Development in Childrens Written Grammar from Key Stages

Development in Children’s Written Grammar from Key Stages 1 -4 Phil Durrant

Thanks to… • Mark Brenchley (Cambridge Assessment) • Rebecca Clarkson (University of Exeter)

The Growth in Grammar Project • Aimed to understand written language development through the course of statutory education in England. • Established a corpus of approximately 3, 000 texts, written by 1, 000 children in Key Stages 1 -4 at 24 schools across the country.

Today’s focus • How do children use adverbial clauses? • How does this use vary as they progress through school?

Sampled corpus Literary Non-literary Texts Words/text Year 2 30 56 30 84 Year 6 30 214 30 316 Year 9 30 280 30 350 Year 11 30 328 30 343

Coding Mean inter-coder agreement: status =. 96; pos =. 94; dep =. 89; dep_on =. 92

Prominence of subordinate clause types Mean frequency/100 words Adverbial Object Relative Noun complement Adjective complement Comparative Subject 0 0, 5 1 Finite 1, 5 Non-finite 2 2, 5 3

Previous findings on adverbials All Adverbial Clauses Source Ages Genre Measure Finding Harpin (1976) Year 3 vs 6 creative & factive Adv/subordinate clause increase (descriptive) Noyce & Christie Grade 3 vs 5 (1985) mixed Adv/t-unit increase (descriptive) Nippold et al (2005) Grades 5/6 vs 11/12 vs adult persuasive Adv/utterance no significant differences Sampson (2003) 9 -12 years vs adult mixed % adv tagmas decrease (significant)

Previous findings on adverbials Finite Adverbial Clauses Source Ages Genres Measure Finding O’Donnell et al (1967) Grade 3 vs 5 vs 7 narrative F. Adv/100 t-units 3<5=7 (significant) Thompson et al (1967) Grade 3 vs 6 narrative F. Adv/100 t-units increase (descriptive) Blount et al (1969) Grade 8 vs 12 mixed F. Adv/1000 word sample decrease (descriptive) Hunt (1965) Grade 4 vs 8 vs 12 mixed F. Adv/1000 word sample no significant differences Golub & Frederick (1970) Grade 4 vs 6 mixed A. Adv/text no significant differences

Previous findings on adverbials Adverbials clauses and genre Source Ages Genres Measure Finding Berninger et al (2011) Grades 2 -7 narrative & nonnarrative # adv clauses narrative > nonnarrative (significant)

Length: words per adverbial clause All adverbial clauses Finite adverbial clauses MEM: Random intercept for writer Year group: t(190)=6. 1, p<. 0001; Genre: t(190)=4. 1, p<. 0001 R 2 marginal =. 23; R 2 conditional =. 23 Non-Finite adverbial clauses MEM: Random intercept for writer & discipline Year group: t(13)9=4. 2, p<. . 0001; R 2 marginal =. 08; R 2 conditional =. 74

Frequency: adverbials/100 words All adverbial clauses Finite adverbial clauses MEM: Random intercept for title Year group: t(73)=4. 0, p<. 0005 R 2 marginal =. 11; R 2 conditional =. 37 Non-Finite adverbial clauses MEM: Random intercept for title Year group: t(45)=6. 6, p<. 0001; Genre: t(46)=3. 1, p<. 005 R 2 marginal =. 25; R 2 conditional =. 37

Interim conclusions Age effects • Finite and non-finite clauses are more frequent and longer with age • Finite frequency: jumps from Year 2 to Year 6, then levels off • Non-finite frequency: linear increase Genre effects • Non-finite clauses are more frequent in literary than non-literary texts • Finite clauses are longer in non-literary than literary texts

Uses of adverbial clauses in children’s writing Scope-defining Explanatory/evidential Comparison condition conclusion contrast co-occurrence location text deixis expansion interpretation method reason Interpersonal hedge likeness equivalence correlation interaction

Frequencies per 100 words 1, 8 1, 6 1, 4 1, 2 1 0, 8 0, 6 0, 4 0, 2 0 co-occurrence reason conclusion expansion likeness condition contrast literary text interpretation non-literary method interaction equivalence correlation hedge location

Literary Frequencies per 100 words 2, 5 2 1, 5 1 0, 5 0 co-occurrence reason conclusion expansion likeness condition contrast year 2 equivalence year 6 year 9 interaction year 11 hedge interpretation location method correlation text

Non-Literary Frequencies per 100 words 1, 6 1, 4 1, 2 1 0, 8 0, 6 0, 4 0, 2 0 reason co-occurrence conclusion condition contrast text expansion interpretation method year 2 year 11 year 6 year 9 correlation likeness interaction equivalence hedge location

Reasons in non-literary writing (Year 11) • In conclusion, Priestley describes the upper class capitalists as arrogant people unwilling to change or help others to try and persuade the audience that capitalism is bad. • This doesn’t support the hypothesis because we need to find out how long it takes hot water to cool. • The “rings of grain” brings a hint of the idea of death as the rings can only be seen when the tree is cut down.

Conclusions: Overall adverbial clause • Adverbials are the most frequent type of subordinate clause in school writing. • Their use can be summarized by a 15 -category taxonomy, under the broad headings of scope defining, explanatory/evidential, comparison, and interpersonal.

Conclusions: Genre-distinctions • In literary texts: • non-finite clauses are more frequent than in non-literary • the most frequent use of adverbials is to show co-occurrence. • In non-literary texts: • In non-literary texts, finite clauses are longer than in literary texts • the most frequent use of adverbials is to give reasons.

Conclusions: Development • As children progress through school: • they use longer adverbials • they use more adverbials (quickly levelling-off for finite clauses) • Year 2 children use finite adverbials for a narrow range of highfrequency functions and use is less ‘genre-appropriate’. • Genre-specific balance of functions shifts throughout school years, in a non-linear way. • Year 11 writing is particularly strongly marked by an increase in reason clauses in non-literary writing.

References • Berninger, V. W. , Nagy, W. E. , & Beers, S. (2011). Child writers' construction and reconstruction of single sentences and construction of multi-sentence texts: contributions of syntax and transcription to translation. Reading and Writing, 24, 151 -182. • Golub, L. S. , & Frederick, W. , C. (1979). Linguistic Structures in the discourse of fourth and sixth graders. Madison, Wisconsin: Center for Cognitive Learning, The University of Wisconsin. • Harpin, W. S. (1976). The Second 'R': Writing development in the junior school. London: Taylor and Francis. • Nippold, M. A. , Ward-Lonergan, J. M. , & Fanning, J. L. (2005). Persuasive writing in children, adolescents, and adults: A study of syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic development. Language, speech and hearing services in schools, 36(2), 125138. • Noyce, R. , & Christie, J. (1985). Characteristics of subordinate clauses in children's free writing. Journal of research and development in education, 18(68 -71). • O'Donnell, R. C. , Griffin, W. J. , & Norris, R. C. (1967). A transformational analysis of oral and written grammatical structures in the language of children in grades three, five, and seven. The Journal of Educational Research, 61(1), 35 -39. • Sampson, G. (2003). The structure of children's writing: moving from spoken to adult written norms. Language and computers, 48(1), 177 -193. • Thompson, N. C. , Nemanich, D. D. , & Bala, A. S. (1967). The Nebraska study of the syntax of children's writing, 1966 -67. Volume III. Nebraska: The University of Nebraska.

Further information and access to corpus Please contact: p. l. durrant@exeter. ac. uk