measures

Measures I: Lexical Indicators

Utterances/ClausesTokens Types Lexical Diversity: Type/token ratioContent words Semantic density: Content/token ratio Function words Verb-based utterances

Measures IIMorphosyntactic and Syntactic Errors

Verb Inflections omissions and substitutionsPrepositions omissions and substitutionsArticles omissions and substitutionsPerson, number, genderComplex syntax

Measures III: Narrative Structure

SE SettingIE Initiating EventGL Goal IR Internal ResponseAT Attempt CN ConsequenceEN Ending

Measures IV: Fluency and Intelligibility

Unintelligible utterancesIrrelevant utterancesDiscourse markers – and, then, v’az, az

Measures V: Experimenter influence

Experimenter utterancesExperimenter tokensChild responses to a Yes-No QuestionChild responses to a Wh-questionRepetitions of experimenter utteranceCompletions of experimenter utterancesUnrelated to experimenter utterances

Measures VI: Bilingual Indicators

Codeswitching (CS) *CHI: tinok’s bed*CHI: mexina soup*CHI: in the delet*CHI: and then they go madregot

Code-interference (CI) *CHI: in the delet*CHI: someone ate from me. *CHI: she is trying the porridge here, it’s too hot, it's too hot, but now

this [/] this one is warm for her and it’s [/] and it’s not hot.

Findings: Lexical indicatorsINDICATOR EFFECTS F Sig.

Number of utterances GROUP * STORY * LANGUAGE 4.32 .044

Tokens (words) GROUP33.08 .000

Tokens (words) GROUP * STORY * LANGUAGE 5.66 .022

Types (different words) GROUP11.55 .002

Types (different words) GROUP * STORY * LANGUAGE 5.82 .020

Type/Token ratio GROUP23.216 .000

Content words (freq) GROUP21.20 .000

Semantic Density(content/token ratio)

GROUP3.80 .058

Percent Verb based utterances

GROUP10.58 .002

Lexical indicatorsVerbosity: Frequency of tokens

TD SLI TD SLI0

50

100

150

200

250

300

eng heb

Jungle Book Goldilocks

Lexical indicatorsType/Token Ratio & Semantic Density

Type/Token ratio Semantic Density0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

TDSLI

Morphosyntax: Prepositions

Omissions Substitutions 0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

TDSLI

Narrative indicator: CONSEQUENCES

TD SLI0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

engheb

Bilingual Measures: Codeswitching

Eng Heb0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Codeswitching

Codeswitching

Bilingual measures: Code Interference

Group x Language Interaction

TD SLI0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

eng heb

Bettelheim (1977) The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New

York: Vintage.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears historical development (from Scottish oral folktale to

written form in 1837)describes a strange story, since, unlike other fairy

tales, it offers the children two equally good individuals to identify with, and thus, two equally strong readings.

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The story is about IdentificationGoldilocks is trying out different roles.However, there is no happy ending.Thus, even though she is especially attractive,and in need of a family, companionship or love, she remains alone: an excluded outsider

Identity Markers

Two children (Mf509, Am506), before identifying with one of the characters, insert their “I”/ self/ self identity very strongly and then identify with one of the characters and help that character ‘win.’ A ‘safe’, even ideal, way to enter a story, to identify with a character, and to tell a meaningful story for the self is to first assert one’s own identity.

Mf509Mf509 who identifies with Goldilocks

*CHI: they’re making porridge and then they're going out.*CHI: xx and now Goldilocks is knocking on the door and she’s [//] nobody’s answering and she’s going in.*EXP: ok, let’s see what’s gonna happen.*CHI: she is trying the porridge here, it’s too hot, it's too hot, but now this [/] this one is warm for her and it’s [/] and it’s not hot.*EXP: ah, I see, so that one’s just right, yep yep, here she’s trying

the porridge, yep, and then what about here?*CHI: he [/] here, she’s going into the room, here sh +...*EXP: uh hm.

