2. 考研
  3. Questions of when, where, how, and with whom children’s riddles [are used] have been addressed in the folkloristic and anthropol

Questions of when, where, how, and with whom children’s riddles [are used] have been addressed in the folkloristic and anthropol

admin2019-06-20  21
问题    Questions of when, where, how, and with whom children’s riddles [are used] have been addressed in the folkloristic and anthropological literature, but they have rarely been answered in depth. Prior to the 1960s or so, collecting standards allowed considerable latitude in the recording of contextual and interactional data. Many researchers simply ignored the information. Others sketched out basic parameters, but too often their observations tended toward the obvious and the dominant. For example, researchers have tended to regard community members as a homogeneous group, thereby assuming that whatever was true for adult riddling held e-qually well for children’s. Or, they viewed children themselves as undiversified, thereby bypassing differences in riddling due to youngsters’ ages, or, in urban areas, their ethnic heritage. Especially problematic has been information about settings and interactional events that encourage or inhibit riddling.
   Despite this unevenness in the literature, enough information is retrievable to at least hint at some cross-cultural trends. As the first of these, we can identify two broadly different tracks that communities take with regard to the appropriateness of distinct groups’ engaging in riddling. First, these are groups that treat riddling as an activity open to both adults and children. Among the Anang of Nigeria, for instance, both adults and children may pose and answer riddles. Secondly, and in contrast to groups like the Anang, communities may limit active involvement according to the age (or perhaps, the social status) of the potential participants. In some cases, riddling is seen as an adult prerogative. Though riddles may be posed occasionally to children for specific purposes, such as testing the youngsters’ intelligence, they are not otherwise encouraged to participate. As an alternative to across-the-board restrictions based on age, other communities require children to simply remain silent when riddling occurs in adult social events.
   Within the literature, the most frequently reported occasions of adult-child riddling are those involving pedagogy and leisure-time activity, respectively. In pedagogy riddling, the adult takes on the role of teacher, the child the role of student. The interactions can occur in the home as well as in the school. To take the home environment first: Among the Chamula of Central America, mothers may use riddles in teaching their children to talk. In the Ozark mountains of the United States in the 1930s, some parents regarded "working’ out riddles" as an intellectual discipline for children. They posed riddles to their children in the hope of training the children’s minds. Similar motives appear to have been behind adult-child riddling in other areas of the United States and in Europe. By far, the most frequent reports of pedagogic riddling is used to amuse children while testing their wit and competence in culture-specific values. With respect to pedagogic riddling in the school environment, several curriculum reports have suggested that riddling in the classroom can aid youngsters’ development of perceptual and descriptive skills. Although to my knowledge we have no ethnographic reports of pedagogic riddling within the mainstream classroom, there exists at least one report treating riddle use in formal, non-English language instruction. Diane Roskies studied classroom activities in Kheyder, a Jewish primary school. There, a variety of verbal art forms were applied in the teaching of the [Hebrew] alphabet. As one example of the pedagogic play, the children were encouraged to tell riddles dealing with the shapes of the letters.
   In contrast to pedagogic riddling, leisure-time riddling is pursued as an end in itself. Entertainment is the primary goal. Generally speaking, leisure-time riddling between children and adults develops in the vicinity of the home, when practical obligations are few. Although parents and siblings appear to be children’s most frequent co-participants, youngsters confronted by more distant relatives and other visitors may find that they can use riddling to communicate across the " small-talk barrier. " Of course, it is always possible that this arrangement can backfire. Proud of their "funny, clever" children, parents have been known to encourage the youngsters to "perform" riddles for the parents’ friends.
What does the author imply about parents who use leisure-time riddling at home?
选项 A、They occasionally overestimate others’ interest in their children.
B、They use riddling to distract their children from more practical tasks.
C、They encourage their children to perform riddles when conversation lags.
D、They try to have children share riddles with their siblings.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。由第四段最后三句可知，孩子们可以在和远亲或是朋友出现交流问题时猜谜语以避免尴尬，且父母也鼓励孩子们在朋友面前猜谜。[C]项表述符合文义，故为答案。
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