Volume 12, Issue 2 (2021)
LRR 2021, 12(2): 1-33 |
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Akhlaghi Baghoojari E, Sharifi S, Izanloo A. The Trace of Word’s Identity in Verbalizing of Narrative (Comparison of Two Age Groups of Children and Adults). LRR 2021; 12 (2) :1-33
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-31495-en.html
URL: http://lrr.modares.ac.ir/article-14-31495-en.html
1- PhD Candidate in Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran
2- Associate Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran , shahla_sharifi@um.ac.ir
3- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Ir
2- Associate Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran , shahla_sharifi@um.ac.ir
3- Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Ir
Abstract: (3587 Views)
The focus of this research is on lingual instruments which can be used for tracing a single identity through the text. 80 girls and women attended in this study and narrated the Pear Story. Pear Story is a universal nonverbal film which is designed by Chafe in 1980. The data were stored and were analyzed by statistical tests. For qualitative analysis the concept of Roach’s basic level was used. Both groups were equal in using the hyponym words but they were different in using the opposite side. They also were different in tracing the identity of words. It means that they have referent to a word after its first mentioning, although equal referring to a word in all text had high frequency in both groups. It seems that children became similar in their vocabulary to adults; but based these results we have to consider the differences in every content.
1. Introduction
The emergence of the narrative almost coincides with the first memories that adults remember from their childhood. It can be said that narrative is a representation of an event or a set of events (Abbott, 2002, p. 13). Narration is the main subject of this study and to do that, 40 9-year-old children and 40 females 22- to 18-year-old adults have orally told a non-verbal film, the "Pear" story. Made by Chief (1980), the film is used as a universal tool for extracting information from translating non-linguistic experience into linguistic storytelling. The purpose of this film is to extract and study linguistic examples from all over the world. Data from some languages, including English, German, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and Mayan Indians, have been reviewed, analyzed, and compared, but there is no room for a detailed study of Persian data. In this research, the method of word selection and the quality of preserving the identity of those words throughout what is mentioned in the oralization of this narration are investigated.
Oralization of characters and objects in discourse is a limited but important area. When the speaker encounters an object whose understanding needs to be explained, the object must first be introduced in discourse as an objective phenomenon, and then it must be traced through the inference of the narrative. The main question that arises in this research is how objects are introduced and followed in discourse? Also, we seek to know what are the characteristics of the word choice of female children and adults in the expression of the narrative? The zero hypotheses that can be considered in response are as follows:
In this research, the participants' choice of words to refer to specific phenomena has been investigated. While words have meaning and significance, they participate only in a part of the general conceptualization and the complete understanding of the sentence depends on the Encyclopedic knowledge (Langacker, 1987). Rosch et al. (1976) state "Among all levels of abstraction in which anything can be classified, there is a level of abstraction where the most information is obtained with the least cognitive effort, which we call the ‘main’ level." In this research, this concept and the semantic relationship of hyponymy are used to evaluate word selection.
Eighty participants in two equal groups of girls and women participated in this study. The age of the child participants was 9 years and the age of the adult participants was 18 to 22 years. First, a 6-minute non-verbal film "Pear Film" was shown to participants. Before showing the film, participants were told that they were going to see a film and then tell the researcher what they had seen. Finally, the recorded data were transcribed in the same way as dialogs.
Just as it is possible to break the "picking" process into several sub-events, it is also possible to refer to the participants in each process as a whole or as part of the whole. For example, when it was said "gardener", the word was placed in the whole (human) category, but the phrase "hand" was placed in the part category. Finally, in the discussion of word choice, the concept of identity trace is introduced, that is, the word used at the beginning of a narrative to refer to a particular case, is it repeated in the same way until the end or are they replaced by other words that convey the same meaning? To investigate this case, it was enough to examine the identity of the word pear in 80 narrations.
