Oral Renditions Research Articles

Who Came First, the Lion or the Bear? The Translation and Rendition of We're Going on a Bear Hunt into Spanish

This article examines the elements that have influenced the thirty years of commercial success of the book We're Going on a Bear Hunt (originally published in 1989;Rosen and Oxenbury) and considers it a contemporary example of a historical trend: the transformation of oral texts into publications. Focusing on the textual mode in the picturebook, this example additionally illustrates the complication of defining a text, and questions whether the source text of a translation can be identified when several versions coexist. A textual analysis of the Spanish-published translation Vamos a Cazar un Oso and a musical analysis and qualitative survey of the use of Spanish in the oral rendition Voy en Busca de un Leon illustrate four different elements entailed in the translation of a children's rhyme: the semantic content (vocabulary and story line), the linguistic structure (verse forms and prosody), the musical or rhythmical foundation, and the element of play or movement.

A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Gender Differentiation in Yoruba Burial Rites

This paper focuses on socio-hermeneutic study of gender differentiation in Yoruba burial rites. There are many types of oral genres in Yoruba society. These genres have different functions for different occasion. In essence, Ìrèmọ̀jé eré ìṣípà ọdẹ (hunters funeral dirge) and ìsàà ró (women funeral dirge) are used during men and women funeral rites respectively in Yoruba land. Ogun deity is the founder of Ìrèmọ̀jé chant. Ogun was the first hunter with many adherents who were hunters too. Before the death of Ogun, he ordered his adherents to chant Ìrèmọ̀jé during his funeral rites. He also instructed them to do the same during the funeral rites of fellow great hunters, that is, the hunters that were succeeded by viable children. Ìrèmọ̀jé ìsipaọdẹ is specifically for men and not for women. Ìsàà ró is the final burial rite for the aged women in Yoruba land. This burial rite marks the exit of the aged women from this world to the world beyond. In essence, ìsàà ró is a traditional send-forth for the dead. This type of burial rite was popular in Yoruba land in those days but it was more popular among the Oyo-Yoruba than other Yoruba ethnic groups. Ìsàà ró burial rite is often performed by the Alágbaà (chief head of masquerade) from Ọ̀jẹ̀ family (family of masquerades). It is mandatory for the children of the dead to perform this final burial rite for their dead mother because if they fail to do it, things may not be moving well for either the dead in the world beyond or for the children she left behind in this world. The emergence of western civilization has made great changes both negatively and positively on the popularity of Ìrèmọ̀jé and Ìsàà ró burial rites respectively. This paper discovered that there is that of valuable documentation of Iremoje/Isipa (Hunting chants and funeral rites for Men) and Isaaro (The final funeral rites for Women) in spite of the existence of enormous works on Yoruba Verbal arts and oral literature. The implication of this finding reveal that if a study of this type is not promoted, Yoruba traditions and valuable oral renditions would be endangered. This could further prompt Yoruba journeys to extinction as many studies have shown that English dominance of Yoruba is changing the language attitude of Yoruba native speakers oral and written discusses. The Yoruba natives have flair for us of English than the use of Yoruba because of the inherent values of English in Nigeria and the world at large. This paper concludes that, despite the negative effect of western education and foreign religions in the foregoing, the technological advancement on Ìrèmọ̀jé and Ìsàà ró has shown that the future of both genres are bright as long as the Yoruba race exists.

