Article published In:
Journal of Narrative and Life HistoryVol. 5:1 (1995) ► pp.21–49
Conceptual Change in Narrative Knowledge: Psychological Understandings of Low-Literacy and Literate Adults
Abstract We examined low-literacy and literate adults' conceptual knowledge in two domains: narrative (composition and recall) and social cognition. Results indi-cated that the performance of the two groups was qualitatively different and that subjects in each group used a similar knowledge structure on both types of tasks. Specifically, the low-literacy group largely accounted for action se-quences by referring to the characters' context-specific intentions or to the subjects' own personal experience. In contrast, the literate subjects utilized a decontextualized mode of reasoning, wherein they interpreted the characters' intentions. We argue that the move toward this decontextualized reasoning is profitably viewed by considering it in terms of conceptual knowledge struc-tures, each consisting of a set of semantic and syntactic elements and having a wide yet delimited range of application. (Psychology)
References
Applebee, A.
(1978) The child's concept of story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Barthes, R.
(1970) Historical discourse. In M. Lane (Ed.) Structuralism: A reader (P. Wexler Trans., pp. 145–155). London: Jonathan Cape. (Original work published 1967)
Bartlett, F. C.
(1932) Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. London: Cambridge University Press.
Bruner, J.
(1986) Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(1989, April) Culture and human development: A new look. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Kansas City, MO.
(1990) Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Case, R.
(1985) Intellectual development: Birth to adulthood. New York: Academic.
(Ed.) (1992) The mind's staircase: Stages in the development of human intelligence. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Case, R., Bleiker, C., Henderson, B., Krohn, C., & Bushey, B.
(1993) The development of central conceptual structures in adolescence. In R. Case (Ed.) The role of central conceptual structures in the development of children's numerical, literary, and spatial thought (pp. 104–128). Toronto: University of Toronto, Institute for Child Study. (Available from Dr. R. Case, Institute for Child Study, University of Toronto, 45 Walmer Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5R 2X2)
Case, R., & McKeough, A.
(1990) Schooling and the development of central conceptual knowledge structures: An example from the domain of children's narrative. International Journal of Education, 131, 835–855.
Cohen, J.
(1960) A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 201, 37–46. 
Culler, J.
(1975) Structuralist poetics: Structuralism, linguistics, and the study of literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Denny, J. P.
(1991) Rational thought in oral culture and literate decontextualization. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.) Literacy and orality (pp. 90–104). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Duczek, J.
(1988) Reversal. In T. Bowen (Ed.) Anthology 88: Significant perceptions. Calgary, Alberta: Calgary Catholic Schools.
Fingeret, A.
(1983) Social network: A new perspective on independence and illiterate adults. Adult Education Quarterly, 33(3), 133–146.
Fischer, K. & Bullock
(1981) Patterns of data: Sequence, synchrony, and constraint in cognitive development. In K. Fischer (Ed.) Cognitive development (Vol. 121, pp. 1–20). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Flavell, J. H.
(1985) Cognitive development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Goody, J., & Watt, I.
(1962) The consequences of literacy Comparative Studies in Society, 51, 304–345.
Hedberg, N., & Stoel-Gammon, C.
(1986) Narrative analysis: Clinical procedures. Topics in Language Disorders, 71(1), 58–69.
Hunt, K.
(1977) Early blooming and late blooming syntactical structures. In C. Cooper & L. Odell (Eds.) Evaluating writing (pp. 90–104). Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Jose, P., & Brewer, W.
(1983) The development of story liking: Character identification, suspense, and outcome resolution (Report No. 291). Urbana, MI: University of Urbana Study of Reading. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 236 547)
Kintsch, W.
(1977) On comprehending stories. In M. A. Just & P. A. Carpenter (Eds.) Cognitive processes in comprehension (pp. 33–62). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Levi-Strauss, C.
(1963) Structural anthropology (C. Jacobson & B. G. Schoepf Trans. New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1958)
Mandler, J. M.
(1982) Recent research on story grammars. In J. F. Le Ny & W. Kintsch (Eds.) Language and comprehension (pp. 207–218). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Marini, Z., & Case, R.
(1994) Development of abstract reasoning about the physical and social world. Child Development, 651, 147–159.
McKeough, A.
(1987, April) A neo-Piagetian analysis of adolescents performance on composing and scientific reasoning tasks. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.
(1991) Neo-Piagetian theory goes to school: Program development and program delivery. Exceptionality Education Canada, 2(1), 1–14.
