Context and Literacy as Resources in the Acquisition of Narratives

Abstract

The paper presents analyses of two genres of narrative interaction between a primary school girl and adult listeners to reconstruct resources of narrative acquisition. While in stories of personal experience the interactive support of the listener plays an important role in the process of learning how to tell a story the use of literary models shows to be a very fruitful resource in fantasy stories. The different use and accessibility of these two kinds of resources lead to insights into the genre-specific development of narrative abilities.