Mf509 (continued)

*CHI: here's [: here are] [*] the slippers and she’s trying [*] on and [/]and it’s not, um, comfortable for her +...*EXP: uh hm.*CHI: and this is not comfortable +.*EXP: uh hm.*CHI: but this is comfortable

Mf509 invents an Ending: Bears invite G back “and then they want her to stay”

*CHI: and everybody went to their chair xxx he saw the little girl xxx falling xxx and he was angry.*EXP: yeah, he was angry, so then did Goldilocks st +....*CHI: she ran.*EXP: she ran away, yeah, right, is that the end, uh, the end.*CHI: and then +... %com: CHI reopens the story; ending does not fit her identification with Goldilock*EXP: hm?

*CHI: and then they want her to stay.

[[She only did damage; why did they want her to stay? she’s beautiful, lonely, needs food, love, out of her element; so CHI wants her to stay to fit in]]

Sibling rivalryThe part of the story about the Baby Bear is about

sibling rivalry. It is about intrusion and having one’s place in the family

endangered.Am506 identifies with the baby bear,and that is why he adds his evaluation at the end when he happily announces: “bye”, indicating that he is happy that Goldilocks, the intruder

has left forever.

AM506*Am506: me want to read this.*Am506: me know this.*Am506: three little bear.*Am506: bears.[[focus is only on Little Bear, i.e. identifies with Baby Bear]]*Am506: daddy.*Am506: mommy.*Am506: the baby.[[definite article shows his identification; only use of def article is here]]*Am506: one day…*Am506: aba, ima.*Am506: xxx bear.*AKI: mitot.*AKI: yeah.*AKI: mommy.*AKI: tinok’s bed.

AM506 (continued)*Am506 : xxx oxel.*Am506: mexina soup.*Am506: no, a porridge.*Am506: hot.*Am506: went …*Am506: a walk.*Am506: Goldilocks.*Am506: tuk tuk.*Am506: in the delet.*Am506: no!*Am506: came inside.*Am506: and she sat kise.*Am506: xxx.*Am506: porridge.

AM506 (continued)*Am506: xxx mi- po.*Am506: to the bedroom.*Am506: this…this…*Am506: to the house.*Am506: xxx you should eat my porridge.//*Am506: and then they go madregot.*Am506: ha-tinok amar.*Am506: xxx sleeping in my bed.*Am506: yeah.*Am506: run here.*Am506: bye.

Df608/No identification*CHI: yeah, I have it in my house, Goldilocks+And+The+Three+Bears.[[sets up for strong identification, but doesn’t follow through]]*EFR: once upon a time.*CHI: there was*EFR: there were three*CHI: bears, they went out*EFR: they had three.*CHI: chairs*EFR: and*CHI: three beds.*EFR: yes, one day.*CHI: Mommy baked xxx.*EFR: yeah.*CHI: and she putted [: put] [*] it down on the table.*EFR: yeah putted it.*CHI: and then they went.*EFR: where did they go?*CHI: I don't know.*EFR: okay, suddenly.*EFR: Goldilocks.*CHI: Goldilocks came in the house xxx.*EFR: hmm.*CHI: she sat down on the big chair, but it was too big.[[parallelism

and repetition]]*EFR: right.*CHI: she ate daddy's soup, but it was too xx, too hot. [[parallelism

and repetition]]*EFR: right.*CHI: she ate mommy's.*EFR: and?*CHI: and it was too warm.*EFR: right.*CHI: and.*EFR: and then she?*CHI: ate the baby's and it was very excellent. *EFR: right, then Goldilocks*CHI: went to the beds.*EFR: right.*CHI: she tried Daddy's bed but it was too big, she tried mommy's

bed*EFR: but it was too.*CHI: small.*EFR: and then she fell asleep and the bears were coming.*CHI: home, xxx someone sat on my chair, someone ate from me. *EFR: and I want you, I want you to tell me the story, you're looking

atthe pictures but you're not telling me the story.

*CHI: and he went upstairs and xxx, someone went on the stairs. *EFR: oh!*CHI: and then xx saw Goldilocks and she ran out xxx.

