Structural-semantic features and pragmalinguistic potential of teasing rhymes in German junior schoolchild's discourse

The paper deals with several types of teasing rhyme structure: two-component rhymed utterances that consist of a person nomination and a rhyming element, rhymed utterances with an attributively modifying word combination; teasing rhymes as a complex structure texts. It is pointed out that the rhymed component is based on assessment of personality or a person's name, teasing rhymes may be based on pejorative names that are regularly directed to an addressee. They are specified with humor tone and play on words; they are used with the aim to ridicule names, appearance, traits of character or behavior of a child. The teasing rhyme as a unit of functional pragmalinguistics is viewed as a vocative that helps in self-presentation in the German junior schoolchild's discourse. The authors state that the choice of a certain type of the teasing rhyme depends on a number of circumstances: communicative situation, relationship between speakers, and communicative purpose of speech. The analysis of teasing rhyme demonstrated some regulations: while choosing semantic fillers a child might address to the following communicative tactics in accessing the communicative strategy of self-presentation: the tactics that demonstrates self-belonging to a group or the tactics of the addressee humiliation. The results of research enable to conclude that teasing rhymes reflect interpersonal relations of junior schoolchildren at school and in the family, they may be viewed as verbal means that set social norms of life for children.