Abstract
The goal of this study is to examine the role of syntactic units of written production by analysing two chronometric measures during text production: pause length and writing rate. Children and adolescents (9–10-, 12–13- and 15–16-year-olds, 40 in each group) were asked to produce narrative and expository texts in both the written and spoken modality. The current analysis focuses exclusively on the written texts, but will examine the effect of the order of production: half of the children in each age group produced the written texts first and then the spoken texts, while the other half produced the spoken texts first and then the written texts. The written texts were collected using a digitizing tablet with the Eye&Pen software (Chesnet and Alamargot. Année Psychol 105(3):477–520, 2005). We consider that long pauses reflect planning of a unit and that fast writing speed reflects that planning is completed. Because our specific interest concerns syntactic units, the texts were coded for syntactic connectivity between propositions, including juxtaposition, coordination, finite and non-finite subordination, and center-embedding. Results show very strong developmental differences in planning practices as measured by the dynamics of production (pause length and writing speed), with the length of the fluently produced unit growing in size. The youngest subjects show evidence of planning at the clause level, while the older subjects show evidence of planning at the level of the propositional package. Results also show differences in the writing dynamics between the expository and narrative texts, revealing that, the expository texts are more challenging for some of our young writers. For some writers, in particular the 7th graders the written texts produced in the order spoken then written are produced more fluently than those produced in the order written then spoken.
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Notes
- 1.
The examples are identified in the following way: grade level (G5, G7, G9), subject number, sex (f = female, m = male), text type (n = narrative, e = expository), order (written1 = written first, written2 = written second).
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Acknowledgment
The authors wish to express their gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments and suggestions. They are also grateful to the LABEX ASLAN (ANR-10-LABX-0081) of Université de Lyon for its support within the French program “Investissements d’Avenir” (ANR-11-IDEX-0007) operated by the National Research Agency (ANR).
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Ailhaud, E., Chenu, F., Jisa, H. (2016). A Developmental Perspective on the Units of Written French. In: Perera, J., Aparici, M., Rosado, E., Salas, N. (eds) Written and Spoken Language Development across the Lifespan. Literacy Studies, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21136-7_17
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