Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-tn8tq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-26T16:16:57.302Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Rhyme and alliteration in poems elicited from young children*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Ann Dowker
Ann Dowker*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, UK.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Attempts were made to elicit poems from 133 children between the ages of 2 and 6. Seventy-eight of the children produced 606 poems between them. Sixty per cent of the poems contained phonological devices; 42% contained rhyme and 26% contained alliteration. There was no obvious age trend as regards the use of rhyme but the frequency of alliteration declined with age. There were no significant age differences as regards the relative frequency with which different phonemes were manipulated in rhyme and alliteration. The possible functions of such sound-based language play in language development are discussed, with special reference both to children's sound play in crib speech, and to the development of phonological awareness and its importance in learning to read.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , February 1989 , pp. 181 - 202
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I thank the staff and children of the Coram Children's Centre, the University of London Institute of Education Nursery, the Wimbledon Park Nursery and Preparatory School and the Wimbledon Park Primary School for their help and co-operation. I am also grateful to my supervisors, Dr Neil O'Connor and Professor Hazel Francis of the University of London Institute of Education, for their advice and help. I would like to thank Dr Lynda White of Imperial College, University of London for helpful discussions about statistics. The research was carried out with the aid of a post-graduate research grant from the Medical Research Council.

References

Aimard, P. (1977). Les jeux de mots de l'enfant. Villeurbanne: Simep. Editions.Google Scholar
Bowey, J. A. (1986). Syntactic awareness in relation to reading skill and ongoing reading comprehension monitoring. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 41. 282–99.Google Scholar
Bruce, D. J. (1964). The analysis of word sounds by young children. British Journal of Experimental Psychology 38. 158–70.Google Scholar
Bryant, P. E. (1985). The distinction between knowing when to do a sum and knowing how to do it. Educational Psychology 5. 207–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryant, P. E. & Bradley, L. (1985). Children's reading problems. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cazden, C. B. (1976). Play with language and metalinguistic awareness: one dimension of language experience. In Bruner, J. S., Jolly, A. & Sylva, K. (eds), Play. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Chukovsky, K. (1968). From two to five. Berkeley: University of California Press (translation of the 1959 edition).Google Scholar
Fox, B. & Routh, D. K. (1975). Analysing spoken language into words, syllables and phonemes: a developmental study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 4. 331–42.Google Scholar
Fox, B. & Routh, D. K. (1980). Phonemic awareness and severe reading disability in children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 9. 115–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fry, D. B. (1979). The Physics of speech. Cambridge: C.U.P.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaacs, S. (1930). Intellectual growth in young children. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. (1922). Language: its nature, development and origin. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Jusczyk, P. W. (1977). Rhymes and reasons, some aspects of the child's appreciation of poetic form. Developmental Psychology 13. 599–607.Google Scholar
Keenan, E. O. (1974). Conversational competence in children. Journal of Child Language 1. 163–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuczaj, S. A. (1982). Language play and language acquisition. In Reese, H. (ed.), Advances in child development and child behaviour, 17. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kuczaj, S. A. (1986). Crib speech and language play. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Lenel, J. C. and Cantor, J. H. (1981). Rhyme recognition and phonemic perception in children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 10. 57–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, I. Y., Schankweiler, D., Liberman, A. M., Fowler, C. & Fischer, R. W. (1977). Phonemic segmentation in the beginning reader. In Reber, A. & Scarborough, D. L. (eds), Toward a psychology of reading: proceedings of the CUNY conference. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Lundberg, I. (1978). Aspects of linguistic awareness related to reading. In Sinclair, A., Jarvella, R. J. & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), The child's conception of language. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Nesdale, A. R., Herriman, M. L. & Tunmer, W. E. (1984). Phonological awareness in children. In Tunmer, W. E., Pratt, C. & Herriman, M. L. (eds), Metalinguistic awareness in children. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1955). The language and thought of the child. Cleveland OH: Meridian. [Translation of 1936 edition.]Google Scholar
Pratt, C. & Grieve, R. (1984). The development of metalinguistic awareness: an introduction. In Tunmer, W. E., Pratt, C. & Herriman, M. L. (eds), Metalinguistic awareness in children. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Read, C. (1978). Children's awareness of language, with emphasis on sound systems. In Sinclair, A., Jarvella, R. J. & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), The child's conception of language. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Rogers, T. (1979). Those first affections: an anthology of poems composed between the ages of two and eight. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Savin, L. (1972). What the child knows about speech when he starts to learn to read. In Kavanagh, J. C. & Mattingley, I. G. (eds), Language by ear and by eye. Cambridge MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Schiefielin, B. B. (1983). Talking like birds; sound play in a cultural perspective. In Keenan, E. O. & Schieffelin, B. B. (eds), Acquiring conversational competence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. I. (1977). Metalinguistic awareness: a study of language play in young children. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, 1977.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J. I. (1981). Children's experiments with language. Young Children 36. 16–26.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (1978). A case study of early language awareness. In Sinclair, A., Jarvella, R. J. & Levelt, W. J. M. (eds), The child's conception of language. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., Cunningham, A. E. & Cramer, B. B. (1984). Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children. Issues of task comparability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 38. 175–90.Google Scholar
Sutton-Smith, B. (1981). The folkstories of children. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Weir, R. H. (1962). Language in the crib. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar