WRITTEN TEXT PRODUCTION: JUNCTION AND ACQUISITION

Abstract

In this paper, we shall investigate the establishment of discursive traditions (DTs) in children's writing acquisition, based on the idea that text junction mechanisms in determinate spaces are symptomatic of DTs and vice-versa. Following a theoretical framework in which children's writing acquisition is viewed under the consideration of both linguistic and discursive-pragmatic aspects, the results, obtained from a qualitative and quantitative analysis, provide evidence for two kinds of relationships which can be established between these mechanisms and the focused DTs: (i) with narrative, report, argumentative and explanatory DTs, in which the repeatability of junctions spaces filled by mechanisms with causal meaning reinforces the hypothesis outlining the symptomatic relation between the established DT and the means whereby such concatenations establish the DT; and (ii) with the Christmas card, injunction and request DTs, in which the usage of causal junction mechanisms is related to a mix of DTs, the latter being directly linked to the part of the text in which explanatory/argumentative DTs are inserted. Therefore, in these DTs, the starting point of the analysis should not be the repeatability of causal junction mechanisms, but rather the pragmatic-discursive role as material for the compositionality of the textual tradition.