认知与发展心理学研究室知识库

叙事(也称讲故事)作为儿童的一种语言活动，在他们的日常生活中占有很大比例。在叙事的经典研究中，对叙事内容的分析基本为两个部分，即对叙事本身的分析和对叙事评价(evaluation device)的分析。叙事评价是事件叙事的延伸。它与“故事线”不同，是叙事者对事件的态度或是事件对于叙事者的意义(Labov & Waletzky, 1967。叙事评价会表达出人物的心理状态、叙事者对人物思想状态的猜测(或是预测)、以及事件所包含的因果关系、人物间的互动等。叙事评价反映出儿童在某一年龄段的价值观、对文化的认识和对周围社会与自我的认知，也反映出个体社会化发展的水平。

以往研究针对叙事评价的类型、年龄发展特点、研究叙事评价的方法以及影响儿童叙事评价的因素等方面进行了深入的研究。但这些研究多集中在以英语为母语的儿童当中，关于汉语儿童的研究还非常缺乏。

本研究旨在研究处在叙事能力发展重要时期的4-6岁儿童口语叙事中叙事评价的特征。研究从中等教育水平的城市幼儿园中随机选取60名讲普通话的儿童，按年龄分为两组，每组男女各半。被试根据无字图画书《青蛙，你在哪里?》自发讲述故事。研究者对被试的讲述进行录音，并对每一段录音进行忠实转写。根据叙事评价编码手册，研究者对叙事评价类型进行编码并进行统计分析。

研究结果发现，4-6岁儿童叙事评价在总数量上随年龄增长而增多，未表现出显著的年龄差异。但单纯性评价(指讲述者对故事内容做出的评价，即讲述者对故事中事件、人物等的态度和看法等，不涉及故事内容本身)占评价总数的百分比表现出显著的年龄差异，5-6岁儿童使用单纯性评价的数量多于4-5岁儿童。这说明随年龄增长，儿童越来越多的在叙事过程中表达出自己对故事或事件的态度和看法。4-6岁儿童叙事评价的总数量虽然没有表现出明显的性别差异，但是女孩比男孩使用的评价手段种类更多。从叙事评价的三个种类的数量来看，嵌套式评价(指对故事中的人物、动物的内心情感、认知状态、意图和愿望的表达)、和单纯性评价均表现出显著的性别差异，女孩使用的数量多于男孩。这说明女孩更容易探测到故事中人物/动物的内心活动。生动性评价也表现出显著的性别差异，男孩使用的比例多于女孩。从嵌套式评价的内部来看，“意愿意图”和“情绪情感”这一小类的总数量上表现出显著的性别差异，女孩使用的数量多于男孩。这说明与其他类型相比，女孩对故事中人物/动物的意图/愿望及情绪情感更加关注。但是，这些性别差异随着儿童年龄的增长而逐渐消失。

本研究是一项以汉语普通话儿童为对象的研究，研究结果弥补了以往对汉语普通话儿童叙事研究的不足，而且还为汉语普通话儿童叙事能力的发展理论提供了重要的实证数据。

Narrative (Story-telling) is a major and important language activity in children's daily life. Most of the studies on narrative development focused on two aspects of narratives. One is the development of narrative structures and the other is evaluation device using in narratives. Narrative evaluation is an extension of narratives. It includes expressing story teller's attitudes and judgments, as opposed to the `story line' (Labov & Waletzky, 1967). Narrative evaluations reflect mental states of characters, speculation (or prediction) of the narrators regarding to characters, causal relation of events and characters' inter0actions. Also, narrative evaluations reflect children's inner states, social value, culture understanding, self- recognition and their socialization.

Previous research has examined methods of studying narrative evaluation, types of evaluation, evaluation using development, and factors affect evaluation using. However, most of these studies were conducted in western language-speaking children. Few studies were conducted in Mandarin speaking children.

The present study aimed to explore the characteristics of narrative evaluation in 4-6 years (the critical development period of children's narrative) old children's narratives. 60 Mandarin-speaking children participated in the study. They were asked to tell a story according to the wordless picture book Frog, where a}0e you. Each child's narrative was video}recorded and transcribed. According to the coding manual of evaluation in narratives, the types and the number of each evaluation were coded and analyzed statistically.

The results showed that the total amount of evaluation in 4-6 year olds increased with age although the significant effect of age was not found. However, the ratio of pure evaluations (the opinions and attitudes of narrator to events or characters in the story, not including story plot per se) showed significant age effects, which 5 years old children used more pure evaluations than that of 4 year olds. This result suggested that children intend to express more comments on the story or events in the story with age increased. The total amount of narrative evaluation did not show significant gender effect. However, the total an count of embedded evaluation (the expressions on characters' or animals' inner mental state, cognition, intentions and wishes) and pure evaluation showed significant gender effects, which girls used more than boys. 'his result suggested that it is easier for girls to detect inner states of characters /animals. The ratio of elaborated evaluations also showed significant gender difference. As the sub-type of embedded evaluation, the expressions of intention/wishes and emotions showed significant gender differences, which girls used more than boys. This indicated that girls can pay more attention on intention/wishes and emotions of characters /animals in the story. Howcver, such the gender differences disappear with age increasing.

The current study is a study on evaluation device using in mandarin speaking children's narratives. The findings provide important empirical evidence for narrative evaluation development.