Date of Award

Fall 2013

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Speech and Hearing Sciences

Committee Chair

John Muma

Committee Chair Department

Speech and Hearing Sciences

Committee Member 2

Steve Cloud

Committee Member 2 Department

Speech and Hearing Sciences

Committee Member 3

Jennifer Salgo-Corie

Committee Member 3 Department

Speech and Hearing Sciences

Abstract

Brute facts, institutional facts, and non-institutional mental facts were studied. The philosophy of constructionism and the theory of intent provided a framework for this research. Intentionality provided the basis for social facts. Brute, institutional, and noninstitutional mental facts were operationally defined. This study analyzed the use of these facts in the narratives of 6-year-old boys and 9-year-old boys. There were a total of 19 participants in this research. This research established brute, institutional, and non-institutional mental facts as appropriate operational categories for studying children's narratives. The 6-year-old boys produced more brute facts than the 9-year-old boys. The 9-year-old boys produced significantly more institutional facts in spontaneous narratives than the 6-year-old boys. The production of non-institutional mental facts was not significantly different between the two groups. The discussion pertained to the ramifications of these results as related to spontaneous language samples, appropriate language sampling size, and the syntagmaticparadigmatic shift.

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