Chinese Language Narration

Culture, cognition, and emotion

Editors

Allyssa McCabe | University of Massachusetts Lowell

Chien-ju Chang | National Taiwan Normal University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027226594 | EUR 90.00 | USD 135.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027271099 | EUR 90.00 | USD 135.00

Chinese Language Narration: Culture, cognition, and emotion is a collection of papers presenting original research on narration in Mandarin, especially as it contrasts to what is known regarding narration in English. One chapter addresses dinner table conversation between Chinese immigrant parents and children in the United States compared to non-immigrant peers. Other chapters consider evaluation patterns in Mandarin versus English, referencing strategies, coherence patterns, socioeconomic differences among Taiwanese Mandarin-speaking children, and differences in narration due to Specific Language Impairment and schizophrenia. Several chapters address developmental concerns. Distinctive aspects of narration in Mandarin are linked to larger issues of autobiographical memory. Mandarin is spoken by far more people than any other language, yet narration in this language has received notably less attention than narration in Western languages. This collective effort is a critical addition to our understanding of cross-cultural similarities and differences in how people make sense of experiences through narrative.

[Studies in Narrative, 19] 2013. viii, 213 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.19

Table of Contents

List of contributors | pp. vii–viii

Introduction

Allyssa McCabe and Chien-ju Chang | pp. 1–6

Narrative self-making during dinnertime conversations in Chinese immigrant families

Jessie Bee Kim Koh and Qi Wang | pp. 7–32

Evaluation in Mandarin Chinese children’s personal narratives

Chien-ju Chang and Allyssa McCabe | pp. 33–56

Chinese and English referential skill in Taiwanese children’s spoken narratives

Ming-hui Sung and Chien-ju Chang | pp. 57–84

Global and local connections in Mandarin-speaking children’s narratives: A developmental study based on the frog story

Wen-hui Sah | pp. 85–114

Socioeconomic differences in Taiwanese children’s personal narratives: Conjunctions, internal state terms, and narrative structures

Wen-Feng Lai | pp. 115–142

A study of narrative development of young Chinese children with specific language impairment aged four to six years

Fangfang Zhang | pp. 143–180

Narratives of Mandarin-speaking patients with schizophrenia

Ning Hsu, Hintat Cheung, Enan Wang and Tai-Li Chou | pp. 181–206

“Narrative, an organized account of a sequence of events, merges aspects of language, culture, cognition, and emotion. Professor McCabe and Professor Chang draw on research by themselves and others to share with us insightful aspects of narration, including cross-cultural comparison, Taiwanese Mandarin-speaking children’s narrative development in L1 and L2, and individual variations in narrative ability among Mandarin Chinese speakers due to socioeconomic class, specific language impairment, and schizophrenia. This excellent book offers a complex yet comprehensive view of Mandarin Chinese-speaking narration, which helps unravel an intricate facet that adds to our current understanding of cross-cultural variations in narration.”

Shu-hui Eileen Chen, National Taipei University of Education

“This is the first comprehensive collection of studies on the narrative development of Mandarin-speaking population. The research topic not only touches on the narrative’s macro level and micro level, but also on the influence of culture and socioeconomic status on narrative. The research methods include cross-sectional studies, longitudinal studies, and comparative studies. And there are studies both on population with typical development and on population with atypical development. Mandarin is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world, yet narration in this language has received less attention than narration in Western languages. To have a general and comprehensive idea of Chinese language narration, this book is the best choice! It can be used as a textbook for graduate students and a reference book for researchers in related fields!”

Professor Bin Xin, School of Foreign Languages and Culture, Nanjing Normal University, Jiangsu, China

“Allyssa McCabe and Chien-ju Chang have provided us with a rare insight into the language, thought and feelings of 730 million speakers of Mandarin Chinese, the largest language group in the world. Narratives are a way of recounting what has happened and making sense of it. Though there are many universals in narration, the cross cultural and subcultural differences described in these studies are intriguing. For instance, the narratives of English-speaking American children have many more references to their own reaction to the events than those of Mandarin-speaking Chinese children. This book is a valuable resource for all those interested in narrative, and in the cognitive and cultural arena in which narrative skills develop.”

Jean Berko Gleason, Boston University

“Based on narrative data, the studies in the book provide natural context in which the linguistic components of narratives and the (non-) sequentiality of events are readily used as measures to evaluate language capabilities for various research purposes.”

Kawai Chui, National Chengchi University

“This book encompasses a wide range of significant issues regarding Chinese language narration, including cross-cultural variations, Mandarin-speaking children’s narrative development in L1 and L2, and individual variations in narrative abilities among Mandarin Chinese speakers from different socioeconomic classes, and with specific language impairments, or schizophrenia. This valuable book can be highly recommended to any parent who wants information about children’s narrative abilities, and to any researcher who is interested in intricate linguistic, cognitive, cultural, and emotional facets of Chinese language narration across age and social groups, together with individual differences,
as well as cross-cultural variations.”

Shu-Hui Eileen Chen, National Taipei University of Education, in Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 40(2): 95-105

Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Huang, Nick, Aaron Steven White, Chia-Hsuan Liao, Valentine Hacquard & Jeffrey Lidz

2022. Syntactic bootstrapping attitude verbs despite impoverished morphosyntax. Language Acquisition 29:1 ► pp. 27 ff.

Li, Rong

2023. Learning-skill stories completion: A study on the development of 3–6-year-old children's narratives. Journal of Chinese Writing Systems 7:3 ► pp. 188 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 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.

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