Conduites épilangagières de lecteurs débutants vis-à-vis des livres de jeunesse selon leur éducation familiale et scolaire
In: Enfance, Volume 42, Issue 3, p. 107-122
ISSN: 1969-6981
Our study, carried out upon 91 children from 5 to 6 year old, has explored their epi- linguistic behaviour towards children's books. The latter are viewed not only as objects of langage, but also as textual and discursive unities, and this at four levels (phologicalj graphemical, syntaxical, semantical and pragmatical) . The results of that study have been confronted with those of the adapted tests by J. Downing et al., assessing the « language awareness » of code unities. Our overal results underline the ability of 5 to 6 year old children to generate epi- language processes and behaviours towards children's books at the various above mentionned levels. The results to the tests upon books are higher than those to the tests of J. Downing et al. .* they underline the children's conscious access to the functions and funtionning of textual and discursive unities written in books. The processing of that conscious access depends upon three factors which have been studied : social background, family type of initiation into books, and didactical treatment in kindergarten.