The presence of elements of connection in narrative productions written in a sample of schoolchildren from Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Writing constitutes a social and cultural practice, in which students early on integrate their experiences and demands by means of a cognitive process situated in a spatiotemporal context and cultural environment (Barton, Hamilton & Ivanic, 2000; Castello, 2002), organised in a suite of coherent utterances by means of various linguistic resources, where connective elements (conjunctions, adverbs or grammaticalised expressions) stand out. This practice commences early and requires linguistic and cognitive abilities necessary to become a writer capable of communicating meaningful messages to relevant audiences (Scheuer, De la Cruz, Huarte, Bosch, Bello & Baccala, 2006; Bazerman, 2013). The study describes the presence of connective elements employed with greater frequency by students in their written narratives, in accordance with works of Perez and Vega (2001), Calsamiglia and Tuson (2012) and Portoles (1998). The participants were 162 students, distributed in groups according to their year, gender and school type (unsubsidised public, subsidised public, state). The results of the study reveal that all students use connective elements to mark in particular aspects of beginning, continuation, sequence and closing in their written narratives (Pottier, 1993; Alvarez, 1996a; Veliz, 1997; Perez & Vega, 2001). At the same time, there obtain some expected differences according to the year of schooling with respect to the use, variation and complexity in the selection of connectors, as well as with respect to the course and the socioeconomic level. No significant differences were found with respect to gender.