CAUSAL THINKING IN DISCOURSE COMPREHENSION

语篇理解技能的发展取决于语篇理解能力的发展 儿童构建文本的内部表征的能力， 反映其结构属性。曾经，在记忆中代表着，孩子 必须能够使用这些属性访问和执行进一步的心理 对文本信息进行操作。建议的研究包括 事件、状态和事件意义层面的叙事语篇分析 用概念化来定义意义的行为， 这些单位和关系的语言描述是基础的 将概念化彼此联系在一起。在目前的情况下，这些 关系具有因果性、时间性和逻辑性。孩子的 叙事性话语的表征是用递归的方式来描述的 事件转换模型(事件及其因果关系的网络)。 该模型根据故事语法生成故事描述 事件的功能、事件的意义关系、事件 在目标-行动-结果事件方面的组织，以及更高， 剧集的层次化组织。此模型允许显式 检查儿童如何解释文本信息和 儿童对文本的描述的属性。文本中的变异 结构决定了这些属性，并对 理解的性质和质量。有人建议进行研究，将两个 关键的结构变化(连续情节与层级情节)和 它们对孩子们的重要性判断，他们的记忆， 对事件的总结和解释，它们的逻辑推理 叙事语境中的事件及其理解能力的发展 解释性--因果提问和反馈，以及它们产生的 故事。拟议的研究增加了对内容的重要控制，同时 不同的文本结构。

The development of skill in discourse comprehension depends upon the child's ability to construct an internal representation of the text that reflects its structural properties. Once, represented in memory, the child must be able to use these properties to access and perform further mental operations on the text information. The proposed research involves discourse analysis of narratives at the meaning level of events, states and actions where meaning is defined in terms of the conceptualizations that underlie the linguistic description of these units and the relationships that tie the conceptualizations to one another. In the present case, these relations are causal, temporal and logical in nature. The child's representation of narrative discourse is depicted in terms of a recursive event transition model (a network of events and their causal relations). This model generates descriptions of stories in terms of the story grammar functions for events, the meaning relations of events, the event organization in terms of goal-action-outcome episodes, and higher, hierarchical organization of the episodes. This model permits explicit examination of how the child interprets the text information and the properties of the child's repesentation of the text. Variation in the text structure determines these properties and has profound effects upon the nature and quality of comprehension. Studies are proposed that compare two key structural variations (successive versus hierarchial episodes) and their effects on children's judgments of importance, their memory, summarization and explanations of events, their logical reasoning about events in narrative contexts, their development of comprehension via explanatory-causal questioning and feedback, and their production of stories. The proposed research adds an important control for content while varying text structure.