Andy Arleo

What is the state of play? Exploring linguistic and musical universals in children's rhymes

In the mid-1970s, several years after moving to France, I had a eureka moment that sparked a lifelong interest in the comparative study of children’s play and folklore. At the time, I was looking after young children as a volunteer in a parent-run daycare center in Saint-Nazaire. Having just completed a study of a declining local dialect, I was delighted to discover a dynamic oral tradition that showed no signs of dying out. I noticed that French children’s play resembled that of my own childhood in New Jersey; for example, they would form a circle and count out to choose Le loup (The Wolf), the familiar It figure in tag. Shortly after this time I came across Henry Carrington Bolton’s nineteenth century collection of counting-out rhymes in 19 languages or dialects, including non-Indo-European (IE) languages such as Arabic, Basque and Penobscot (Bolton, 1969 [1888]). I wondered how widespread these rhymes were in the languages and cultures of the world and to what degree they shared similar themes, sound patterns, rhythms and performance features. This brief overview on the state of play focuses on two specific universalist hypotheses regarding children’s rhymes, the first regarding musical rhythm and the second exploring a widespread sound pattern known as ablaut reduplication (e.g. bim bum). The conclusion proposes the perspectives for future study. Before looking at the two hypotheses, it is useful to put this research into a broader theoretical framework. Twentieth century research in the social scienceswasmarkedboth byuniversalist theories, andby the rise of cultural relativism, notably among anthropologists (Brown, 1991). Some universals are uncontroversial: few would dispute the claim that play exists in all cultures. Concerning language, Chomsky’s universal grammar or the existence of a universal hierarchy of basic color terms (Berlin &Kay, 1969) continues to be debated. There is however evidence supporting some linguistic universals. For example, all languages have consonants and vowels, and all ‘have some variations in vowel quality that indicate contrasts in the vowel height dimension’. Babbling also appears to be a universal feature in language acquisition. Child-directed speech may qualify as a near universal with few exceptions. Regardingmusical universals, lullabies, for example, are extremelywidespread and perhaps found in all cultures. Let us turn now to the rhythm of children’s rhymes.

The Musical Playground: Global Tradition and Change in Children's Songs and Games

Kathryn Marsh, an ethnomusicologist and Chair of Musical Education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney, has conducted research on children’s musical play since 1990. This volume is based on fieldwork carried out in Sydney and central Australia, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Korea. The book has five sections followed by four appendices, which include an index of playground singing game genres, information on transcription methods and notation, text variants of the “Sar Macka Dora” game genre, and selected musical transcriptions. Additional transcriptions of selected games as well as videos are available online at the Oxford University Press companion website. The volume ends with notes, a fourteen-page bibliography, and a detailed general index. In Section I, “Children’s Musical Play and Creativity: Adult Views,” Marsh describes her initial discovery of the phenomenon of variation in children’s singing games, which has led her to explore children’s musical play in school playgrounds around the world. Chapter One discusses different methodological viewpoints and philosophies regarding children’s musical play, notably in the fields of music education, ethnomusicology, and childlore. The criticism of past studies targets insufficient contextualisation, text-based analysis that neglects music and movement, and unverified assumptions regarding children’s cultures as primitive or simple. The second chapter, “Children’s Musical Creativity and Oral Transmission,” which addresses issues such as oral composition and improvisation, should be particularly interesting for folklorists. Section II, “Into the Field,” broaches philosophical and ethical issues involved in research on children’s cultures and traces the development of a reflexive field methodology stemming from interactions on the playground. Marsh’s long experience in different cultural contexts has led her to a broadened and more inclusive viewpoint. This section is especially valuable for anyone who plans to conduct fieldwork with children. Rather than dodge the many problems in such endeavours, the author meets them head on and uses them to inform her ever-evolving approach and outlook. The following chapter, “The Playing Fields,” which offers a detailed account of her fieldwork sites around the world, has an enjoyable narrative flow. Marsh brings to life the considerable ethnic, socio-cultural, and linguistic diversity that she has observed and acknowledges the assistance of her many collaborators. The reader is struck by the striking contrast between cultures (for example, between an Aboriginal homelands school in Australia and schools in Norway), but also by the presence of similar singing games in all the schools studied. Section III focuses on “Transmission Processes in the Playground.” The chapter on “The Influence of Social Grouping” contains interesting data on crossing boundaries of gender, age, and ethnicity. On many occasions Marsh recorded boys engaging in musical play, including clapping games often assumed to be the exclusive province of girls. While these games are played predominantly by girls in many places, she shows that local cultural practices, such as non-sexist education, can contribute to a broadened play repertoire for boys. In the following chapter, “Teacher and Learning in the Playground,” Marsh provides illuminating extracts of interviews with children on their own learning processes. Blanche, a nine-year-old girl, uses the biological metaphor of contagion to describe the transmission of games: “It’s like something that you pick up, like the measles from school.” Such metaphors, Folklore 122 (August 2011): 217–234

Using research projects to teach English to French Business students

Cet article concerne lutilisation dun projet de recherche (RP) dans un cours danglais pour des etudiants de 2eme annee dans le Departement Techniques de Commercialisation a lIUT de St-Nazaire. Le RP, qui porte sur un sujet librement choisi par de petites equipes, vise a apprendre aux etudiants a obtenir et analyser des informations en anglais, a employer des techniques de recherche et a se servir de langlais ecrit et oral dans un registre assez soutenu. La preparation du RP, qui setend sur presque toute lannee universitaire, comprend la redaction des brouillons qui sont corriges par lenseignant , lanalyse des erreurs, 1etude des tournures employees frequemment dans les rapports, etc. A la fin de lannee, chaque equipe fait un expose de 30 a 45 minutes et rend un rapport ecrit denviron 15 pages. Malgre quelques problemes (exposes ennuyeux, plagiat, augmentation des tâches de correction), lenseignant ainsi que la plupart des etudiants ont trouve le RP interessant et utile.