Anaphoric reference in written narratives of good and poor elementary school writers

Abstract

The extent to which certain co-referential and structural constraints are reflected in the anaphoric noun phrases of written narratives produced by more and less skilled upper-elementary writers is investigated. To control for co-referential context, subjects wrote about events pictured in two cartoons, constructed so as to afford different opportunities for unambiguous pronoun use. Analyses assess effects of the two co-referential contexts as well as effects of changes in thematic focus on noun phrases. Results indicate that (as predicted) poor writers are relatively insensitive to the constraints of the more difficult coreferential context, but that (unexpectedly) poor writers are as sensitive as good writers to the effects of changes in thematic focus. Possible reasons for these differences are considered.