Descriptive study on narrative competence development in Chilean Sign Language

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the narrative competence development of a group of deaf children who use sign language as their natural language. Children in this study were in the elementary grades, 1st to 4th. This three-year case study obtained narratives from each child three times, at one-year intervals. These narratives were analyzed focusing on two main aspects: the formal organization of the narrative text, its superstructure, and content organization dealing with the use of linguistic resources that serve to textual cohesion. This study focused on the various forms employed by the children to establish reference and co-reference, when introducing, maintaining or re-introducing the focus of the characters involved in the story they were narrating. Even though the children used all the cohesive elements from the first telling, they modified the functions these elements serve. The study demonstrates how the children gradually develop a capacity to construct narratives, being aware of the information needed by the audience. This is especially important within bilingual education, where it is assumed the ability to develop literacy has an important role in the consolidation process related to the development of competence in the natural language of deaf people of our country, the Chilean Sign Language.