Abstract
In the present study I examined the planned organization of discourse in children's reporting situations. The observational setting was programmed along the curriculums in a nursery school, where each child reported to the other classmates and the teachers what he had done the previous day. Over 7 months, 123 cases from 3 to 6 year-oldchildren were observed and recorded.
It was assumed in the model that the planning in the report had three sub-steps...first, a child had to choose a topic as a theme of discourse; second, he had to choose some events under such topic, and third, he had to add some details. The model also assumed the existence of not only the events verbally described, but also the topics being psychological units for the child.
Purposes of the study were (1) to analyze the discourse structure and to make its developmental changes clear,(2) to show the existence of editing process in the level of discourse, and (3) to consider the role of the teacher's help.
Main findings were as follows. First, through the event-based analysis (TABLE 4) the developmental changes in the discourse structure could not be made clear (TABLE 5-A, B). The hierarchical organization, which included both events and topics, produced clear developmental trends (TABLE 6, 7, FIG. 3).
Second, the “link-unit” in hesitation phenomenon reflected the editing, not on the level of words or syntax, but on the level of discourse (TABLE 8, FIG. 4). From both the analysis of the discourse structure and the editing process, it was suggested that the development of the planned organization was a necessary part in the development of spoken language.
Third, the help of a teacher took an important role in the transition from the simple structure to the structure directed by the “space” relation (TABLE 9). When the child reported without teacher's help, the hesitation phenomena occurred more frequently (TABLE 10-A, B). In this situation children might internalize the teacher's help and learn how to plan the discourse. This suggested the working of the zone of proximal development by L. S. Vygotsuky.
