TY - CHAP

T1 - Non-verbal Behavior and Its Role in Narrative Production

AU - Eismont, Polina

N1 - Eismont P. (2021) Non-verbal Behavior and Its Role in Narrative Production. In: Chernigovskaya T., Eismont P., Petrova T. (eds) Language, Music and Gesture: Informational Crossroads. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3742-1_8

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Mastering the skills of the interpretation of non-verbal behavior takes up all childhood. The factors that influence the explicit representation of characters’ non-verbal behavior in narratives were determined based on the analysis of unprepared oral stories by 125 Russian-native monolingual children aged from 4 years 7 months to 7 years 6 months and a control group of 19 Russian-native adults. These factors are the meaning of non-verbal acts, their importance for the plot progress and their dependence on the presence or absence of speech context. When representing a non-verbal act within the framework of an unprepared retelling, Russian speakers use any of the following strategies: describing the non-verbal act, interpreting it, identifying a situation that it can correspond to, or reproducing a possible speech context. Failure to perceive a non-verbal act results in either omitting or misinterpreting it. With the development of communication skills, the number of such failures clearly decreases. Russian-speaking preschool children recognize non-verbal behavior presented without a speech context, but tend to better interpret the episodes that are significant for the plot progress and, thus, perform a connecting function. In contrast to the narrative significant non-verbal acts, communicative non-verbal acts require a speech context and were less frequently present in the analyzed narratives, especially in the ones produced by younger children.

AB - Mastering the skills of the interpretation of non-verbal behavior takes up all childhood. The factors that influence the explicit representation of characters’ non-verbal behavior in narratives were determined based on the analysis of unprepared oral stories by 125 Russian-native monolingual children aged from 4 years 7 months to 7 years 6 months and a control group of 19 Russian-native adults. These factors are the meaning of non-verbal acts, their importance for the plot progress and their dependence on the presence or absence of speech context. When representing a non-verbal act within the framework of an unprepared retelling, Russian speakers use any of the following strategies: describing the non-verbal act, interpreting it, identifying a situation that it can correspond to, or reproducing a possible speech context. Failure to perceive a non-verbal act results in either omitting or misinterpreting it. With the development of communication skills, the number of such failures clearly decreases. Russian-speaking preschool children recognize non-verbal behavior presented without a speech context, but tend to better interpret the episodes that are significant for the plot progress and, thus, perform a connecting function. In contrast to the narrative significant non-verbal acts, communicative non-verbal acts require a speech context and were less frequently present in the analyzed narratives, especially in the ones produced by younger children.

KW - Non-verbal behavior

KW - Bodily expressions

KW - Language acquisition

KW - Narrative

UR - https://proxy.library.spbu.ru:2096/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-3742-1_8

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-981-16-3741-4

SP - 91

EP - 109

BT - Language, Music and Gesture: Informational Crossroads

PB - Springer Nature

T2 - Language-Music-Gesture: Informational Crossroads

Y2 - 19 April 2021 through 21 April 2021

ER -