TWO NURSERY RHYME POEMS FROM A TEXT WORLD THEORY PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

The analysis of two nursery rhyme poems from the perspective of Text World Theory shows the complexity of discourse structure of the genre that is popularly believed to be young children-oriented. According to P. Werth, J. Gavins, P. Stockwell, text worlds (alternative spelling: text-worlds) are mental constructs/representations that enable the author to create a particular text and readers/listeners, to understand and interpret it. Such worlds greatly depend on the linguistic cues and the context of the text, as well as on one’s general knowledge of the real world and his/her literary experience. In the current study, the discourse of the nursery rhymes Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall and Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word is viewed in three aspects: (a) world-building elements that set temporal and spatial parameters, specify enactors and objects that are present in the text-world; function-advancing propositions; relational processes; (b) sub-worlds, or world-switches; (c) modalworlds. In Humpty Dumpty Sat on a Wall, the switch of deictic text-worlds is triggered by the implied change of local parameters and the introduction of new enactors. On the other hand, Hush Little Baby, Don’t Say a Word has a complex structure of consequently interrelated text-worlds. Its initial textworld, unlike that of the first poem, is of the deontic modal type. All the other worlds (except for the last one) are either epistemic or boulomaic modalworlds, both types being realized in the same complex sentences that describe various hypothetical situations in the future and the enactor’s further actions. Each new world consequently evolves from the previous one. This process is ensured by consequent repetition of nouns that denote enactors and/or objects and by parallel constructions that present hypothetical situations and describe the enactor’s possible actions. Thus, the analysis of the two nursery rhyme poems from a Text World Theory perspective has made it possible to establish complex intratextual relations in their discourse; besides, it has shown that the poems are designed so as to facilitate the development of young recipients’ cognitive skills.