Joanne M. Golden

A sociolinguistic perspective on retelling procedures in research on children's cognitive processing of written text*

This article raises critical issues concerning the oral retelling research with preschool and elementary-age children for the past decade (1977–1986) from a sociolinguistic perspective. Using Halliday and Hasans framework of “context of situation”, this retelling research was examined in terms of field, tenor, and mode in order to address the following issues: (1) the speaker-listener characteristics existing during childrens retellings, (2) the nature of instructions given to the subjects, (3) the type of texts used in the studies, and, (4) the analysis schemes applied to the texts. The article indicates several problematic areas in the studies and suggests directions for future research utilizing retelling procedures in cognitive studies of text.

Reader-Text Interaction.

patterns. Patterns of characterization, plot, narrator, and reader in the text, for example, are constructed and integrated into the gestalt of the text (Iser, 1978). The readers input is also critical. Through a series of cognitive operations, such as formulating and modifying expectations, combining information, and filling in the gaps of text, the reader draws not only on the text but also on personal knowledge of the world and other works of literature. The

Coherence in Children's Written Narratives.

This study uses de Beaugrandes (1980) concept analysis system to analyze a group of childrens written narratives. In addition to ascertaining the potential of this system as a means of assessing coherence, the purpose of this study was to describe how 20 third graders employed narrative concepts at the local and global levels. An analysis of a maximum of nine writing samples from each child produced in response to a weekly request to write a story revealed that (1) most children were able to establish coherence consistently at a local level, (2) children varied in their establishment of coherence across samples, (3) writing reflected degrees of coherence on a continuum from less to more coherent samples, and (4) a minority of children wrote narratives that were consistently coherent at the global level. The study also supported the value of the concept analysis system as one means of assessing coherence in written narratives.

The Literary Text Event

During the past decade, a number of studies have investigated the topic of written text from a variety of perspectives. This research provides insights into the ways texts are structured, the roles of the reader and the author in creating texts, and the influence of contextual factors on the interpretation of text. Generally, the studies tend to focus on one or two dimensions related to text such as text factors, reader factors, or contextual factors, rather than on a range of factors. There is a need, therefore, to examine text within a broader framework in order to address the multiple factors and their interrelationships, all of which shape the construction of the text. The purpose of this article is to present a framework for viewing text. The framework for the present exploration is based on several assumptions regarding text. The first assumption is that texts are constructed out of the contributions from both the text and the reader and that meaning lies at the intersection between text and reader (Iser, 1978). Multiple meanings are generated from some texts as a result of certain text factors (i.e., gaps in the text) and certain reader factors (i.e., background knowledge). A second assumption is that written texts are constructed in a variety of contexts and contextual factors can influence how the reader processes the text. Interpretation of a text by a reader for recreational purposes in a private context, for example, differs from interpretation of the same text for instructional purposes in a classroom setting.

Text and the mediation of text

The purpose of this study was to explore the nature and process of text construction in a reading lesson. More specifically, the focus was to analyze the structure and content of a basal text narrative, the nature of teacher-student interaction with the text during reading, and the discussion of the text following reading. Twenty sixth-grade students and their teacher participated in a 2-day lesson which focused on the story. The story itself was analyzed in terms of the global text structures which revealed an introduction and four episodes and the narrators voice which suggested a distancing between the narrator and the reader in the text. A second level of analysis on the teachers mediation of the text during and following the reading of the story reflected (a) teacher monitoring of student word identification, (b) teacher links to life experiences, (c) teacher and student interpretations of text, and (d) intertextual references. The questions suggested by the basal authors were also analyzed to determined the text features that were signalled. The study raises several issues regarding the text construction process in instructional settings.