Nascent Folklore: Communication and Aesthetics in Infancy

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Katharine R. M. Schramm

Abstract

The question of when folklore begins is one which is simultaneously philosophical, biological, and psychological. It hinges by implication on what, indeed, constitutes folklore. If we assume that folklore is artistic, communicative, culturally grounded, and socially actuated, something must come before the more recognizable forms of tradition, performance, and identity — a nascent folklore. Not only is there interesting material in the prelinguistic, pre-genre, pre-self arena of infant behavior that recommends itself to our attention as folklorists of children, but we as folklorists can recognize it and comment upon it, using the tools at our disposal. We can engage with proto-cultural agents through an interdisciplinary approach that does not relinquish our qualitative methods for quantitative ones.

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