Example: Main word: pear
Superordinate: fruit, crop, pear / fruit tree
Hyponymy: unripe pear
Co- hyponymy: quince, apple
Pronoun: that, one of
Metaphor: stolen meal, illegal property (In reference to the pear)
3. Results
The results of this study can be summarized as follows:
1. Introduction
The emergence of the narrative almost coincides with the first memories that adults remember from their childhood. It can be said that narrative is a representation of an event or a set of events (Abbott, 2002, p. 13). Narration is the main subject of this study and to do that, 40 9-year-old children and 40 females 22- to 18-year-old adults have orally told a non-verbal film, the "Pear" story. Made by Chief (1980), the film is used as a universal tool for extracting information from translating non-linguistic experience into linguistic storytelling. The purpose of this film is to extract and study linguistic examples from all over the world. Data from some languages, including English, German, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and Mayan Indians, have been reviewed, analyzed, and compared, but there is no room for a detailed study of Persian data. In this research, the method of word selection and the quality of preserving the identity of those words throughout what is mentioned in the oralization of this narration are investigated.
Oralization of characters and objects in discourse is a limited but important area. When the speaker encounters an object whose understanding needs to be explained, the object must first be introduced in discourse as an objective phenomenon, and then it must be traced through the inference of the narrative. The main question that arises in this research is how objects are introduced and followed in discourse? Also, we seek to know what are the characteristics of the word choice of female children and adults in the expression of the narrative? The zero hypotheses that can be considered in response are as follows:
- Vocabulary selection is the same at the whole and part level for the two age groups.
- The choice of vocabulary, including super-ordinate, hyponym, co- hyponym, pronoun and metaphor, is equal in both age groups.
- The traces of the words’ identity in the first reference in the narration and in the subsequent references are equal in the two age groups.
In this research, the participants' choice of words to refer to specific phenomena has been investigated. While words have meaning and significance, they participate only in a part of the general conceptualization and the complete understanding of the sentence depends on the Encyclopedic knowledge (Langacker, 1987). Rosch et al. (1976) state "Among all levels of abstraction in which anything can be classified, there is a level of abstraction where the most information is obtained with the least cognitive effort, which we call the ‘main’ level." In this research, this concept and the semantic relationship of hyponymy are used to evaluate word selection.
Eighty participants in two equal groups of girls and women participated in this study. The age of the child participants was 9 years and the age of the adult participants was 18 to 22 years. First, a 6-minute non-verbal film "Pear Film" was shown to participants. Before showing the film, participants were told that they were going to see a film and then tell the researcher what they had seen. Finally, the recorded data were transcribed in the same way as dialogs.
Just as it is possible to break the "picking" process into several sub-events, it is also possible to refer to the participants in each process as a whole or as part of the whole. For example, when it was said "gardener", the word was placed in the whole (human) category, but the phrase "hand" was placed in the part category. Finally, in the discussion of word choice, the concept of identity trace is introduced, that is, the word used at the beginning of a narrative to refer to a particular case, is it repeated in the same way until the end or are they replaced by other words that convey the same meaning? To investigate this case, it was enough to examine the identity of the word pear in 80 narrations.
Example: Main word: pear
Superordinate: fruit, crop, pear / fruit tree
Hyponymy: unripe pear
Co- hyponymy: quince, apple
Pronoun: that, one of
Metaphor: stolen meal, illegal property (In reference to the pear)
3. Results
The results of this study can be summarized as follows:
- Although there are only 7 actors in front of the multitude of objects and situations in the story, the reference to human beings has the most attention and focus;
- There is no relationship between the words used and the age group (child and adult) at the whole level.
- In contrast, there is a significant relationship between the words used and the age group (child and adult) at the part level and the choice of words depended on the age group
- In narration when there is more than one lexical choice, speakers prefer to refer to phenomena using words with a moderate degree of abstraction. It was seen that the choice of vocabulary level depends on the age group
- The data showed that there was no relationship between the onset of the term and the age variable (child and adult).
- According to the data, there is a significant relationship between the identity of the words used and the age variable (child and adult).
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