ABSTRACT
This book presents a most detailed and comprehensive collection of the oral lore of the early child and the early adolescent in contemporary Britain. The material was gathered, mainly, but not wholly, by teachers from seventy non-fee-paying schools. The authors, however, believe that the collection is representative of the child population. The oral traditions of children in fee-paying schools and the language-use of delinquents are excluded. The language-use of children in residential institutions is not represented. The material is classified under such headings as ‘Guile’, ‘Partisanship’, ‘The Child and Authority’, ‘The Code of Oral Legislation’, and gives an overwhelming impression of the all-pervasiveness of the speech form used by a child in his peer group. The classification has been used for the purposes of description and provides a linguistic inventory of an age grade from five to fifteen years. Especially interesting are the maps which show the regional distribution of the chief contributing schools and the areas where special terms, rituals and games are to be found. It would have been of great sociological interest if the material had been organized along sex, age and class lines, but this was not the intention of the authors. There can be no doubt that this book provides social scientists with a unique source of reference which is of significance to students of sub-cultures, child development and dynamic psychology.
