Ann MacGibbon - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Ann MacGibbon

Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspe... more Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspect of narratives. As narrators, children use negatives for a variety of semantic and pragmatic functions. A taxonomy of eight distinct types of negation was developed and used to analyze three data sets: a corpus of personal narratives from working-class children (age 4 to 9 years); a corpus of narratives elicited via a wordless picture book from a longitudinal sample of working- and middle-class children (age 6 to 8 years); and another corpus of picture book narratives elicited from a cross-sectional sample of children age 3 to 9 years, and adults. In children\u27s personal narratives, negatives that referred to actions that did not occur were cited more frequently than any other type of negation. In all three data sets, younger children used negatives more frequently than did older children. Finally, negatives appeared far more frequently in personal narratives than in picture book eli...

Merrill-palmer Quarterly, 2000

Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspe... more Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspect of narratives. As narrators, children use negatives for a variety of semantic and pragmatic functions. A taxonomy of eight distinct types of negation was developed and used to analyze three data sets: a corpus of personal narratives from working-class children (age 4 to 9 years); a corpus of narratives elicited via a wordless picture book from a longitudinal sample of workingand middle-class chil dren (age 6 to 8 years); and another corpus of picture book narratives elicited from a cross-sectional sample of children age 3 to 9 years, and adults. In children's personal narratives, negatives that referred to actions that did not occur were cited more fre quently than any other type of negation. In all three data sets, younger children used negatives more frequently than did older children. Finally, negatives appeared far more frequently in personal narratives than in picture book el...

Studies in Narrative, 2007

As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about... more As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about young children's developing sense of self. In this study we analyzed children's use of first-person pronouns, particularly/, in order to examine the domains children explicitly index in their use of self-referential utterances. Conversational narratives were elicited from 96 predominately white working-class participants between the ages of 4 and 9 (8 boys and 8 girls at each age). All predicates associated with/(termed I-predicates) were classified into ...

Studies in Narrative, 2007

As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about... more As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about young children's developing sense of self. In this study we analyzed children's use of first-person pronouns, particularly/, in order to examine the domains children explicitly index in their use of self-referential utterances. Conversational narratives were elicited from 96 predominately white working-class participants between the ages of 4 and 9 (8 boys and 8 girls at each age). All predicates associated with/(termed I-predicates) were classified into ...

Merrill-Palmer quarterly (Wayne State University. Press)

Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and examined ch... more Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and examined children's personal narratives and narratives elicited by picture books. Found most frequent negation to be reference to actions that did not happen. Younger children used negation more than older children, and negation occurred more frequently in personal than in picture book elicited narratives. (DLH)

Studies in Narrative, 2007

As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about... more As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about young children's developing sense of self. In this study we analyzed children's use of first-person pronouns, particularly/, in order to examine the domains children explicitly index in their use of self-referential utterances. Conversational narratives were elicited from 96 predominately white working-class participants between the ages of 4 and 9 (8 boys and 8 girls at each age). All predicates associated with/(termed I-predicates) were classified into ...

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 2000

Abstract: Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and ... more Abstract: Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and examined children's personal narratives and narratives elicited by picture books. Found most frequent negation to be reference to actions that did not happen. Younger children used negation more than older children, and negation occurred more frequently in personal than in picture book elicited narratives.(DLH)

Social Development, 2001

The ordinary discourse of parents, and to a lesser degree young children, includes a surprising a... more The ordinary discourse of parents, and to a lesser degree young children, includes a surprising amount of attention to language. The dinner table conversations of 22 middle class families, each with a child between 2 and 5 1 / 2 years of age, were recorded. Transcripts of these conversations were analyzed for the presence and function of language-focused terms, words such as say, ask, tell, and speak. More than 11% of mothers', 7% of fathers', and 4% of children's utterances contained a languagefocused term. Metalinguistic uses (e.g., reporting and commenting on speech) exceeded pragmatic uses (e.g., controlling when and how speech occurs). Mothers more than fathers, and fathers more than children, talked about language. Mothers', but not fathers, use of language-focused terms was positively correlated with children's use of language-focused terms. The findings suggest that in the course of routine social interactions, parents provide children with potentially important information about the communicative functions of language.

Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspe... more Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspect of narratives. As narrators, children use negatives for a variety of semantic and pragmatic functions. A taxonomy of eight distinct types of negation was developed and used to analyze three data sets: a corpus of personal narratives from working-class children (age 4 to 9 years); a corpus of narratives elicited via a wordless picture book from a longitudinal sample of working- and middle-class children (age 6 to 8 years); and another corpus of picture book narratives elicited from a cross-sectional sample of children age 3 to 9 years, and adults. In children\u27s personal narratives, negatives that referred to actions that did not occur were cited more frequently than any other type of negation. In all three data sets, younger children used negatives more frequently than did older children. Finally, negatives appeared far more frequently in personal narratives than in picture book eli...

Merrill-palmer Quarterly, 2000

Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspe... more Negatives, descriptions of what did not occur or what was not present, have been a neglected aspect of narratives. As narrators, children use negatives for a variety of semantic and pragmatic functions. A taxonomy of eight distinct types of negation was developed and used to analyze three data sets: a corpus of personal narratives from working-class children (age 4 to 9 years); a corpus of narratives elicited via a wordless picture book from a longitudinal sample of workingand middle-class chil dren (age 6 to 8 years); and another corpus of picture book narratives elicited from a cross-sectional sample of children age 3 to 9 years, and adults. In children's personal narratives, negatives that referred to actions that did not occur were cited more fre quently than any other type of negation. In all three data sets, younger children used negatives more frequently than did older children. Finally, negatives appeared far more frequently in personal narratives than in picture book el...

Studies in Narrative, 2007

As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about... more As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about young children's developing sense of self. In this study we analyzed children's use of first-person pronouns, particularly/, in order to examine the domains children explicitly index in their use of self-referential utterances. Conversational narratives were elicited from 96 predominately white working-class participants between the ages of 4 and 9 (8 boys and 8 girls at each age). All predicates associated with/(termed I-predicates) were classified into ...

Studies in Narrative, 2007

As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about... more As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about young children's developing sense of self. In this study we analyzed children's use of first-person pronouns, particularly/, in order to examine the domains children explicitly index in their use of self-referential utterances. Conversational narratives were elicited from 96 predominately white working-class participants between the ages of 4 and 9 (8 boys and 8 girls at each age). All predicates associated with/(termed I-predicates) were classified into ...

Merrill-Palmer quarterly (Wayne State University. Press)

Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and examined ch... more Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and examined children's personal narratives and narratives elicited by picture books. Found most frequent negation to be reference to actions that did not happen. Younger children used negation more than older children, and negation occurred more frequently in personal than in picture book elicited narratives. (DLH)

Studies in Narrative, 2007

As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about... more As vehicles for self-representation, personal narratives offer a rich source of information about young children's developing sense of self. In this study we analyzed children's use of first-person pronouns, particularly/, in order to examine the domains children explicitly index in their use of self-referential utterances. Conversational narratives were elicited from 96 predominately white working-class participants between the ages of 4 and 9 (8 boys and 8 girls at each age). All predicates associated with/(termed I-predicates) were classified into ...

Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 2000

Abstract: Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and ... more Abstract: Developed taxonomy of eight types of negation found in children's narratives, and examined children's personal narratives and narratives elicited by picture books. Found most frequent negation to be reference to actions that did not happen. Younger children used negation more than older children, and negation occurred more frequently in personal than in picture book elicited narratives.(DLH)

Social Development, 2001

The ordinary discourse of parents, and to a lesser degree young children, includes a surprising a... more The ordinary discourse of parents, and to a lesser degree young children, includes a surprising amount of attention to language. The dinner table conversations of 22 middle class families, each with a child between 2 and 5 1 / 2 years of age, were recorded. Transcripts of these conversations were analyzed for the presence and function of language-focused terms, words such as say, ask, tell, and speak. More than 11% of mothers', 7% of fathers', and 4% of children's utterances contained a languagefocused term. Metalinguistic uses (e.g., reporting and commenting on speech) exceeded pragmatic uses (e.g., controlling when and how speech occurs). Mothers more than fathers, and fathers more than children, talked about language. Mothers', but not fathers, use of language-focused terms was positively correlated with children's use of language-focused terms. The findings suggest that in the course of routine social interactions, parents provide children with potentially important information about the communicative functions of language.