Abstract

ALARCON NEVE, Luisa Josefina. Reported discourse and the expression of characters’ intentionality in a story-retelling by school-age children and adolescents. Lingüística [online]. 2019, vol.35, n.2, pp.191-213.  Epub Dec 01, 2019. ISSN 2079-312X.  https://doi.org/10.5935/2079-312x.20190024.

This study analyzes reported speech and thought in Mexican school-age children´s and adolescents’ narratives when they express wishes and wills of characters in a story retelling. It compares diversity and frequency of direct and indirect style in 80 oral narrative retellings of 1st grade children (6-7 age), 3rd grade children (8-9 age), 6th grade children (11-12 age), and 9th grade teenagers (14-15 age), expecting a significant increase of indirect style use, linguistically and narratively more complex.

The results show a decrease of direct speech use while indirect reported speech and thought significantly increases, together with increasing willfulness expressions in the narratives from the different school level students. These tendencies contrast with a predominant use of direct speech in the original story. These findings give evidence of a progressive narrative complexity in the reconstruction of characters’ dialogue.

Keywords : reported speech and thought; story retelling; later language development; intentionality; indirect speech.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )