The Use of Rhyming Linguistic Structures in Illustrated Children’s Books

Abstract

The aim of this study is to reveal how the use of rhyming linguistic structures in illustrated children’s books addressed to the preschool period is displayed. The study is a qualitative study aiming to reveal the utilisation of rhyming structures in works published within the scope of Turkish children’s literature and the appearance of these linguistic structures in books with a focus on the books determined as the object of study. In this study, the works were analysed through descriptive analysis. The works analysed in the study consist of 3 books selected among illustrated children’s books with a target audience of preschool children (4-6 years old). The illustrated children’s books analysed in the study were selected from literary narrative texts and limited to books that have the potential to reflect rhyming linguistic structures and stand out in online book sales sites with these aspects. Among the selected books, 2 of them were copyrighted and 1 of them was a work of translation and 3 works in total were analysed. In the focus of the quantitative and qualitative findings, it can be stated that all the books analysed offer a rich narrative ground in terms of the use of rhyming linguistic structures. The diversity of sounds, rhyming expressions, sound similarities, reinforcements, doublings, reflected sounds, doublings derived from reflected sounds and word repetitions are linguistic elements that can contribute to the linguistic development of preschool children. On the other hand, the intense presence of these elements in the texts has also enabled the texts to have a unique rhythm of discourse. The analysed texts, as narrative fiction texts, are extremely rich texts in terms of capturing a rhyming discourse, reinforcing, including doubling and reflected sounds and words, and can contribute to the formation of the child’s literary taste. In the texts, end-of-line and in-sentence rhyming (sound similarities) are used more than other linguistic structures such as reinforcement, doubling and reflected sounds. It is extremely important to determine the presence of rhyming linguistic structures in the books and to examine the quality of these elements in determining whether the children’s books addressed to the preschool period support phonological awareness in terms of language and expression features.