This study extended research on bilingual children’s narrative comprehension to text processing during retelling. A cross- and monolinguistic design allowed for the investigation of the association of various aspects of narrative comprehension with two types of pause occurring during oral retelling of a story heard in one language and retold in a second or in the same language. A sample of 95 bilingual (L1 German/L2 English) fourth-graders participated in the experiment. Comprehension was predominantly accomplished during listening, as children with L1 input outperformed children with L2 input, but they did not benefit from L1 in retelling. Children’s comprehension performance and corresponding pause patterns suggested that the duration of filled pauses dedicated to gist formation indicated efficiency of comprehension: The duration decreased with increasing comprehension. The findings allowed the conclusion that longer pauses during retelling did not buy time for comprehension.

这项研究将双语儿童的叙述理解研究扩展到重读过程中的文本处理方面。跨语言和单语言的设计允许调查叙述性理解的各个方面与在口头重述以一种语言听到的故事并以第二种或相同语言重述的故事时发生的两种类型的停顿之间的联系。95位双语（L1德语/ L2英语）四年级学生的样本参加了该实验。L1输入的儿童表现优于L2输入的儿童，因此听力主要是在听力过程中完成的，但他们的复述并未从L1中受益。儿童的理解能力和相应的停顿模式表明，专心形成的充满性停顿的持续时间表明了理解的效率：持续时间随着理解的增加而减少。这些发现可以得出这样的结论，即重述期间较长的停顿并不能节省理解时间。