ERIC Number: EJ1426636
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2024-Jun
Pages: 20
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1468-7984
EISSN: EISSN-1741-2919
Available Date: N/A
Children's Language Play as Collaborative Improvisations -- Rethinking Paths to Literacy
Lars Holm; Annegrethe Ahrenkiel
Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, v24 n2 p298-317 2024
Inspired by research in language play and linguistic ethnography, this article examines children's language play in early childhood education and care (ECEC) as a locally situated generic practice created through children's semiotic repertoires. The article is based on video-recorded linguistic ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish day care centre. By analysing two play sequences with 3-4 year old children, we examine how the children align to each other in an improvised way while co-creating social worlds. The multimodal micro-ethnographic analysis reveals how an assemblage of chunks of language, musicality, movements, affect and materiality is constitutive of children's language play, and how language play appears as an integral part of children's local language practices. The children's use of a broad range of semiotic repertoires in language play represents a unique practice that might enhance our theoretical and empirical understanding of child language. We argue that empirical insight into children's language play has the potential for developing paths to language and literacy that challenge the often highly prioritised 'precursors to literacy' strategy as the central aim for language learning in ECEC.
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Early Childhood Education, Preschool Children, Child Language, Play, Language Usage, Peer Relationship, Socialization
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Denmark
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A