Study II: Codeswitching in Bilingual Story Retelling

Research QuestionTo what extent do language impairment, story content and task influence

the frequency and direction of codeswitching?

Participants4 Eng-Heb bilinguals diagnosed as LI in both languages9 TD English-Hebrew bilinguals

Stories and Task Hebrew story retold to an English-speaking puppetEnglish story retold to a Hebrew-speaking puppetCodeswitched story retold to a bilingual puppet

MeasuresFrequency of CSDirectionality of CS

Stimulus StoriesHebrew English Mixed

Setting Once upon a time there was a girl named Tal. She went to Gan Ronit. She liked Dana from gan very much.

Once upon a time there was a boy named David. He lived in Tel-Aviv. He liked his father very much.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Ron. He came from England. His parents knew very little Hebrew.

Initiating event I One day they went to xacer to play, and each wanted to play a different game.Tal wanted to build a palace from sand, but Dana didn't want to do that.

One evening he came to the kitchen to eat, and he found a big plate with soup and hotdogs.David wanted to eat a hamburger and French fries with ketchup, but his mom didn't want him to eat that.

One morning he woke up with a sore throat, and his mom took him to the doctor.The doctor wanted to know what happened, but Ron's mom didn't want to speak Hebrew.

Internal Response Tal was angry because Dana didn't like her game.

David felt sad because his mom didn’t want to make his favorite food.

Ron felt embarrassed because his mom didn’t know Hebrew.

Stimulus StoriesHebrew English Mixed

Initiating event II She shouted at Dana: "I don't want to be your friend! You never listen to me".

He shouted at his mom: "I don't want to eat soup and hotdogs. You never give me the food I like".

He shouted at his mom: "I don't want to go anywhere with you. You can’t ever say anything in Hebrew".

Consequence I And Dana answered: "I'll play with another girl because you’re meacbenet".

And his mom answered: "First eat your soup and hotdogs because I already made it".

And his mom answered: "You teach me Hebrew because I don’t know a lot of words".

Consequece II Tal was shouting so loudly that the ganenet told her she would not sit in the mifgash, and that she would tell her parents.

David was shouting so loudly that his mom told him he would not play with his Lego, and that she would tell his father.

Ron was shouting so loudly that the doctor told him to apologize to his mother and to leave the office.

Ending

Findings

CS to L1 CS to L22

2.1

2.2

2.3

2.4

2.5

2.6

2.7

2.8

SLI

TD

Language Choice in the Bilingual story

0.00%10.00%20.00%30.00%40.00%50.00%60.00%70.00%80.00%90.00%

100.00%

STARTED WITH L1 STARTED WITH L2

TD

SLI

Story told in English(L1), retold in Hebrew (L2)

NMSLI01

*CHI: David gar ah at tel-aviv…david gar ba-tel-aviv ve ve-yesh lo aba, ve-yesh lo soup ve ve ve-

hotdogs. He wants eh hamburgers and snichel ve-qetchop. Ima amar eh shouted

out …she shouted shouted you are not gonna play with lego and you call his father.

*EXP: ata yaxol lesaper le-dudidu ma yiqre axar~kax?

*CHI: he he he shouted so much and he will not play with his lego and he'll call his father.

NMSLI01 (continued)

*EXP: aval ani roca she-tesaper le-dudidu axar~kax ma yiqre.

*CHI: 'axshav hi hi ima shelo shouted and hi loh hi loh hi loh natan lo lesaxeq 'im ha-logo 'im lego ve ve-hi amar aba hi amar aba

shelo. *EXP: ken. Aval axar~kax ma yiqre 'im aruxat ha-

'erev? *CHI: he he yilex he yilex habayta. Ze ma she-hu

halax

Story told in Hebrew (L2), retold in English (L1)

NMTD02*CHI: pa'am axat… eh once there was tal and

dana. Eh they were friends. Outside they played with sand, and tal wanted to build a castle and she and dana didn't want to…

*EXP: so what happened then?*CHI: tal said she she said I don’t understand, she

didn't listen to her.*EXP: and dana.*CHI: and dana said she will play with a different

friend, that she is…ani loh yodea ex omrim lehaskim be-anglit.

