Opportunities and challenges in the analysis of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). Issue 2 (April 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: De Cat, Cécile
• Other Names: Gagarina Natalia guest-editor.; Bohnacker Ute guest-editor.
• Is Part Of: First language. Volume 42:Issue 2(2022)
• Page Start: 321
• Page End: 329
• Publication Date: 2022-04
• Subjects: Literacy -- bilingualism -- discourse-pragmatics -- morphosyntax -- narratives; Language acquisition -- Periodicals; 401.9305
• DOI: 10.1177/01427237211064695
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0142-7237

Abstract

The development of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) has no doubt contributed to prompting a renewed interest in children's narratives. This carefully controlled test of narrative abilities elicits a rich set of measures spanning multiple linguistic domains and their interaction, including lexis, morphosyntax, discourse-pragmatics, as well as various aspects of narrative structure, communicative competence, and language use (such as code-switching). It is particularly well suited to the study of discourse cohesion, referential adequacy and informativeness, and of course to the study of narrative structure and richness, and the acquisition of a more formal or literary register. In this commentary article, I reflect on the five empirical papers included in the special issue. I focus on methodological challenges for the analysis of narratives and identify outstanding questions.