ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter, emphasis was given to two features of narrative identified as fundamental: verisimilitude in the (adult) narrator’s account, and the active involvement of the (child) reader in a text’s interpretation. This chapter considers two further aspects of narrative: the ‘grammar’ of the story (the plot, the characters, their actions), and the written language in which the story is cast. The issues are, first, the acquisition by the infant of what Warlow (1977:93) and Rabinowitz (1987:29) refer to as the conventions of narrative and, second, the presentation of written text and accompanying illustrations. The aim is to examine how this mother approaches these dimensions of storytelling with her 1-year-old child.
