Does emotional narrative context influence the retention of newly learned words?
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
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Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills. ed. / Edy Veneziano; Ageliki Nicolopoulou. John Benjamins, 2019. p. 111-127 (Studies in Narrative).
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter › peer-review
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TY - CHAP
T1 - Does emotional narrative context influence the retention of newly learned words?
AU - Rohlfing, Katharina
AU - Nachtigäller, Kerstin
AU - Berner, Anna
AU - Foltz, Anouschka
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - In this pilot study, we hypothesized that emotional information in stories allows children to get involved in the verbal interaction. This involvement, in turn, might result in improvement of children’s memory capabilities in learning new words. To test the hypothesis, 20 German-speaking children listened to stories containing the spatial prepositions behind and next to. These words werepresented within ‘emotional stories’ to the experimental group (N = 10) and within ‘neutral stories’ to the control group (N = 10). Stories only differed in relevant emotional variations: We used different kinds of emotional language such as adjectives (happy, excited), affective markers in the form of direct speech (look here!, shouting loud: “I’m coming”), connotations (spring, friend,favorite dish), and emotional physical descriptions (the wind is whistling) to enhance the emotional content in the stories. Our results did not support our hypothesis as both groups showed a similar amount of learning: Children trained with the ‘emotional stories’ retained the learned target prepositions as well as children trained with the ‘neutral’ stories. Results from a delayed test also revealed that all children improved their retention of the newly learned words over time. This study presents a first approach to investigate the role of emotion in young children’s word learning in the context of picture book reading. The results are discussed critically with respect to the methods andmaterials.
AB - In this pilot study, we hypothesized that emotional information in stories allows children to get involved in the verbal interaction. This involvement, in turn, might result in improvement of children’s memory capabilities in learning new words. To test the hypothesis, 20 German-speaking children listened to stories containing the spatial prepositions behind and next to. These words werepresented within ‘emotional stories’ to the experimental group (N = 10) and within ‘neutral stories’ to the control group (N = 10). Stories only differed in relevant emotional variations: We used different kinds of emotional language such as adjectives (happy, excited), affective markers in the form of direct speech (look here!, shouting loud: “I’m coming”), connotations (spring, friend,favorite dish), and emotional physical descriptions (the wind is whistling) to enhance the emotional content in the stories. Our results did not support our hypothesis as both groups showed a similar amount of learning: Children trained with the ‘emotional stories’ retained the learned target prepositions as well as children trained with the ‘neutral’ stories. Results from a delayed test also revealed that all children improved their retention of the newly learned words over time. This study presents a first approach to investigate the role of emotion in young children’s word learning in the context of picture book reading. The results are discussed critically with respect to the methods andmaterials.
U2 - 10.1075/sin.25.05roh
DO - 10.1075/sin.25.05roh
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9789027202215
T3 - Studies in Narrative
SP - 111
EP - 127
BT - Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills
A2 - Veneziano, Edy
A2 - Nicolopoulou, Ageliki
PB - John Benjamins
ER -