FACTORS INFLUENCING FOLKTALE STORYSINGING

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CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 gave an account of the entire study with the purpose of providing a background to folktale “storysinging” when teaching young children Setswana and presented the problem statement. The assumption was that teachers need help to teach effectively in line with their qualifications to teach a grade 3 class. They also needed to be empowered with the knowledge of singing Setswana folktale story songs. Folktale storysinging has inherently been part of the culture of the Setswana-speaking nation from home-based schooling up to the Grade 3 classroom. One issue is a belief that the education of a young child is in the hands of a community, as supported by the term of “Tirisano”, a DoE (1997) Campaign, which means “working together”.
Reviewing literature broadly will also assist in understanding how teachers and parents can work together to teach Setswana-speaking young children folktale story songs, and also complying with the set policies that integrate the teacher-elder community. This section provides a description of aspects of socio-political and socio- linguistic use of Setswana language under the following points:

  • Understanding folktale storysinging;
  • The oral language of folktale stories as used in the local context;
  • The oral language of folktale stories as used in the national context; and
  • The oral language of folktale stories as used in the international context.

UNDERSTANDING FOLKTALE STORYSINGING

The Batswana people like singing, dancing and praise singing which are part of the oral performance. They sing on all occasions and compose songs on all social aspects of human life. The oral performances of Batswana contain words of wisdom that covertly and overtly educate people about some specific aspects of social life (Mohitlhi and Quan-Baffour, 2011). According to Quan-Baffour (2009), musicality is an innate drive which is as fundamental as speech. These researchers postulate that Batswana communities have long started to realise the importance of musical spaces and they make use of them to socialise and communicate with their young children. For their relationships to stand firm and be enjoyed, teachers and elders are responsible to utilising the school and home as spaces for singing folktale story songs. The continuity of such practices makes the singer competent in language and the listener will later practice as the singer too. Hall (1987) found that oral language emerges in children when the following conditions are present: (a) children are the major constructors of language; (b) parent, teachers, and caregivers serve as facilitators not transmitters, of language development; (c) language is embedded in the context of the daily life of the child.
Sutton-Smith (1999) is of the opinion that folklorists today are more concerned with the actual living performance of these traditional materials (dance, song, tales) in their particular settings, with their functional or aesthetic character in particular contexts. Unfortunately, such « live » studies are more difficult to carry out than studies of collected records or reports-and so we have very few of them. On this note, several contributions made by researchers on the importance of using folktale songs to teaching young children fall into the stated opinion by collecting and reporting on such songs contextually and leaving out giving the melody. At times the melody given does not address Setswana language. The approach I take to discuss how folktale songs for young children have been researched as discussed below in order to understand the base of folktale storysinging in Setswana.

What is storysinging?

“Storysinging” is a compound word formed by a noun (story) and a verb (singing) used as a noun. Compounding happens when two or more words are joined together to form a new word in which the meanings of the two words are combined. Thus storysinging means “the singing of stories” or “a story”.
A more constructive way of looking at “storysinging” is how it orthographically differs from storytelling. When both terms are preceded by the word “folktale”, they become categorised under folklore, in this case Setswana folklore. For the purpose of this research and chapter, storysinging belongs to a field of folklore and is a branch of the study of folktales. This study introduces “storysinging” as a new and distinct term in the sphere of folktales. Many researchers internationally and nationally have concentrated on storytelling or folktales with regard to identifying characters (Elson and McKeown, 2010); Losif and Mishra (2014); He, Denilson and Grzegorz (2013). This study takes into consideration that folktale characters are also identified in song.
Raṅanga (2008) argues that storytelling among Africans is dying because it is not professionalised to make people’s livelihood. In this regard, he cites problems of marketing, publicity and exposure. This study is closely related to the observations made by Phafoli (2009), who emphasises recording and the use of instruments by Basotho traditional artists who want their songs recorded and sold to the public because they want to make a living out of them. Like the Batswana nation, both studies promote customs, norms and values of South African indigenous languages, Tshivenda and Basotho respectively. To this, I believe that they the melody of folktale story songs as important in the development of young children, regarding folktale story songs as important in the development of young children.
Central to the work of Mashige (2004) cultural identity and difference in South African poetry is the question of whether Setswana folktale story songs should be seen within the confines of articulating the identity of young children. It is crucial to understand this because the recognition of social differences opens space to form a new vision for self-reflection in the development of young children. In the context of folktale storysinging, the articulation of cultural identity is seen as an effective method of bringing to the centre stage the pertinent point of freedom self-identity in the freedom in the classroom for teachers and young children, to listen and dance.
According to Ntuli (2011) and the writings of Ong (2002), the oral performance to picture books about orality and literacy explore some of the profound research about folktales. Ntuli (2011) discusses and presents the lullabies and game songs of Zulu children’s literature, together with the picture books and their functions. Findings point to an urgent need to train African authors to consider young children’s level of development when writing. Ong (2002) drew heavily on the characteristics of orality by examining thought and its verbal expression in societies in his book “The presence of the word” (1967). Taken together, both researchers present a coherent approach to written literature that affects the speech act. For this study, this is a communication skill in the form of singing the folktale songs that includes the teaching of young children. Peregoy and Boyle (1997) state that for most children, learning the written language requires a lot of more explicit instruction and a lot of practice. In line with my studies is the fact that listening and speaking in folktale stories in a classroom eventually move to singing. However, none of the above researchers focus on “storysinging” as a researchable concept that carries melody in folktale songs, and how this can be used to teach young children.
A folkloristic line must be drawn between storysinging and storytelling. It is possible to tell a story by way of reading, where the narrator takes care of prosodic features (Lyons, 2007). Prosodic features include aspects such as emphasis and intonation. On the other hand, the power of “storysinging” is that it contains and even projects the features emphasis and intonation through the element of melody to capture the texts identified as songs in the story.

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Similarities and differences between storysinging and storytelling

Both storysinging and storytelling use a phonic medium (Lyons, 2007) that can be studied from the acoustic and auditory point. This research adopts the acoustic and auditory point of view as part of folktale storysinging. Moreover, I believe that both aspects can be integrated because they produce sound which is intended to be heard by young children when folktale songs are sung. The auditory dimension has the element of pitch and loudness or softness. Berryman (2013) cites the Welsh government that music in school is not just a basic human and educational entitlement; it should be sensitively designed to address the diversity of our musical developments.

DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY
CLEARANCE CERTIFICATE
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
DECLARATION OF LANGUAGE EDITING
TSHOSOBANYO .
LIST OF ACRONYMS
CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY 
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT OF FOLKTALE STORYSINGING
1.3 RATIONALE
1.4 PROBLEM STATEMENT
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.6 LITERATURE REVIEW.
1.7 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK.
1.8 DEFINITION OF CONCEPTS
1.9 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS.
1.10 ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER.
1.11 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
1.12 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION.
2.2 UNDERSTANDING FOLKTALE STORYSINGING
2.3 FACTORS INFLUENCING FOLKTALE STORYSINGING
2.4 THE ORAL LANGUAGE OF FOLKTALE STORIES AS USED IN THE LOCAL CONTEXT
2.5 THE ORAL LANGUAGE OF FOLKTALE STORIES AS USED IN THE NATIONAL CONTEXT
2.6 THE ORAL LANGUAGE OF FOLKTALE STORIES AS USED IN THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT .
2.7. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK INFORMING FOLKTALE STORYSINGING TO TEACH YOUNG CHILDREN
2.8 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS 
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 RESEARCH DESIGN
3.3 SAMPLING
3.4 DATA COLLECTION STRATEGIES
3.5 DATA ANALYSIS
3.6 THE ROLE OF THE RESEARCHER
3.7 ETHICAL CONCERNS
3.8 CONCLUSION.
CHAPTER 4: DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS 
4.1 INTRODUCTION
4.2 DATA CONTEXTUALISATION
4.3 DATA ANALYSIS PROCESS
4.6 CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSIONS OF FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDY
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 FINDINGS FROM SETSWANA FOLKTALE STORYSINGING:LITERATURE CONTROL
5.3 DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS ACCORDING TO THE THEMES
5.4 ANSWERING THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS
5.5 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY TO THE KNOWLEDGE DOMAIN
5.6 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR PROMOTING FOLKTALE STORYSINGING
5.7 FURTHER STUDY
5.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
5.9 CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
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