On Learning to Write Her Name: An Example of ResearchInformed by Literary Anthropology (original) (raw)
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What's in a Name: Children's Knowledge about the Letters in Their Own Names
Two studies were performed to determine whether children's experiences with their own names boost their knowledge about the components of the name, the letters. The children in Study One showed a significant superiority for the initial letter of their own first name in tests of letter-name, but not letter-sound, knowledge. This pattern was found for Australian first graders (mean age 5 years, 5 months), U.S. kindergartners (mean age 5 years, 8 months), and U.S. preschoolers (mean age 4 years, 10 months). Study Two, with U.S. preschoolers (mean age 4 years, 11 months), again revealed an advantage for the initial letter of a child's first name in knowledge of letter names but not knowledge of letter sounds. Moreover, the children were better at printing the initial letter of their own first name than other letters. The results show that different factors are involved in the learning of letter names and letter sounds. They further suggest that children use letter-based strategies with their own names at a time when they are often considered to be " logographic " readers. For many children, learning to read and write begins with their own name. Middle-class children in Western cultures have frequent opportunities to learn about the spellings of their own names, especially their first names. For example,
Sign Systems Studies, 2011
The article regards children’s literature as a certain cultural tool. This approach enables to reveal various characteristic aspects of the poetics of children’s literature, while relating them to children’s cognitive and cultural development. Focusing on a book series Paula’s Life by Estonian author Aino Pervik, it can be seen how two different ways of understanding — the initial, so-called mythological type of thinking of preschoolers and the emerging conceptual thinking — are combined. The article draws mostly on the concepts of cultural psychology and the authors of Tartu–Moscow school of semiotics, who have elaborated the idea that proper names form one of the central components of mythological consciousness, the latter being comparable to “the language of proper names”. The main attention is drawn on the functioning of names and the topic of naming and categorizing in these texts.
What’s In a Name? Name Giving, Identity, and Script Formation
This article deals with the significance of a person's name in relation to his or her life script and is focused specifically on Polish culture and context. A survey of 90 university students ages 21-23 revealed that most of them believe that their names were chosen in a purposeful manner, and they have a positive attitude toward those names. The findings also indicated that when survey participants were addressed by their parents, mothers used diminutives more often than fathers. In choosing their child's first name, most parents wanted it to sound nice and be original, whereas the second name was often the same as that of an important family member. Interviews conducted with several students confirmed the existence of a link between names and various aspects of life script.
2013
LIST OF CHILDREN’S LITERATURE THAT FEATURE NAMES * Titles with asterisks are multicultural books. ~ Titles marked with a tilde (~) feature names in a manner that reinforces early literacy skills: name awareness, name writing, rhyming, sound awareness, alliteration, letter/sound association and ABC concepts, or other phonological awareness skills. Cultural identity may or may not be an additional focus of these texts. Other titles relate to the idea of name, individual identity, petnames/nicknames, name origins etc. Children’s Literature that Feature Names and Identity *Ada, A. F. (1995). My name is Maria Isabel. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. 64 pgs.
"My Name Is …": Picturebooks Exploring Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Names
Names: A Journal of Onomastics, 2022
A child's personal name is an integral part of their identity. Names and name negotiation in children's picturebooks can explore this connection by narrativizing the impact of positive and negative experiences involving name-carriers, name-givers, and name-users. In this study, we began with a framework combining a socio-onomastic perspective with the children's literature metaphor of "mirrors and windows" (Bishop 1990) and the educational research concept of "damage and desire" narratives (Tuck 2009). Our content analysis of twelve picturebooks featuring characters with culturally and linguistically diverse names led to a coding scheme of six common episodes of name negotiation in the picturebooks' narrative arcs: (1) inflicted damage; (2) internalized damage; (3) supplying desire; (4) internalized desire; (5) asserting the desire; and (6) joining the desire. Our findings highlight how episodes of damage focus on the pain, sadness, and struggle name-carriers undergo, while episodes of desire center the support of parents and teachers as well as detailed cultural and familial information about names. We conclude that while both "damage and desire" episodes contribute to the narratives, too heavy a focus on damage could lead to the perpetuation of a "single story" (Adichie 2009) that normalizes pain and struggle as an inevitable experience for children with linguistically and culturally diverse names.
Children's names: Landmarks for literacy
Report No. CS, 1987
The relationships between the understandings children develop while learning the written form of their own names and those developed while learning other words were examined in a study. Twelve children, aged three, four, and five, were selected. The study Involved three tasks which examined the subjects' expertise with letters, numbers, and the written form of their own names, the understandings they held relative to their own names, and with regard to two other words. Results indicated that children did not treat their own names as unique words in terms of letter order and word size. This study calls into question the view that learning the written form of one's own name is a unique case of written language learning. It would appear that when children are able to write their own names in standard form they may also be able to exhibit very sophisticated understandings about words in our written language system. (Eleven references and six figures are appended.) (Author/SKC)
Chapter 12. Naming in Pupil Writings (9 to 14 Years Old)
2020
During the analysis of a corpus of interaction, Roubaud and Loufrani (2001, p. 207), in the tradition of Blanche-Benveniste's works (1984), define the term "naming" as follows: "Ce terme de dénomination nous servira à designer ce qui a trait au fait de nommer, c'est à dire à assigner du lexique." [The term naming will designate all that concerns the fact of designating, that is to say assigning lexicon]. These naming operations take the two lines of language: the paradigmatic line, which allows the speaker to give or review different properties of the word and the syntagmatic line which gives the opportunity to set syntagms, even approximate, in order to advance in the discourse. These are the naming operations we searched for in 262 papers written by 9-to 14-year-old pupils during writing production. The analysis of the corpus has revealed that the anaphora and the explicitation participate in the naming operation. Processes such as the anaphora force ...
Chapter 1 Introductions : Critical pedagogy and the intersectional complexities of names
Taylor & Francis eBooks, 2020
Critical pedagogy and the intersectional complexities of names Writing the introduction to a book is not all that different from introducing a new group of students to one of my courses in gender and critical pedagogy, even if students are not my only target readership here. Those in a class before me may, or may not, already have an idea about what I teach, and they will probably have expectations of some kind, hopes, inhibitions, or perhaps even fears. Similarly, you, as the reader of this book, have purchased, borrowed, or downloaded this book with a certain expectation in mind, a pre-formed idea as to what this book is about. Perhaps you saw it advertised by the publisher, it may have been recommended to you, or perhaps you have simply judged the book by its cover. Either way, the ideas already present in your mind as you embark upon this introduction will be paramount to your perception and understanding of the content and may possibly shape the impact-or lack thereof-of this book on your own work and thinking. This introduction will not simply introduce the topic of the book as a classical introduction. Instead, it will combine the first chapter of the book with introduction by focusing on how to start a workshop or a course. This is the way I often open my courses and learning workshops. We will begin, then, by examining the very concept of introductions in the widest sense, with a special focus on the function of names: the names that individuals are given at birth, usually by their parents or extended family, and that are often chosen because of their significance. People's names are imbued with meaning, with symbolism, with cultural-and often religious-meaning, which for some may carry positive connotations while others may find a certain name at best aseptic or, at worst, frightening. And in most cases, your name is the first aspect of your person that others experience. By reflecting on the origins, meanings, and effects of our names, such prejudices can be nipped in the bud at the beginning of a course and