Investigating playful punctuation in children’s narrative and persuasive writing

Abstract

AbstractThe writing of 38 9–10-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of two kinds of writing, imaginative narrative and persuasive description. Framed within a consideration of language play in general, and children’s use of punctuation in particular, the investigation revealed the ways in which primary children, without being prompted to do so, use playful punctuation in order to achieve their communicative aims. An in-depth analysis was made of 145 scripts to identify and categorise the playful punctuation used by the children in both kinds of writing. The findings revealed clear differences between the two kinds of writing in how children used playful punctuation. The study illustrates how playful punctuation, as well as being an integral part of the transcriptional aspects of a text, can contribute to its composition; young writers use playful punctuation to contribute to the meaning, purpose and appropriateness of the text for its intended audience. The findings also suggest that such uses—like language play as a whole—warrant further attention in educational research. Future work needs to identify the writing tasks that enable the use of playful punctuation to flourish.