27.1331, Qs: Looking for a suitable Picture Description Task

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LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1331. Wed Mar 16 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 27.1331, Qs: Looking for a suitable Picture Description Task

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Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2016 12:24:55
From: Cristóbal Lozano [cristoballozano at ugr.es]
Subject: Looking for a suitable Picture Description Task

 
Dear Linguists,

We are currently investigating anaphora and reference in L2 English
acquisition. In particular, we are interested in which forms (NP subjects,
overt/null pronominal subjects) are used to maintain the topic (topic
continuity) and to change the topic (topic shift) in 3rd person contexts.

We have previously used a story-retelling picture description task, PDT
('Frog, where are you') (Mayer 1969) to elicit data. This task has been
extensively used in L1 acquisition research, as well as in L2 acquisition
research to study certain grammatical aspects (e.g., García-Mayo &
García-Lecumberri 2003). The frog story has been also used to investigate
anaphora and reference in L2 acquisition (Kang 2004), but one of the problems
of this task in the investigation of topic continuity and topic shift is that
the story contains only one human character (the boy) but the rest of
characters are animals (dog, frog, deer, etc).

We therefore feel that an ideal story-retelling PDT to study anaphora
resolution (topic continuity and topic shift) should contain only human
characters and, in particular, some pictures that could elicit
topic-continuity scenarios and also topic-shift scenarios. Ideally, human
characters with gender differences (male/female) would be a plus.

We would be grateful if you could provide any pointers towards a PDT
containing these features.

Thank you.

Cristóbal Lozano

-García Mayo, M. P. (2003). Age, lenth of exposure and grammaticality
judgements in the acquisition of English as a Foreign Language. In M. P.
García Mayo & M. L. G. García Lecumberri (Eds.), Age and the Acquisition of
English as a Foreign Language (pp. 94–114). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

-Kang, J. Y. (2004). Telling a coherent story in a foreign language: analysis
of Korean EFL learners’ referential strategies in oral narrative discourse.
Journal of Pragmatics, 36(11), 1975–1990.
-Mayer, M. (1969). Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Books for Young
Readers.
 

Linguistic Field(s): Language Acquisition



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