David Norris Reads from “Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

Reviewed by: David Norris Reads from “Finnegans Wake by James Joyce Michelle Witen (bio) DAVID NORRIS READS FROM “FINNEGANS WAKE,” by James Joyce, read by David Norris. Dublin: James Joyce Center, 2016. Audiobook €12.00. Joyce’s notoriously difficult Finnegans Wake is given renewed life in this wonderful recording of “Anna Livia Plurabelle” by David Norris. Joyce made a number of comments about the orality and the musical nature of his texts, and, when speaking of his reading of a passage from “Anna Livia Plurabelle,” he claimed that it was not a “blending of literature and music” but rather “‘pure music.’”1 This musical notion was expanded into a listening experience when Joyce defended Finnegans Wake against an English woman’s accusation that it “isn’t literature,” by saying, “‘It was’ . . . while she was listening to it” (JJII 702). He capitalized again on the pleasing oral quality of the text in a letter to Lucia: “Lord knows what my prose means. In a word, it is pleasing to the ear. . . . That is enough it seems to me.”2 Implicit in these statements is an element present in musical performance: with each oral rendition of the Wake, the reader/performer chooses the interpretation she or he will emphasize. This sentiment is perfectly echoed in Norris’s written introduction to the recording: “You have to read the text like music and practice it like a violinist or a pianist so that you can perform it. Once you have mastered this the meaning of the sounds becomes obvious to the hearer” (CD overleaf). In this way, Norris goes about imbuing the sound of his readings, characters, and vocalizations with meaning apparent to the listener, and his virtuosity is revealed with every phrase. Critics such as Anthony Burgess rejected the emancipation of the Wake from its written form. He writes: “[i]t has to be read aloud. . . . But it cannot be wholly freed from the page. We need the score . . . to perceive patterns clearer to the eye than to the ear.”3 While it is true that reading the written text produces a multiplicity of interpretations not possible in an oral performance—“no reading aloud could possibly reproduce the graphic distribution of the text” or “the play [End Page 475] of letters”4 or reveal the extent of each homonym, pun, and portmanteau—Norris’s dexterous recording nevertheless voices an array of meanings in his chosen passages and saturates the washerwomen with recognizable personalities. Furthermore, his interpretation of particular phrases tends to instill an Irish lilt into the text that might not be immediately apparent in the written version. For example, his pronunciation of “ijypt” as the Hiberno-English “eejit,” “Yssel that the limmat?” as closer to “isn’t that the limit,” “[t]ell me every tiny teign” as “tell me every tiny ting,” and “aisne aestumation” as “own estimation” all demonstrate an agility regarding the oral possibilities in the text and can be contrasted against different emphases: Egypt for “ijypt” or Limmat (the river in Switzerland) for “limmat.”5 Because Norris has chosen to record the same passage as the existing recording of Joyce’s reading of ALP (FW 213.11–216.05), I would be remiss if I did not discuss a comparison. Although there are many similarities between the two—from the same dialogic aspect of the elm and stone washerwomen to pronunciation choices such as “Concepta” (FW 213.19) with an Italian “ch” and “Hircus Civis Eblanensis!” (FW 215.26) with a hard “c” in “Hircus” and a “ch” in “Civis”—Norris’s version is nevertheless his own performance of the text. While Joyce’s “r”s are rolled very prominently, Norris instead uses pacing, dynamics, and harshness in his tone to delineate the different qualities of his duo. A significant difference is his “Whawk?” (FW 215.30), which provides an alternative sonic dimension to the preceding and following syllables—“What all men. Hot? His tittering daughters of. Whawk? Can’t hear with the waters of” (FW 215.29–31)—and helps with the characterization of the stone and the elm. All in all, this is an excellent recording and one that I will certainly be playing for my...

Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills by Kirin Narayan

Reviewed by: Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills by Kirin Narayan Shweta Krishnan Kirin Narayan, Everyday Creativity: Singing Goddesses in the Himalayan Foothills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016. 256 pp. Everyday Creativity begins with Kirin Narayan's memory of herself as a 15-year-old girl, sitting in a courtyard in Kangra at the base of the Western Himalayas, listening to women singing songs that she cannot fully understand (xviii). Over the three decades that follow, Narayan visits the region several times, forging a strong bond with the singers, recording their songs, and noting the many textures of meaning that the singing practices bring into women's lives. In this book, she combines her memories and notes to contextualize oral literacy in Kangra, enlightening the reader with stories of individual women who became her mentors, and providing a detailed commentary on collective memory, intimate social relations, and the history of everyday life in the region. Narayan's book is a part of the Big Issues in Music Series.1 In its foreword, Philip Bohlman, one of the series editors, writes that the series aims to highlight cultural plurality in music and challenge hegemonic views that treat music as "a sonic object that is aesthetically autonomous and (universally) identifiable as music" (xiii). Narayan takes up the issue of plurality through the concept of "everyday creativity." To Narayan, creativity does not signify a deliberate display of innovation or genius. Instead, she emphasizes the minute, often unintentional, variations that occur in the lyrics and the music when mundane contexts prompt women to express themselves through song (29). Narayan calls these variations "everyday" because the improvisation spills across the boundaries of ritual and religious ceremonies. Women sing throughout the day—when they work, rest, socialize—allowing these songs to pervade all aspects of their lives, [End Page 421] filling their silences with stories of their beloved gods, and offering them solace and a sense of well-being. Through an analysis of minute textual variations, Narayan and the women she interviews reflect on the music's intimate connections to the history of the region and to individual women's embodiments of these histories. As residents in agrarian Kangra, women use plant metaphors to structure their songs. Each song proceeds from a base (dhak) to a head (sire), and notes the fruits (phal) that women will gain by singing that particular song (30). Narayan uses these very metaphors to structure her book (xxii). Chapters 1 and 2 form the "dhak" or the root, grounding the songs in the history of Kangra, and contextualizing the songs' relations to its singers. Chapters 3–6 organize the "phals" or the rewards of singing into four different genres, exploring each one in detail. The epilogue becomes the "sire" and accounts for challenges posed to the songs and to the singers after the liberalization of the economy and the intrusion of Hindu nationalist narratives in the everyday lives of the singers. The use of local metaphors to structure the book underlines the credence that local language and knowledge have among women in Kangra. This ethnographic strategy also reinforces Narayan's attempt to account for the authority of oral literacy and the female voice. In fact, it is precisely the authority of oral literacy that the "dhak," comprising of Chapters 1 and 2, emphasizes. Studying how multiple oral renditions allow women to chronicle their varying experiences, Narayan underlines the role that singing practices play in producing a record of Kangra's rich gendered history. In Chapter 1, she explains how singing allows women to take care of themselves, even as they navigate a complex, gendered life that puts them in charge of tending to the needs of others, particularly men. Through songs, women "remember" stories of local goddesses, and by likening these stories to their own, women create an archive of gendered life in Kangra. Recalling these songs in moments of anxiety and sorrow allows women to reach into the lives of other women for comfort and to heal through social bonds that stretch across time. Similarly, women form intimate friendships with each other as they come together to recall and render songs. Chapter 2 illustrates the unintended variations...

Manipuri Ramkatha through Wari Leeba: A Dialogue between Text and Oral Renditions

<div><p><em>The paper seeks to highlight the dynamism of Indian Literary traditions which blurs the strict compartmentalization of written and oral traditions. Taking an instance from the Manipuri Ramayana in written text and its oral rendition through the narrative art of Wari Leeba, the paper tries to delineate the </em><em>negotiation and interaction between the various forms of expressions in Indian literary scenario. From a detailed study of how the Manipuri Ramkatha tradition develops in Manipur to the way how Wari Leeba as a narrative art evolves and associates itself with recitation of Ramkatha in Manipur, the paper gives an insight into the various aspects of their interaction and corresponding cultural ethos. Social and religious context associated with the evolution and development of Ramkatha and Wari Leeba has been dealt with in this paper.</em></p></div>

The Story of Grandmother

TRANSLATED BY MARIA TATAR The StoryofGrandmother1 H H herewas once a womanwho had madesomebread.She saidto herdaughter: "Takethisloafofhotbreadand thisbottleofmilk overtogranny's." The littlegirlleft.At thecrossroadsshe meta wolf,who asked "Whereareyougoing?" "I'm taking a loafofhotbreadanda bottleofmilktogranny' s." "Whichpathareyougoingto take,"askedthewolf,"thepathof needlesorthepathofpins?"2 "The pathofneedles," saidthelittle girl. "Well,then,I'll takethepathofpins." The little girlhadfunpicking up needles.Meanwhile, thewolfarrivedat granny's, killedher,putsome ofherfleshin thepantry and a bottleofherbloodon theshelf. The little girlgotthereand knocked at thedoor. "Pushthedoor,"saidthewolf, "it'slatchedwitha wetstraw." "Hello,granny. I'mbringing youa loafofhotbreadanda bottleof milk." "Put it in thepantry, mychild.Take some of themeatin there alongwiththebottleofwineon theshelf."3 Therewas a littlecatin theroomwhowatchedhereat and said: "Phooey!You'rea slutifyoueattheflesh anddrink thebloodofgranny." "Takeyourclothes off, mychild," saidthewolf, "andcomeintobed withme." "WhereshouldI putmyapron?" "Throwitintothefire, mychild.Youwon'tbe needingitanylonger ." When she askedthewolfwhereto putall herotherthings, her bodice,herdress, herskirt, andherstockings, eachtimehesaid:"Throw themintothefire, mychild.Youwon'tbe needingthemanylonger."4 15 "Oh,granny, howhairy youare!" "The better tokeepmewarm, mychild!" "Oh,granny, whatlongnailsyouhave!" "The better toscratch myself with, mychild!" "Oh,granny, whatbigshoulders youhave!" "The better tocarry firewood, mychild!" "Oh,granny, whatbigearsyouhave!" "The better tohearyouwith, mychild!" "Oh,granny, whatbignostrils youhave!" "The better tosniff mytobaccowith, mychild!" "Oh,granny, whata bigmouthyouhave!" "The better toeatyouwith, mychild!" "Oh,granny, I needtogobadlyLetmegooutside!" "Do itinthebed,mychild." "No,granny, I wanttogo outside." "Allright, butdon'tstaytoolong." The wolftieda ropemadeofwool to herlegand lethergo outside . When thelittlegirlgotoutside,sheattachedtheend oftherope toa plumtreeintheyard. The wolfbecameimpatient andsaid:"Are you making cablesoutthere? Areyoumaking cables?" Whenherealizedthatthere wasno answer, hejumpedoutofbed and discovered thatthelittlegirlhad escaped/Hefollowedher,buthe reachedherhouseonlyafter shehadgotteninside. i.Told by Louis and Francois Briffault en Nievre, 1885. Originally published by Paul Delarue, in "Les Contes merveilleux de Perrault et latradition populaire "Bulletin folklorique del'Ile-de-France (1951): 22122 . Translated and reprinted by permission of Maria Tatar. Copyright©1999 by Maria Tatar. 2.Yvonne Verdier ÇGrand-meres, sivous saviez., lePetit Chaperon Rouge dans latradition orale" Cahiers deLittérature Orale 4[1978 ]"17-55) reads the path of pins and the path of needles aspart of asocial discourse pertaining to apprenticeships for girls in sewing. In another region of France, the paths are described asthe path oflittle stones and the path of little thorns. An Italian version refers to apath of stones and apath of roots. 3.Local variations turn the flesh into tortellini inItaly and into sausage in France, while the blood isoften said to be wine. 4.Many oral renditions of the tale presumably drew out the story by dwelling atlength on what happens to each article of clothing. 1 6 ...

Authenticating History With Oral Narratives: The Example of Ekajuk Clan in Ogoja Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria

It is generally accepted that oral narratives serve as a veritable means for historical reconstruction. This holds true, particularly in societies where written documents do not subsist. The Ekajuk community, though very warlike, is a relatively small community that lacks a written history. The attempt to reconstruct the history of their migrations and settlements up to present day has necessitated this write-up which is intended to serve as a reference point for future historical or anthropological work in the area. The write-up is further expected to serve as a historical record for the teaching of Ekajuk history in Primary and Secondary schools in the area. Through interviews and oral renditions, the writer has traced Ekajuk movements and their supposed ancestors from Zululand in East Africa, through the Cameroon republic, to their present location in Nigeria. The exercise however, requires painstaking sifting of oral narratives to synthesize with oral information provided by elders in order to get a historical view-point. It is however, rewarding in the end.

Prosodic correlates of subclausal quotation marks

We present the results of an experimental study which targets prosodic correlates of subclausal quotation marks. We found that written sentences containing passages enclosed by quotation marks were read aloud in a manner that significantly differs in prosody from spoken realizations of corresponding disquoted counterparts. However, we also observed that such prosodic marking of subclausal quotation wasn't strong enough to survive subsequent back-translation into written language: there was no correlation between the presence/absence of quotation marks in the original written examples, and the presence/absence of quotation marks in corresponding back-translations from oral renditions. We investigated three different kinds of uses of quotation marks and found no systematic difference between them with respect to prosodic marking.

Now Not Now: Gertrude Stein Speaks

Her story was now and now here. Peter Gizzi, Creation MUCH TO GERTRUDE STEIN'S SURPRISE, the publication of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933) made her a celebrity. And fame--if she could properly harness it--promised access to the mass audience that she had long coveted. How, though, would people encounter her writing? What control would she have over that process? On the advice of her literary agent William Aspinwall Bradley, she quickly installed telephones at 27 Rue de Fleurus in Paris and at her summer home in Bilignin. She wanted to make it easier for presses and journals to contact her (Goble 129). Few if any representatives of the publishing world sought her out, however. In the winter of 1934-35, tired of waiting, she went on the offensive She traveled to the United States for an extended author's tour. She visited nearly thirty college campuses from Massachusetts to South Carolina to California, and she gave a series of talks rushed into print under the titles Lectures in America (1935) and Narration (1935). She was also interviewed repeatedly by print and radio journalists. She found the latter experience especially revelatory: she was smitten by the distinct form of communication that radio creates, that is, a feeling of everybody everywhere listening to her speak (Wilson 263). Obeying Wordsworth's dictum that great poets create their own audiences, Stein learned to use celebrity as a vehicle for disseminating the skills and information necessary to appreciate her experimental writings. The best-known record of this phase in Stein's career is Everybody's Autobiography (1939), a memoir in which she meditates on how writing a bestseller changed her life. There is a more useful document, however, if one wishes to learn about her immediate response to American celebrity culture and its promotional apparatus. In 1956, the record label Caedmon released the LP Gertrude Stein Reads from Her Work, which includes a handful of recordings made in New York, Winter, 1934-35: Matisse I Told Him: Completed Portrait of Picasso A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson, and extracts from both the novel The Making of Americans and the libretto Madame Recamier These recordings capture Stein in the process of retooling for mass-reproduced oral performance her earlier, limited-circulation page-based work. (1) Conveniently, too, they remain readily available down to the present day, easily downloaded from websites such as PennSound, Ubu.com, and Salon.com. (2) Accordingly, they offer a high-profile, readily accessible means of investigating the innovative soundscape of Stein's verse, as adapted to a new medium. How should a literary critic approach these recordings, though, let alone interpret them as windows on 1934-35? They are not original compositions. They are oral renditions of texts that, in many cases, were written a decade or more previously. Granted, in the course of reading these works aloud, Stein could selectively reveal aspects of her 1910s and 1920s artistry that might otherwise prove elusive. In other words, one could credit the recordings with the ability to clarify what had been present all along. Martina Pfeiler repeats a scholarly commonplace when she asserts that the meaning of [Stein's] poems unfolds itself much better when heard (59). (3) Could one, though, proceed differently? Could one permit a one-off dramatic reading of a piece to displace or replace its prior textual incarnation(s) as an object of literary analysis? If so, in what sense and to what degree? In Everybody's Autobiography, Stein herself downplays the value of oral performance. Back in Europe and writing just before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she is acutely aware of the propaganda skirmishes underway between fascists and communists. In response, she draws a distinction between her work--which she characterizes as page-based and self-consciously writerly--and the belligerent, populist, speech-oriented media culture that surrounds her. …

Textualization of Oral Epics, and: The Oral Epic: Performance and Music (review)

At one time most editors and textual critics would have agreed that the purpose of textual criticism and editing was to present the best possible text, if necessary by creating composite texts that were supposed to represent the text as it should have been. Today scholars question the assumptions and results of the older forms of textual criticism, finding, for instance, that these composite texts often seriously misrepresent the texts and textual traditions, for they represent no attested text of the work of literature, no text experienced by any readers. As Lauri Honko notes in the preface to Textualization of Oral Epics, the movement in epic studies, as in other areas of folklore studies, has been toward the study of performance in an effort to "stay as close to the oral rendition of an epic text as possible and to listen carefully to the poet's voice" (p. vii). The two books under review here are important statements of this new trend in epic studies.

Seuils pour repenser la traduction des poésies orales africaines

The goal of this paper is to interrogate the project of translating Yoruba, and, beyond, African oral performance, into non-African, mostly European, languages. It attempts a critical appraisal of current translations of Yoruba oral performance by investigating their goals, strategies, implicit and explicit assumptions. It underlines their lack of sensitivity to genre specificity in the source language, and their failure to generate poetic empathy and creative response in the target audience. It also examines notions and practices of translation in precolonial times, in contexts of contact between Yoruba and other West African cultures, and possible lessons to be drawn from such translation traditions. In conclusion, this paper investigates felicity conditions for oral performance translation in the prevailing situation of inequality of languages, and suggests that oral renditions in European languages should be given serious attention. The implications of this suggestion (emergence of new genres in the target language, new types of «passeurs », collaborative methods in translation ) are succinctly addressed.

