Developmental Aspect of Text Production in Writing and Speech

This thesis aims at describing the developmental patterns of text production in four text types: spoken and written narrative texts, and spoken and written expository texts. It explores material from a study with cross-sectional design, comprising spoken and written texts produced by 10 year old children up to university students.

This thesis aims at describing the developmental patterns of text production in four text types: spoken and written narrative texts, and spoken and written expository texts. It explores material from a study with cross-sectional design, comprising spoken and written texts produced by 10 year old children up to university students. The written texts are recorded by means of keystroke logging, which makes it possible to investigate the real-time process behind written text production.

The studies investigate both product and process. The impact of development, modality and genre on text length (measured in various ways) and lexical choices are addressed by studying the final products in speech and writing. The process is studied by describing genre and developmental differences in both editing and pausing patterns during text writing.

The results show that the interplay and interference between speech and writing is an important factor for developing and maintaining skills in both speech and writing. While the youngest age group in this study is influenced by strategies from speaking while they write, shown, for instance, by the tendency to write the text from beginning to end without any extensive editing, the adults seem able to benefit from strategies and linguistic structures learned through writing when for example giving a speech.