The studies reported in this thesis were concerned with children’s developing mastery of the use of certain forms of nominal reference in extended discourse. Particular attention was paid to the use of definite pronouns, nominal substitutes and zero anaphora - both in comprehension and in production. Following a discussion of the theoretical issues involved, and a review of the literature, in the first two chapters, the results of a series of studies investigating children’s use and understanding of these forms of reference are presented. Experiment l(a) looked at 5 and 7 year old children’s comprehension of nominal substitutes using an acting-out task, and this was extended to 3 year olds in Experiment l(b). Experiment 2 was again a comprehension experiment, but included material designed to test 5 and 7 year old children’s comprehension of definite pronouns, as well as nominal substitutes. The next study discussed was designed to investigate children’s earliest use of nominal substitute forms, using diary records kept by parents. The first observations were recorded when the children were aged around 18 months, and they were followed up until they were around 30 months old. The final study reported was a large-scale experimental production study designed to elicit the use of a range of types of discourse anaphora by 5 and 7 year old children and a comparison group of adult subjects. The subjects were shown videorecordings and asked to describe what was happening on the screen, either as the action progressed or subsequently. The videos were prepared using puppets, and were constructed in such a way as to allow for the appropriate use of nominal substitutes, definite pronouns and zero anaphora. The results for nominal substitutes (Experiment 3(a» and for pronouns and zero anaphora (Experiment 3(b» are presented in separate chapters. The thesis concludes with a general discussion of the results of these studies, and the conclusions that can be drawn from them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:649957 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Clibbens, John Stephen |
| Publisher | Birkbeck (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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