(1992a) The structural foundations of children's narrative and its development. In R. Case (Ed.) The mind's staircase: Exploring the conceptual underpinnings of children's thought and knowledge (pp. 171–188). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
(1992b) Testing for the presence of a central social structure: Use of the transfer paradigm. In R. Case (Ed.) The mind's staircase: Exploring the conceptual underpinnings of children's thought and knowledge (pp. 207–225). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
(1995) Teaching narrative knowledge for transfer. In A. McKeough, J. L. Lupart, & A. Marini (Eds.) Teaching for transfer (pp. 153–176). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Olson, D.
(1986) The cognitive consequences of literacy. Canadian Psychology, 27(2), 109–121.
(Ed.) (1987) Understanding literacy [Special issue]. Interchange, 18(½).
(1988) Mind and media: The epistemic functions of literacy. Journal of Communication, 38(3), 27–36.
Polkinghorne, D. E.
(1988) Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Propp, V.
(1968) The morphology of the folktale (2nd ed.; L. Scott Trans. Austin: University of Texas Press. (Original work published 1928)
Runyan, W. M.
(1982) Life histories and psychobiographies. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sattler, J. M.
(1982) Assessment of children's intelligence and special abilities, 2nd edition. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Schafer, R.
(1981) Narration in psychoanalytic dialogue. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.) On narrative (pp. 25–49). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scholes, R. J., & Kellogg, R.
(1966) The nature of narrative. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scholes, R. J., & Willis, B. J.
(1991) Linguistics, literacy, and the intensionality of Marshall McLuhan's Western man. In D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.) Literacy and orality (pp. 215–235). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Silvaroli, N.
(1986) Classroom Reading Inventory. Dubuque, IA: Brown.
Spence, D. P.
(1982) Narrative truth and historical truth: Meaning and interpretation in psychoanalysis. New York: Norton.
Tindal, G., & Marston, D.
(1990) Classroom-based assessment. Columbus, OH: Merrill.
Weschler, D.
(1981) Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised. New York: Psychological Corporation.
Cited by
Cited by 11 other publications
Armstrong, E.
2005. Language disorder: A functional linguistic perspective. Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics 19:3 ► pp. 137 ff. 
Armstrong, Elizabeth
2002. Variation in the discourse of non-brain-damaged speakers on a clinical task. Aphasiology 16:4-6 ► pp. 647 ff.
Deane, Paul, Swapna Somasundaran, René R. Lawless, Hilary Persky & Colleen Appel
2019. The Key Practice, Building and Sharing Stories and Social Understandings: The Intrinsic Value of Narrative. ETS Research Report Series 2019:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Eme, Elsa
2011. Cognitive and psycholinguistic skills of adults who are functionally illiterate: Current state of research and implications for adult education. Applied Cognitive Psychology 25:5 ► pp. 753 ff.
Eme, Elsa, Stéphanie Chaminaud, Josie Bernicot & Virginie Laval
2011. Capacités pragmatiques des adultes en situation d’illettrisme : compréhension du langage non littéral et connaissances métapragmatiques. L’Année psychologique 111:01 ► pp. 3 ff.
Eme, Elsa, Stéphanie Chaminaud, Josie Bernicot & Virginie Laval
2011. Capacités pragmatiques des adultes en situation d’illettrisme : compréhension du langage non littéral et connaissances métapragmatiques. L’Année psychologique Vol. 111:1 ► pp. 3 ff.
Eme, Elsa, Agnès Lacroix & Yves Almecija
2010. Oral Narrative Skills in French Adults Who Are Functionally Illiterate: Linguistic Features and Discourse Organization. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 53:5 ► pp. 1349 ff.
Eme, Elsa, Nicolas Nantes & Christine Delliaux
2011. Analyse cognitive et linguistique de l’illettrisme : bilan des études et implications pour la formation. L’Orientation scolaire et professionnelle :40/3
McKeough, Anne & Randy Genereux
2003. Transformation in narrative thought during adolescence: The structure and content of story compositions.. Journal of Educational Psychology 95:3 ► pp. 537 ff.
McKeough, Anne, Randy Genereux & Joan Jeary
2006. Structure, content, and language usage: how do exceptional and average storywriters differ?. High Ability Studies 17:2 ► pp. 203 ff.
McKeough, Anne & Alex Sanderson
1996. Teaching Storytelling: A Microgenetic Analysis of Developing Narrative Competency. Journal of Narrative and Life History 6:2 ► pp. 157 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.