Children's Sensitivity to Stylistic Features in Literature

Abstract

This study investigated children's sensitivity to two kinds of stylistic features in literature: 'poetic' features (rhyme, metre and similes) and'syntactic' features (active vs passive voice, subject/predicate order, and clause structure). To investigate children's abilities to perceive these features, we presented children in grades 3, 5 and 7 with target excerpts adapted from children's stories. Children were asked to choose between a stylistically consistent and a stylistically contrasting continuation. In order to determine whether children would favour stylistic consistency over content, we pitted appealing content 'mis-cues' against stylistic consistency in half of the perception items. To investigate children's abilities to produce stylistic features, we presented another group of children with the same targets and asked them to make up a line or two that might come next. We examined children's productions to determine whether the style of the target was maintained in the continuation. The findings indicate that children in the age range studied are fairly insensitive to stylistic features of stories, and that they focus instead on content. However, children revealed a greater sensitivity to poetic than to syntactic features. Surprisingly, children who noticed the presence of the stylistic features did not always choose the continuation that was stylistically consistent. These findings indicate that sensitivity to various aspects of literary style, and sensitivity to stylistic coherence, are not fully developed until after junior high school age.