Tegelaste nimed laste- ja aabitsakirjanduses lapse kognitiivset arengut toetavate elementidena
Characters’ names as supporting elements of children’s cognitive development in children’s literature and school textbooks

Summary/Abstract: Children’s literature supports children’s cognitive and cultural develop-ment in many different aspects. The present article analyzes characters’ proper names in ABC-books and books for children. The aim of the analysis is to show how such textual elements as names of literary characters can support and contribute to child’s cognitive development. The analysis focuses on Estonian children’s literature, ABC-books and primary school textbooks published during the period of 1990–2004. The article is based on Lev Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development. Vygotsky has distinguished and defined different phases in the development of children’s linguistic abilities. Primarily the child grasps the words functioning as proper names, then the gradual development of concepts will take place. Main attention is directed to animal characters’ names, because different species are among the first experiences of classifications and categories for the infant. There appears to be a correspondence between the usage of different name types in children’s literature and the phases of child cognitive development. Therefore different name types support the development of cognition and the abilities of categorization. As a rule, the names in children’s literature are also motivated and bear various connotations or describe the features of literary characters.

• Details
• Contents