Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Narrative and Life History
Vol. 6:4 (1996) ► pp.293–321

"We Went Home, Told the Whole Story to Our Friends": Narratives by Children in an Algonquin Community

| McGill University, Montréal, Québec
| McGill University, Montréal, Québec
Abstract Narratives of personal experience told by 18 Algonquin children ranging from 10 to 13 years old are described and discussed in this article. The narratives were collected in peer dyads or groups and told in English, the children's second language. Using a database of 93 narratives, we report the type of contributions that the children made to each other's narratives as well as the narrative content and themes. The structural properties of a subset of the narratives, determined using high point analysis, are also reported. These discoursal, thematic, and structural features are discussed in terms of how they interact with one another, and together provide insights into the social character of the children's narratives. The study also demonstrates how children's narratives reflect and contribute to cultural, community, and peer group belonging. (Communication Sciences)
Published online: 4 August 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.6.4.01wew
References (56)
Au, K. H. (1992). Constructing the theme of a story. Language Arts, 691, 106–111.Google Scholar
Bakeman, R., & Gottman, J. (1986). Observing interaction: An introduction to sequential analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bamberg, M. (1986). A functional approach to the acquisition of anaphoric relationships. Linguistics, 241, 227–284. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bennett deMarrais, K., Nelson, P. A., & Baker, J. H. (1992). Meaning in mud: Yup'ik Eskimo girls at play. Anthropology & Education Quarterly, 231, 120–144. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berman, R. (1995). Narrative competence and storytelling performance: How children tell stories in different contexts. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 51, 285–313. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blum-Kulka, S., & Snow, K. (1992). Developing autonomy for tellers, tales, and telling in family narrative events. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 21, 187–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bokus, B. (1992). Peer co-narration: Changes in structure of preschoolers' participation. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 21, 253–275. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collis, D. R. F. (1992). Le statut des langues autochtones et leurs domaines d'utilisation au Québec [The status and use of Native languages in Québec]. In J. Maurais (Ed.), Les langues autocthones du Québec (pp. 115–149). Québec: Publications du Québec.Google Scholar
Colombo, J. R. (1982). Introduction. In J. R. Colombo (Ed.), Windigo: An anthology of fact and fantastic fiction (pp. 1–6). Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: Western Producer Prairie Books.Google Scholar
Craddock-Willis, K., & McCabe, A. (1996). Improvising on a theme: Some African American traditions. In A. McCabe (Ed.), Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories (pp. 72–97). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Darnell, R. (1989). Correlates of Cree narrative performance. In R. Bauman & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Explorations in the ethnography of speaking (pp. 315–336). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. (1990). Quebec Indian community guide. Québec: Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.Google Scholar
Dorais, L. (1992). Les langues autochtones d'hier ô aujourd'hui. In J. Maurais (Ed.), Les langues autochtones du Québec (pp. 61–114). Québec: Publications du Québec.Google Scholar
Dunning, J. (1985). Reluctant and willing story-tellers in the classroom. English in Education, 19(1), 1–15.Google Scholar
Eriks-Brophy, A. (1992). The transformation of classroom discourse: An Inuit example.. Unpublished master's thesis, McGill University, Montréal, Québec.Google Scholar
Gallas, K. (1992). When children take the chair: A study of sharing time in a primary classroom. Language Arts, 691, 172–182.Google Scholar
Gee, J. P. (1985). The narrativization of experience in the oral style. Journal of Education, 1671, 9–35. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1989). Two styles of narrative construction and their linguistic and educational implications. Discourse Processes, 121, 287–308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1990). Social linguistics and literacies: Ideology in discourses. New York: Farmer.Google Scholar
Genishi, C. (1988, November). Children's language: Learning words from experience. Young Children, 16–23.Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, A. (1995). Narrative organization and contextual constraints: The case of modern Greek storytelling. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 51, 161–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goodwin, M. H. (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Griffith, P., Ripich, D., & Dastoli, S. (1986). Story structure, cohesion, and propositions in story recalls by learning-disabled and nondisabled children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 151, 539–555. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gutierrez-Clellen, V., & Quinn, R. (1993). Assessing narratives of children from diverse cultural/linguistic groups. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 241, 2–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heath, S. B. (1986). Taking a cross-cultural look at narratives. Topics in Language Disorders, 71, 84–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hedberg, N., & Stoel-Gammon, C. (1986). Narrative analysis: Clinical procedures.. Topics in Language Disorders, 7(1), 58–69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hicks, D. (1994). Individual and social meanings in the classroom: Narrative discourse as a boundary phenomenon. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 41, 215–240. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hudson, J., & Shapiro, L. (1991). From knowing to telling: The development of children's scripts, stories, and personal narratives. In A. McCabe & C. Peterson (Eds.), Developing narrative structure (pp. 89–136). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
Jimenez-Silva, M., & McCabe, A. (1996). Vignettes of the continuous and family ties: Some Latino-American traditions. In A. McCabe (Ed.), Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories (pp. 116–136). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
John-Steiner, V., & Panofsky, C. (1992). Narrative competence: Cross-cultural comparisons. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 21, 219–233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnstone, B. (1990). Stories, community, and place: Narratives from Middle America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kay-Raining Bird, E., & Kluppel Vetter, D. (1994). Storytelling in Chippewa-Cree children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 371, 1354–1368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Küntay, A. (1993, July). Evaluative strategies in elicited Turkish and Japanese narratives. Paper presented at the Sixth Annual International Conference for the Study of Child Language, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (1972). The transformation of experience in narrative syntax. In Language in the inner city: Studies in the Black English vernacular (pp. 354–397). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Landis, J., R., & Koch, G. G. (1977). Measurement of observed agreement for categorical data. Biometrics, 331, 159–174. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Linde, C. (1992). Conversational narrative. In W. Bright (Ed.), International encyclopedia of linguistics (Vol. 11, pp. 27–31). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MacWhinney, B., & Snow, C. (1990). The child language data exchange system: An update. Journal of Child Language, 171, 457–472. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maguire, M. H. (1991). Epiphanies of the ordinary: Playful literacy lessons and playing within literacy lessons. Reflections on Canadian Literacy, 91, 40–49.Google Scholar
Manuel-Dupont, S., Strong, C., & Fields, T. (1990, November). Spoken narrative assessment: Language-impaired and Native American school-aged children. Paper presented at the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association Conference, Seattle.Google Scholar
McCabe, A. (1991). Preface: Structure as a way of understanding. In A. McCabe & C. Peterson(Eds.), Developing narrative structure (pp. i–xvii). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
(1996). Telling plots: Some European North American traditions. In A. McCabe (Ed.), Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories (pp. 57–71). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
McNamee, G. D. (1987). The social origins of narrative skills. In M. Hickmann (Ed.), Social and functional approaches to language and thought (pp. 287–304). New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Minami, M., & McCabe, A. (1991). Haiku as a discourse regulation device: A stanza analysis of Japanese children's personal narratives. Language in Society, 201, 577–599. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1996). Compressed collections of experiences: Some Asian American traditions. In A. McCabe (Ed.), Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories (pp. 72–97). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Paley, V. (1992). You can't say you can't play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pesco, D., Crago, M., & McCabe, A. (1996). Context and structure: Some North American Indian and Aboriginal traditions. In A. McCabe (Ed.), Chameleon readers: Teaching children to appreciate all kinds of good stories (pp. 137–154). New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Peterson, C., & McCabe, A. (1983). Developmental psycholinguistics: Three ways of looking at a child's narrative. New York: Plenum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, L. (1985). Telling the American story: A structural and cultural analysis of conversational storytelling. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Preece, A. (1992). Collaborators and critics: The nature and effects of peer interaction on children's conversational narratives. Journal of Narrative and Life History, 21, 277–292. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scollon, R., & Scollon, S. (1984). Cooking it up and boiling it down: Abstracts in Athabaskan children's story retellings. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Coherence in spoken and written discourse (pp. 173–201). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Scott, C. (1988). A perspective on the evaluation of school children's narratives. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in the Schools, 191, 67–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shuman, A. (1986). Storytelling rights: The uses of oral and written texts by urban adolescents. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sola, M., & Bennett, A. (1985). The struggle for voice: Narrative, literacy and consciousness in an East Harlem school. Journal of Education, 1671, 88–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strong, C., & Shaver, J. (1991). Stability of cohesion in the spoken narratives of language impaired and normally-developing school-aged children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 341, 95–111. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wells, G. (1986). The meaning makers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Cited by (10)

