When telling a story, a speaker needs to refer to story characters using appropriate expressions, which requires a mental model of the discourse. We hypothesize that, compared to those of adults, children's discourse models are based more on factors that are less cognitively demanding, such as animacy, and as they grow older, discourse factors…

This study investigated the effects of auditory and audiovisual text presentation on the three levels of mental representations assumed in theories of discourse processing. A sample of 106 children aged 7, 9, and 11 years listened to 16 short narrative texts, 8 of which were accompanied by a series of pictures illustrating the content.…

Narrative discourse is an essential component of day-to-day communication, but little is known about narrative in Lewy body spectrum disorder (LBSD), including Parkinson's disease (PD), Parkinson's disease with dementia (PDD), and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). We performed a detailed analysis of a semi-structured speech sample in 32 non-aphasic…

This study examines the indexicality of discourse markers (DMs) in Chinese conversational narrative. Drawing upon theoretical and methodological principles related to narrative dimensions (Ochs & Capps, 2001), narrative desires (Ochs, 1997, 2004), and narrative positioning (Bamberg, 1997), this work proposes an integrated analytical framework for…

Replies to Rowland's article (same issue) on Fisher's views of the narrative paradigm. Clarifies the narrative paradigm by discussing three senses in which "narration" can be understood, and by indicating what the narrative paradigm is not. (SR)

Tests how well two models of text comprehension (one referential and one causal) predicted the importance ratings and the recall of procedural texts. Finds better predictive power of the causal model for importance ratings; neither model performed well with recall; and neither model was as predictive of procedural text as they were in previous…

Responds to two papers, written by Bruce E. Gronbeck and Allan Megill, which appeared in the 1987 Alta proceedings on argumentation. Questions the heavy distinction between narrative and argument which informs their positions. (MS)

Tests Walter R. Fisher's claim that all forms of discourse can be viewed as types of narrative by applying the narrative paradigm to three works that cannot traditionally be considered stories. Finds that the narrative approach is of little use when applied to discourse that does not tell a story. (SR)

Presents various theories that define the structure of the narrative as a combination of sequences, and as tending to impose order on the universe. (AM)

Investigates how adult readers represent causal relations among events in a narrative, specifically by testing two models of text comprehension, the linear chain of text model versus the network model. Provides support for a network model of the representation of causal relations in narratives. (HB)

A study was conducted to define the linguistic and discourse parameters of text difficulty from the point of view of both the reader and the text in order to redefine readability and to provide an operational way of explaining processing difficulties of the near-mature reader. Subjects were 14-year-old students in the United States and the United…

Analyzes Walter Fisher's work on the "narrative paradigm." Considers Fisher's definition of narrative too broad and advocates a more limited definition. Rejects Fisher's view that there is an independent standard of narrative rationality distinguishable from the "rational world paradigm," and his idea that the role of the…

Uses a rhetorical analysis of a storytelling process presently ongoing about artificial intelligence to reveal the communication patterns which are used to maintain and shift ideologies. Suggests an extension of Fisher's narrative paradigm of the processes of continuity and change underlying storytelling, via Brown's conception of ideology as…

Examines differences in oral narrative discourse of adult second-language learners of English on narrative tasks simulating the ability to describe events in the Here-and-Now versus the There-and-Then. Results indicate that complex tasks elicit less fluent, but more accurate and complex narration than do simpler tasks. (90 references) (Author/CK)