What about Southern African story grammar? Promoting language specific macrostructures in educational settings
Domain:
educationnatural language processingRecord type:
The current research is motivated by the assumption that the “canonical” story grammar
(Stein & Glenn 1979) which is widely held to reflect universal story organisation (e.g. Man-
dler et al. 1980) may not be fully suited to assess the narrative potential of children with pri-
mary languages of non-European origin (e.g. Souto-Manning 2013). It thus juxtaposes the
supposedly universal “canonical” story grammar with the idea of an as yet under-researched
Southern African story grammar, which may represent common macro-structural features
in Southern African storytelling.
The analysis of Southern African folktales from Lesotho, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia
as well as narrative retellings produced by multilingual children in Malawi, whose dominant
languages are Chichewa and English (Tappe & Hara 2013; Hara 2014), and in South Africa,
whose dominant languages are isiZulu and English, provides evidence that Southern African
narratives systematically deviate from the allegedly universal “canonical” story grammar
(Anderson & Evans 1996; Stein & Glenn 1979). In both Southern African countries currently
under investigation the “canonical” story grammar (CSG) is, however, promoted through
the language of teaching and learning (English) and determines the assessment instruments
used to measure the children’s narrative skills.
Against this background the emancipation of Southern African ways of storytelling might
be a crucial step in the fight against literacy in Southern African countries.