Temporal transitions in narrative production with wordless picture books

Abstract

We present empirical results that demonstrate temporal intervals in story time affect narrative structure. Eight native English-speaking adults estimated the duration of intervals between events depicted in consecutive pictures in Mercer and Marianna Mayer’s wordless picture books, and a separate group of 37 adults wrote stories to accompany these picture books. Analyses revealed that adults used significantly more temporal connectives (when, while, etc.) after long intervals than short ones. We argue that writers use temporal anchors to help readers update the temporal dimension of discourse representation, and that situation models (Zwaan, 1999) are relevant to narrative production.

Journal

Title: LSA Annual Meeting Extended Abstracts

Abbreviated Title: ExAbs

Publisher: Linguistic Society of America

ISSN (Electronic): 2377-3367

Publication date Created: April 08 2012

Publication date (Electronic): April 08 2012

Volume: 3

Page: 34

Article

DOI: 10.3765/exabs.v0i0.606

Copyright statement: © 2012

Product

Self URI (article page): http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/ExtendedAbs/article/view/606

Self URI (pdf): http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/ExtendedAbs/article/viewFile/606/517