Telling Personal Narratives: Comparing Stories Told by 10-Year-Old Speakers of Cypriot Greek Dialect and of Standard Modern Greek

Abstract

Introduction: Cypriot Greek is the variety of Greek language used for oral communication by the Greek Cypriot people, while Standard Modern Greek is the official language. Cypriot Greek differs from Standard Modern Greek in various aspects, including lexicon, phonetics, phonology, morphosyntax, and pragmatics. This study examines whether there are differences between children who are native speakers of the Cypriot Greek dialect and those who are native speakers of Standard Modern Greek in narrative measurements obtained in a personal narrative context. Methods: Thirty-nine ten-year-old children (19 Cypriot Greek speakers and 20 Standard Modern Greek speakers) participated in the study. The Global TALES protocol was used to elicit personal narratives across 6 emotion-based prompts. Measures of microstructure (mean length of utterance, number of different words) and macrostructure (plot elements) are examined. Results: Analysis showed no differences in macrostructure between Cypriots Greek speakers and Standard Modern Greek speakers in response to the prompts. In contrast, group differences were found in syntactic complexity, with the Standard Modern Greek speakers producing longer sentences. Conclusion: This is the first study to compare the characteristics of personal narratives spoken by 10-year-old children who are speakers of Cypriot Greek and Standard Modern Greek. The results from this initial comparison highlight that children who are speakers of two varieties of the same language share similar narrative elements. However, they may differ in their linguistic profiles, such as in syntax. Understanding these differences is important for researchers, educators, and speech therapists. A detailed understanding of developmental milestones and a clear understanding of each variety’s characteristics are crucial from a research, pedagogical, and speech therapy perspective.