Cited by ten other publications

Quasthoff, Uta & Juliane Stude
2021. Children’s narrative interactions. Narrative Inquiry 31:1 ► pp. 147 ff. DOI logo
Lai, Wen-Feng
2020. Narrative Structure and Evaluative Language of Personal Narratives Shared by Urban Aboriginal Children in Taiwan. Early Child Development and Care 190:14 ► pp. 2214 ff. DOI logo
Pesco, Diane & Martha B. Crago
2016. Language Socialization in Canadian Indigenous Communities. In Language Socialization, ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Pesco, Diane & Martha B. Crago
2017. Language Socialization in Canadian Indigenous Communities. In Language Socialization, ► pp. 291 ff. DOI logo
Segal, Aviva & Diane Pesco
2015. Narrative Skills of Youth with Down Syndrome: a Comprehensive Literature Review. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities 27:5 ► pp. 721 ff. DOI logo
Ball, Jessica
2009. Supporting Young Indigenous Children's Language Development in Canada: A Review of Research on Needs and Promising Practices. The Canadian Modern Language Review 66:1 ► pp. 19 ff. DOI logo
Berman, Ruth A.
2009. Trends in Research on Narrative Development. In Language Acquisition, ► pp. 294 ff. DOI logo
Reese, Elaine
2009. The development of autobiographical memory: Origins and consequences. In Advances in Child Development and Behavior Volume 37 [Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 37], ► pp. 145 ff. DOI logo
Pesco, Diane & Martha Crago
2008. Language Socialization in Canadian Aboriginal Communities. In Encyclopedia of Language and Education, ► pp. 2832 ff. DOI logo
송민영
2008. An Analysis of the Social Function of Hypothetical Reported Speech in Children's Gossip Talk. Discourse and Cognition 15:1 ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 october 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.