A Comparative Study Of The Story Grammatical Features In English Majors' Chinese And English Oral Narrative Production

This thesis reports a comparative study of the story grammatical features in English majors'Chinese and English oral narrative production on the basis of the theoretical framework of the story grammar model proposed by Stein and Glenn.The ultimate goal is to uncover the convergence and divergence of the use of story grammar model by L2 learners across their Chinese and English oral narrative compositions.To be specific,the current study seeks to address three major questions:1)What are the story grammatical features in English majors'Chinese oral narrative production?2)What are the story grammatical features in English majors'English oral narrative production?3)What are the similarities and differences in the story grammatical features across English majors' Chinese and English oral narrative production?The materials employed in this study were 30 Chinese oral narrative compositions and 30 English ones,which were elicited with the same topic of "the most unforgettable thing in your life",on which Year 3 English majors were required to produce both Chinese and English narratives in a testing context.The oral data were transcribed and analyzed by the following steps of analysis:coding T-units;identifying story grammar elements through content analysis;categorizing the characteristics of story grammar elements in both Chinese and English oral narratives;and Independent Samples T-test.An inductively-oriented interview was also conducted following the learners' oral tasks.The study has yielded three major findings:1)Sample analysis reveals that the major elements found in the learners' Chinese oral narratives are basically consistent with the major elements in Stein and Glenn's story grammar model,in terms of structure,content and variants of story grammar elements within one episode,and episodic complexity as well.In the case of one single episode,story grammar elements were found to be arranged in the right sequence,including setting,initiating event,reaction,internal plan,and attempt,but with the different proportion of different elements:Attempt is far larger than the other elements,while internal plan accounts for the least proportion.In the case of the representation of story grammar elements,each element is realized by two or three types of statements.Natural occurrence is the least employed type while action-oriented statements are the most frequently used.Furthermore,most of the story grammar elements take on variation in different degree.Variation is further categorized into three types:repetition,omission and change of position.Setting and reaction are two elements which are most frequently omitted or changed.The learners tend to include two or more episodes in one narrative composition,connected by AND,THEN or CAUSE relation.Of 30 Chinese samples,less than 30%of the Chinese samples include two episodes,which are connected by AND relation.2)All the story grammar elements were also identified in the English samples,and were found to be organized in the right sequence.In comparison with the Chinese samples,the proportion of each element is more evenly distributed with no single category taking up a dominating role.The realization and variation of story grammar elements in one episode was found to be similar to that in their Chinese counterparts.In addition,more than 30%of of the English samples include two or three episodes,connected by AND or CAUSE relation.3)The comparison across both Chinese and English oral narratives reveals the convergence and divergence in the use of story grammar by L2 learners.In terms of structure,almost all the types and sequence of story grammar elements were identified in the learners' Chinese and English oral narratives,suggesting that the story grammar model is applicable to the Chinese oral narratives and that the participants are cognitively shaped in story grammar.The results of independent samples T-test show that,in one episode,there are significant differences in the proportion of initiating event and attempt categories,with the former increasing and the latter decreasing in English samples.Two thirds of the interviewees suggested that when producing Chinese oral narratives,they tended to concentrate on the core events;and when producing English oral narratives,they tended to follow the sequence of story grammar elements.Besides,some interviewees indicated that,before they actually started producing oral narratives in English,they were likely to plan carefully to initiate their stories.As for the content of story grammar elements,no significant differences were found between Chinese and English samples in the realization of story grammar elements,which again suggests that the learners have been cognitively shaped or that their oral narratives were influenced by L1 transfer.The variation of story grammar elements and episodic complexity were found to occur more frequently in English samples than in Chinese ones.A possible explanation for such a difference may go to more cognitive demand for L2 learners due to their insufficient language proficiency.The interviewees suggested that they used more variation or more episodes as strategies to overcome such insufficiency in their oral narrative compositions.The findings yielded in this study may have some pedagogical implications.On the one hand,L2 learners' practice of English speaking skills may start with oral attempt in narrative production since narration is one of the basic language skills in human life.On the other hand,language instructors' knowledge and use of story grammar may help develop L2 learners' oral narrative competence.