Here's an article from the Guardian about a mathematical analysis of Dr seuss's 'non-words' (this is a good alternative to 'nonsense' which implies you can't understand it). The Canadian professor, Chris Westbury, suggests that the entropy of words (how like high-frequency words they are because of letters included and familiar letter combinations) is an indicator of how funny readers will find words (low frequency/'low entropy' inclusions and combinations, the research suggests, are inherently funnier).
What I feel is not considered is the placing of those words in sentences which might make them more or less predictable and, significantly for a child's book, the phonemic combinations rather than the graphemic ones.
Post with what you like about Dr Seuss and any response to this article.
So why isn't Jabberwocky funny? Also, there are some sinister aspects of Dr Seuss's work - look at how the upper class fox humiliates the working class character in Green Eggs and Ham - analyse the techniques carefully and you will never look at tongue twisters the same way again!
ReplyDeleteI like it and also think that rhyming in children's book makes them understand the book as well as making it easier to understand. images also allow the child to understand the book and understanding what the author thinks it would be like and what the author is trying to show that is happening throughout the stages of the book.
ReplyDeleteThere are only four minutes between the posting time of your last comment and this one - is that because you were typing up after making notes on them all? It's important to look up words you don't know and really the about how ideas might be used in the exam so the time invested in each article should be at least 20 mins. More like 30.
ReplyDeleteI think that by including different pitched words and making the lexis sound funnier its engaging his target audience more of small children, however its also possibly engaging adults who may read this aloud to the children- by making it sound more exiting while reading it and by including 'nonsense' words it will require them to put more effort into reading it- similar to the children; Dr Seuss's Books are almost making the adults become the children, as he is teaching them how to read completely new words thats are unfamiliar to them - and they may also be using the images to help work out what some o the words mean.
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