*EXP: ok.

NMTD02 (continued)*CHI: ve then the gane then the ganenet said that

that that she will tell it ti her ima and aba *EXP: and *CHI: and then she said she wouldn't be in the

mifgash. *EXP: very good. Now what do you think would

happen next in this story? Can you tell jane? *CHI: eh, loh yodea'*EXP: think what would happen after the teacher

shouted at her?*CHI: she'll tell ima and aba., and she won' sit in the

mifgash.

Labov on Narratives

I/2 Temporal organization 3 Structural components 4 Evaluation 5 Reportability 6 Credibility7 Causality8 Assignment of praise and blame9 Viewpoint10 Objectivity11 Resolution

Labov 3 : Structural Components

Abstract - initial clause in a narrative that reports the entire sequence of events of the narrative

Orientation clause - information on the time, place of the events of a narrative, the identities of the participants and their initial behavior

Complicating action - a sequential clause that reports a next event in response to a potential question, "And what happened [then]?"

Resolution/Coda - a final clause which returns the narrative to the time of speaking, precluding a potential question, "And what happened then?“

Labov 3 : Functional Components

Evaluation Reportability Credibility Causality Praise and blame ViewpointObjectivity

Limitations

• Bilingual SLI children are ‘handy samples’ from ‘language preschools’ in one town in Israel

• Number of experimenters led to variability in data collection procedures

Next Steps

• Further analyses of current data• More rigorous design• Additional bilingual pairs• Narrative vs. Interactive tasks

AcknowledgementsISRAEL SCIENCE FOUNDATIONBMBF (GERMAN MINISTRY OF EDUCATION) Sharon Armon-LotemNatalia Gagarina Efrat Harel Rita HorvathPeri Iluz-CohenNatalia MeirMiri YochannaSveta FichmanCarmit AltmanIdo LibermanYisrael Smith

Labov 4a: Evaluation

(4.1) Definition: Evaluation of a narrative event is information on the consequences of the event for human needs and desires.

(4.2) Definition: An evaluative clause provides evaluation of a narrative event.

Linguistic structures serving evaluative function: emphasis, parallel structures, comparatives;

Most important: modals, negatives and futures

Labov 4b: Evaluation Irrealis Clauses

(4.3) Hypothesis 1: A narrative clause in an irrealis mood is an evaluative clause.

(4.4) L&W Theorem 1: A narrator evaluates events by comparing them with events in an alternative reality that was not in fact realized.

Irrealis clauses—negatives, conditionals, futures — refer to events that did not happen or might have happened or had not yet happened

Frequency of irrealis clauses in narrative increases rapidly with age, as speakers gain the ability to evaluate their experience (Labov 1972)

Labov 5: Reportability

(5.2) Definition: A reportable event is one which justifies the automatic reassignment of speaker role to the narrator.

(5.2.1) Implication: To be an acceptable social act, a narrative of personal experience must contain at least one reportable event.

(5.3) Definition: A most reportable event is the event that is less common than any other in the narrative and has the greatest effect upon the needs and desires of the participants in the narrative.

Labov 6a: Credibility

(6.1) The credibility of a narrative is the extent to which listeners believe that the events described actually occurred in the form described by the narrator.

Remembering that the reportability of an event is related to its frequency, as well as its effects upon the needs and desires of the actors, it follows almost automatically that as reportability increases, credibility decreases.

Labov 6b: Credibility

(6.2) Reportability Paradox: Reportability is inversely correlated with credibility.

(6.3) Theorem: A serious narrative which fails to achieve credibility is considered to have failed, and the narrators claim to re-assignment of speakership will then be seen as invalid.

An "invalid claim to re-assignment" = narrator has suffered a loss of status

(6.3.1) Implication: The more reportable the events of a narrative, the more effort the narrator must devote to establishing credibility.

Labov 7a: Causality

(7.1) Theorem: Narrative construction requires a personal theory of causality.

1. The narrator first selects a most reportable event e₀, which the narrative is going to be about.

2. The narrator then selects a prior event e₋₁ which is the efficient cause of e₀, that is, answers the question about e₀, "How did that happen?"

3. The narrator continues the process of step 2, recursively, until an event e⁻ⁿ is reached for which the question of step 2 is not appropriate.

Labov 7b: Causality

There are many intricate and difficult issues in the reduction of a narrative statement to a causal one, and undoubtedly there will be wide variations in such acts of interpretation.

The essential construction is that there is a proposed chain of events linking the orientation to the most reportable event.

It will turn out eventually that the selection of the Orientation is a crucial act of interpretation of the stream of events, and a necessary step in the next aspect of narrative, the assignment of praise and blame.

Labov 8a: Praise and Blame

In accounts of conflict between human actors, or the struggle of human actors against natural forces, the narrator and the audience inevitably assign praise and blame to the actors for the actions involved.

The ways in which this is done include the use of linguistic devices of mood, factivity and causativity, evaluative lexicon, the insertion of "pseudo-events,“ and the wholesale omission of events.

Labov 8a: Praise and Blame

Polarizing narrative, where the antagonist is viewed as maximally violating social norms, and the protagonist maximally conforming to them

Integrating narrative, where blame is set aside or passed over by a variety of devices.

Assignment of praise or blame certainly reflects the point of view of the narrator, colored by his/her moral stance. But it is not usually a conscious part of the information conveyed by the narrator to the audience; it is rather the ideological framework within which events are viewed.

Labov 9: Viewpoint

(9.1) The viewpoint of a narrative clause is the spatio-temporal domain from which the information conveyed by the clause could be obtained by an observer. In oral narratives of personal experience, the events are seen through the eyes of the narrator.

(9.2) Finding: The viewpoint in oral narratives of personal experience is that of the narrator at the time of the events referred to.

(9.2.1) Implication: The temporal sequence of events in oral narratives of personal experience follows the order in which the events became known to the narrator.

(9.2.2) Finding: There are no flashbacks in oral narratives of personal experience.

Labov 10: Objectivity

(10.1) An objective event is one that became known to the narrator through sense experience. A subjective event is one that the narrator became aware of through memory, emotional reaction or internal sensation.

(10.2) Since it is generally agreed that the narrators' observations can be affected by their internal states, reports of objective events are more credible than reports of subjective events.

(10.3) The transfer of experience of an event to listeners occurs to the extent that they become aware of it as if it were their own experience.

(10.3.1) Implication: The transfer of experience from narrator to audience is limited, since the verbal account gives only a small fraction of the information that that the narrator received through sight, sound and other senses

(10.3.2) Implication: To the extent that narrators add subjective reports of their emotions to the description of an objective event, listeners become aware of that event as if it were the narrator's experience.

(10.3.3). Theorem: The objectivity of the description of an event is a necessary condition for the transfer of experience in personal narrative.

Labov 11: Resolution

The resolution can be seen to be logically the series of complicating actions that follow rather than precede.

(11.1) Definition: The resolution of a personal narrative is the set of complicating actions that follow the most reportable event.

Labov 11: Resolution• narrative as a technique of reporting past events through temporal juncture, • understanding of the temporal organization and evaluation of narrative. • the concept of reportability, arguing that the most reportable event is the semantic and structural pivot on

which the narrative is organized. • Given an initial inverse relation between credibility and reportability, it follows that narrators who

command the attention and interest of their audience will normally maximize credibility by the objective reporting of events.

• The second half focuses on the capacity of a narrative to transfer the experience of the narrator to the audience. Transfer of experience of an event to listeners occurs to the extent that they become aware of it as if it were their own experience. It follows that this is only possible if the narrator reports events as objective experience without reference to the narrator's emotional reactions.

• A narrative can be viewed as a theory of the causes of the most reportable event, so that the crucial interpretive act is the location of the orientation as the situation that does not require an explicit cause. The chain of causal events selected in the narrative is intimately linked with the assignment of praise and blame for the actions reported.

This view of narrative as a• theory of moral behavior and the • narrator as an exponent of cultural norms • will be pursued in later publications.