Relating Events in Narrative : Typological and Contextual Perspectives

Relating Events in Narrative, Volume 2: Typological and Contextual Perspectives edited by Sven Strömqvist and Ludo Verhoeven, is the much anticipated follow-up volume to Ruth Berman and Dan Slobin's successful "frog-story studies" book, Relating Events in Narrative: A Crosslinguistic Developmental Study (1994).


Working closely with Ruth Berman and Dan Slobin, the new editors have brought together a wide range of scholars who, inspired by the 1994 book, have all used Mercer Mayer's Frog, Where Are You? as a basis for their research. The new book, which is divided into two parts, features a broad linguistic and cultural diversity. Contributions focusing on crosslinguistic perspectives make up the first part of the book. This part is concluded by Dan Slobin with an analysis and overview discussion of factors of linguistic typology in frog-story research.


The second part offers a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives, all dealing with contextual variation of narrative construction in a wide sense: variation across medium/modality (speech, writing, signing), genre variation (the specific frog story narrative compared to other genres), frog story narrations from the perspective of theory of mind, and from the perspective of bilingualism and second language acquisition. Several of the contributions to the new book manuscript also deal with developmental perspectives, but, in distinction to the 1994 book, that is not the only focused issue. The second part is initiated by Ruth Berman with an analysis of the role of context in developing narrative abilities.


The new book represents a rich overview and illustration of recent advances in theoretical and methodological approaches to the crosslinguistic study of narrative discourse. A red thread throughout the book is that crosslinguistic variation is not merely a matter of variation in form, but also in content and aspects of cognition. A recurrent perspective on language and thought is that of Dan Slobin's theory of "thinking for speaking," an approach to cognitive consequences of linguistic diversity. The book ends with an epilogue by Herbert Clark, "Variations on a Ranarian Theme."

Sven Strömqvist (editor) Dept. of Linguistics University of Lund Helgonabacken 12 SE-223 62 Lund Sweden email: sven.stromqvist@ling.lu.se
Ludo Verhoven (editor) University of Nijmegen Montessorilaan 5 P.O. Box 9104 65000 HE The Netherlands email: l.verhoeven@ped.kun.nl
Ayhan Aksu-Koç Dept, of Psychology Bogagici University P.K. 2 Bebek 80815 Istanbul Turkey email: koc@boun.edu.tr
Edith Bavin School of Psychological Science La Trobe University Bundoora, Victoria 3083 Australia email: e.bavin@latrobe.edu.au
Ruth Berman Dept. of Linguistics Tel Aviv University Ramat Aviv Israel 69978 email: rberman@post.tau.ac.il
Frederikke Blytmann Trondhjem Dept. of General and Applied Linguistics University of Copenhagen Njalsgade 80 DK-2300 Copenhagen S. Denmark
Penelope Brown Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics PB 310 NL-6500 AH Nijmegen The Netherlands email: pbrown@mpi.nl
Herbert Clark Dept. of Psychology Jordan Hall, building 420 450 Serra Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 USA email: herb@psych.stanford.edu
Elisabeth Engberg-Pedersen Dept. of General and Applied Linguistics University of Copenhagen Njalsgade 80 DK-2300 Copenhagen S. Denmark email: eep@cphling.dk
Dennis Galvan Dept. of Psychology Gallaudet University 800 Florida Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002-3695 USA email: dennis.galvan@gallaudet.edu
Maya Hickmann Lab. Cognition et Développement, CNRS Institut de Psychologie University René Descartes - Paris V 71, Avenue Edouard Vaillant 92774 Boulogne Billancourt cedex France email: hickmann@psycho.univ-paris5.fr
Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano Facultad de Filosofia y Letras. Filologia Inglesa Universidad de Deusto/Deustuko Unibertsitatea Apartado 1 E-48080 Bilbao Spain email: iraidei@euskalnet.net
Aylin Küntay Dept. of Psychology Koç University Rumeli Feneri Yolu, Sariyer 80910 Istanbul Turkey email: akuntay@ku.edu.tr
Judy Kupersmitt POB 1292 Givat Ada 37808 Israel email: jkuper@beitberl.ac.il
Kei Nakamura Institute of Cognitive & Linguistic Studies Keio University 2-15-45 Mita, Minato-ku Tokyo 108-0073 Japan email: kei@aya.yale.edu
Åsa Nordqvist Dept. of Linguistics Göteborg University Box 200 SE-405 30 Göteborg Sweden email: asanord@ling.gu.se
Hrafnhildur Ragnarsdóttir Iceland University of Education StakkahliD IS-105 Reykjavik Iceland email: hragnars@khi.is
Dan Slobin Dept. of Psychology University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 USA email: slobin@socrates.berkeley.edu
Sarah Taub Dept. of Linguistics and Interpretation Gallaudet University 800 Florida Avenue, NE Washington, DC 20002-3695 USA email: sarah.taub@gallaudet.edu
Göklem Tekdemir Dept. of Psychology Bogagici University P.K. 2 Bebek 80815 Istanbul Turkey email: goklem@hotmail.com
Åsa Wengelin Dept. of Linguistics University of Lund Helgonabacken 12 SE-223 62 Lund Sweden email: asa.wengelin@ling.lu.se
David Wilkins Center for Aphasia and Related Disorders V.A. Northern California Health Care System 150 Muir Road 126 (s) Martinez, Ca 94553-4695 USA email: wilkins@ebire.org
Peerapat Yangklang Dept. of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts Chulalongkom University, Phyathai Rd. Bangkok 10330 Thailand email: peerapat@lycos.com
Jordan Zlatev Dept. of Linguistics University of Lund Helgonabacken 12 SE-223 62 Lund Sweden email: jordan.zlatev@ling.lu.se