From Verbal Play to Talk Story: The Role of Routines in Speech Events among Hawaiian Children

Abstract

This chapter discusses some of the factors that may have enabled the children of Napua Team to perform in such a complex manner. Knowledge of verbal routines is not sufficient in itself to organize such complex performances in a group of children at this age. The chapter presents the evidence to indicate that sex narratives in the Napua Team group may have evolved from a pattern of sexual teasing that the children already engaged in. It is also noted that this pattern of teasing has its sources in adolescent and adult behavior. Common rhetorical devices can be traced to established verbal and nonverbal routines. Thus, stories are usually enacted with extensive use of gestures, bodily actions, and quoted speech. Children acquire the basic structure of some verbal routines and have the ability to perform them some years before they regularly have an opportunity to practice them or demonstrate their ability to others.