敘事是一種語言的表達。兒童在語言習得和認知成熟的過程中同時發展其敘事能力。過去大多數關於兒童敘事發展的研究主要關注單語兒童，針對雙語兒童的敘事發展研究相對較少，且研究主題主要在分析雙語兒童外語敘事的結構和指稱能力。本研究針對學習英語為外語的台灣兒童，探討其英語敘事能力的發展。研究主要分析雙語兒童使用的敘事結構，篇章凝聚（即英語指稱詞和連接詞）以及評價語言。本研究共有六名中英雙語兒童，平均年齡為7歲。依他們的英語學習經驗分成三組：學習英語一年組，兩年組和三年組。為瞭解雙語兒童的英語敘事能力如何發展，我們共採集兩次敘事語料，中間間隔七個月。使用的敘事題材為Mayer所繪製的兩本無字故事繪本（Frog, where are you?）及（A boy, a dog and a frog）。為了探索受試者如何因不同的英語能力而有不同的敘事技巧，我們對受試者在第一個時間點採集的語料進行了組間比較。為了探討受試者七個月後的敘事技巧如何變化，我們針對受試者在七個月前後採集的敘事語料進行了組內比較。組間比較的結果顯示，雙語兒童的敘事長度，角色關係的指出，英語指稱詞和連接詞的使用，以及評價語言的類型會隨他們的語言能力增加而增加，但是敘事結構及使用評價語言的頻率與他們的語言能力無關，而與他們的認知能力較為相關。另外，七個月前後採集的兩次語料分析結果顯示，隨著時間的推移，雙語兒童對敘事結構的表達沒有明顯不同，但在英語指稱詞和連接詞的使用上，初學者比有經驗的學習者有更顯著的成長。同時，所有的雙語兒童七個月後在評價語言上對描述故事角色的情感和其意圖的頻率有明顯的增加。綜合上述結果，本研究發現雙語兒童表達敘事結構（即整體結構和計劃組成部分）的能力與語言能力無關，但與其認知能力有關。至於與語言相關的敘事技巧，例如篇章凝聚（即英語指稱詞和連接詞）以及評價語言的多樣語言能力性，則與雙語兒童的有關。本研究是少數從多個面向探討雙語兒童敘事能力的研究之一。研究結果為雙語兒童的敘事發展提供了更全面的描述。

Narrative is an expressive language. Children continually develop their narrative competence through a dynamic process of language acquisition and cognitive maturation. Most studies on children’s narrative abilities have focused on monolingual children. Relatively fewer studies have examined how bilingual children develop their abilities to capture and convey events within narratives in their second languages. The current study aimed to explore the English narrative skills of young Chinese EFL learners with different language abilities and to examine the developmental pattern of individual children’s narrative skills over a seven-month period. The examination of their narrative skills included the use of narrative structure (i.e., global structure, planning components), cohesion (i.e., referential strategies, connectivity devices), and evaluative language. Six Chinese EFL children at the age of 7 years were recruited and separated into three groups according to their duration of learning English: one year, two years, and three years. Two frog stories were used to elicit the participants’ narratives at two different time points with an interval of seven months in between. To investigate how Chinese EFL children’s narrative skills vary as a function of different English experiences, between-group comparisons of their Time 1 narratives were made. To probe how their narrative skills develop after seven months, within-group comparisons between their Time 1 and Time 2 narratives were made. The results of between-group comparisons indicated that the participants’ narrative length, the indication of the characters’ relations, use of personal referential strategies and connectivity devices, and the variety of evaluative expressions differed according to their language abilities. Their use of narrative structures and frequency of use of evaluative language, however, was not related to their language abilities. The results of within-group comparisons between individual participants’ Time 1 and Time 2 narratives indicated that our participants’ knowledge of narrative structure remained similar over time. Nevertheless, the beginning learners made more notable progress than more experienced learners in the use of referential strategies and connectivity devices. A remarkable improvement was found in the children’s use of evaluative expressions referring to the character’s emotion and intention after seven months. In sum, the findings of the present study showed that narrative skills relating to the use of narrative structure (i.e., global structure and planning components) are independent of bilingual children’s language abilities and have more to do with children’s general cognitive abilities, while narrative skills concerning linguistic aspects such as the use of cohesive devices (i.e., referential strategies and connectivity devices) and the variety of evaluative expressions are related to bilingual children’s language proficiency. The present study is one of the few studies that have examined bilingual children’s narrative skills from multiple dimensions. The findings of the study provide a more comprehensive picture of bilingual children’s narrative development.

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