Effects of Repeated Reading and Listening-While-Reading on Reading Fluency

AbstractThe development of reading fluency is an important goal of reading instruction. Two approaches that are effective in fostering fluency are the methods of repeated reading and reading-while-listening. In this study, the effectiveness of the two approaches in promoting fluency for third-grade students was compared. Subjects practiced reading one passage independently and another passage while listening to a fluent oral rendition. Each treatment consisted of a pretest, two practice sessions, and a posttest. Both approaches resulted in significant gains in reading speed and word recognition accuracy. However, no significant differences between methods were detected. Implications for classroom reading instruction are discussed.

American Indian Literature

The topic of my discussion is American literature in the 1980s, with some predictions for its future. I will begin with aspects of the traditional literature as it is the basis for analyzing modem American literature. From this premise, I contend that American writers in the 1980s project tribal ethos, regional identity, and their cultural heritage to relate experiences in a modem context. American literature has a unique characteristic in that it does not originate from any one national ethnic group such as Jewish, Chicano, Puerto Rican, and black writers project. Although the misnomer Indian implies that America's aborigines have a common ethnic background, that is not the consensus among most Native Americans. Rather, individuals of American heritage do not identify with any national ethnic group; instead, individuals identify with one or more tribes in accordance with their parents' lineage, and in some instances, identify more specifically with village and band, such as in the Pueblo societies. It is essential, therefore, in any discussion about American literature in the context of ethnicity that it be viewed as a multi-ethnic literature. Without seeming redundant, yet for clarification I point out that American literature falls into two categories: traditional oral literature and modern fiction. As scholars of Studies also know, the oral literature in the indigenous languages was recorded in the Bureau of American Ethnology series published by the Smithsonian Institution in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by anthropologists and ethnologists. Ritual narratives and poetic chants, folk tales, legends, and origin stories, usually classified as folklore in general among academicians in American Studies, were transcribed from informants giving oral renditions and then translated by renowned anthropologists. It is generally accepted in the 1980s, however, that many of the translations are crude renditions of the originals. Yet in the recent past, many of the translations, especially poetic songs, were extracted from the B.A.E. text and published in anthologies for students of American literature. Naturally when the literature was lifted out of its significant cultural context, which in some instances was structured for ceremonial purposes, then the excerpts appeared trite or crudely vague, which also distorted the esthetic quality. The reaction to

Improving aural comprehension in white and in black children pictures versus print

A total of 128 fourth-grade children verified assertions about three prose passages they had heard. Half of the children were white, from high-status families, and half were black, from low-status families. Within each sample, an independent-groups design was used to appraise the effect of two presentation conditions under each of two conditions of testing. Oral renditions of each passage were accompanied by either pictorial illustrations of text information or printed versions of the text. Previous research on paired-associate learning suggested the hypothesis that pictorial augmentation would be more effective than print. The results confirmed this hypothesis across both populations and both conditions of testing, regardless of the type of assertion verified.

The tape recorded interview as data for film history

This study considered the nature of interview data as a significant problem in film historiography. Two extant interviews with a single individual were compared and were evaluated in the light of additional evidence. The investigation focused upon the quality of interview data. Interview data were noted to suffer from the problems of (1) failure of memory, (2) archetypal memory, and (3) the inability to accurately transcribe expressions of mood. Interviews were found to have value as primary sources, as a means for determining the ‘mood and intent of the oral rendition, and as a means for the researcher to get a better feeling for men and historical periods.

Folktales Commonly Told American and Japanese Children: Ethical Themes of Omission and Commission

THE STUDY OF FOLKTALES has commonly given emphasis to those stories that are a part of the oral tradition of a culture, to the exclusion of materials appearing in written form. The purpose of the present study, involving the personality and ethics of a people, can best be served by pursuing a divergent procedure. Both Japan and the Western world have rich literary traditions incorporating stories that formerly were communicated orally. The following study of ethical themes in folktales told to children has been made by an examination of these stories in their literary form. Folktales were chosen because they are subject to change. Literary sources for these tales are used because of the substantially increased number of versions available and because all purposes for which alterations have been made are considered important. Publishers revise (adapt) on the basis of what will sell. They consult educators who are concerned that stories be entertaining but not terrifying. In addition, the narratives must be revised into morally acceptable versions which may serve to train the child in proper ethical precepts. However, even when the stories were limited to an oral rendition, similar alterations probably were made. Folklorists in both the United States and Japan would agree that ethical themes are a recent innovation appearing when stories were first told to children. Of the earlier forms Yoko Sugiyama comments: