The practice of lulling in contemporary urban culture: parental folklore and children’s needs

This study describes the practice of lulling in contemporary urban culture and its accompanying speech forms and nonverbal components. The research material included interviews with parents, which were recorded in Saint Petersburg from 2008 to 2015. Thirty-seven such records (33 women and 4 men) were made during the gender study. In was interesting to find out which texts the parents used as lullabies and what they felt when lulling their children to sleep and how the children reacted to it. It was found that various texts and melodies, which the respondents were sung in their childhood, were used as lullabies; these texts and melodies came from different genres and times, including contemporary works. The repertoire is generally based on the personal experience of the performer. Adults sing to their children the things that they themselves learned during their childhood, folk lullabies, which they are familiar with after reading children’s books, popular hits and military songs that they learned while attending the school choir. The choice to use this or that text as a lullaby can be related to the state of emotional comfort and calmness of the performer. Thus, the lullaby is addressed equally to both participants of the process - the child and the performer. Through certain strategies (rocking, humming), parents also access their own feelings and gain the ability to control them. It is worth noting that the textual content of the lullaby is not as important for the child as it is for the adult. Children’s needs primarily come from the rhythm and melody of the performed work. Therefore, it is possible to conclude that the lullaby is a means that allows working with the internal state of the performer.