Playful punctuation in primary children’s narrative writing

ABSTRACT

Framed within the fields of applied linguistics and language play, the writing of three attainment groups of 9–11-year-old children was used to investigate their use of ludic (playful) punctuation in the composition of an imaginative narrative. The scripts were from a larger repeat-design study of writing development that addressed a range of linguistic features. It became apparent that the scripts contained a range of language play features, including the use of ludic punctuation, and these were then systematically studied. A total of 71 stories were analysed to identify and categorise the playful punctuation that the children used in this writing task. A range of ludic punctuation was found, most notably in the use of quotation marks, exclamation marks and question marks. In contrast, the asterisk, interrobang, underlining, brackets and dash were used infrequently. There were clear differences between the attainment groups in the content and range of these uses. The findings indicate that 10–11 year-old children find that narrative writing offers a range of opportunities for creative and playful uses of punctuation, even though they were not prompted to do this. The findings also suggest that such uses – like language play as a whole – warrant further investigation.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s writing
• narrative
• playful punctuation

Introduction

Punctuation is an integral part of written English, as it is in many written languages. The topic has been discussed at length by distinguished linguists (e.g. Crystal 2016) and by professional writers (e.g. Truss 2003; Waterhouse 1994). Yet, relatively few empirical investigations have been undertaken in educational research into children’s use of punctuation. The investigations that have been done in schools have used an ethnographic perspective (Hall 1998, 2009); less work has been done on how children use punctuation in playful ways, especially when undertaking writing of a literary kind, which is the focus of the present article, which is framed within the field of applied (educational) linguistics (Spolsky 1978; Crystal 1998).

Defining language play

Children frequently encounter language play. Despite this, the playful function of language has been a relatively neglected subject in research and scholarly publications, regardless of the positive contribution that it can make to language learning. Crystal (1998) argues that the playful function of language is important for our appreciation of language as a whole and suggests the term ‘ludic linguistics’ for its academic study. Crystal also suggests that language play occurs when people manipulate language as a source of fun for themselves and for others. This is often done by effectively bending and breaking the rules of the language.

However, further consideration suggests that language play may not necessarily be ‘for fun’. It may occur where a sense of fun is not evident, particularly in persuasion, argument and disputes. Nor does language play necessarily have to involve ‘rule-breaking’, for instance, in puns, rhymes or alliteration. Taking account of these qualifications, a more wide-ranging view of language play is one that recognises how linguistic features can be used to draw attention to themselves, in addition to communicating the content of oral or spoken language. In this way, an effect is achieved that would not otherwise have been present, and perhaps even consciously avoided, if the focus were only on the essential content of the written communication. Language play is an aspect of linguistics that has recently been subject to a re-appraisal which seems somewhat overdue, given the advent of new forms of literacy, including digital and multi-modal (Beard and Burrell 2021; Crystal 2021). This re-appraisal has explored its many dimensions in different genres and at text, sentence and word levels, from the past and the present, and from the UK and from overseas. Language play also has the potential to motivate students and add interest to the curriculum, as part antidote to the unintended consequences of the high stakes culture of testing and pupil performance that has evolved internationally.

Other linguists who have drawn attention to language play as a focus for applied linguistics research include the seminal work of Leech (1966) and Cook (2000). Several empirical studies have provided evidence of a link specifically between language play and literacy development more generally (e.g. Ely and McCabe 1994; Ravid and Geiger 2009; Read, James, and Weaver 2018).

For the purposes of the present article, and given the definitional issues mentioned above, the long-established work of Nilsen and Nilsen (1978, 28) is especially helpful. They define language play as ‘any use of language that is creative and unusual: that has purpose beyond the mere communication of basic information’. Language play is especially evident in literary texts, which are the focus of this article. Both narrative and persuasive genres were the focus of the research, but findings from an analysis of the children’s persuasive writing are reported elsewhere (Burrell and Beard 2022).

What punctuation does

According to the Treccani (2012) international encyclopaedia, punctuation helps us establish meaning in text through the use of a set of conventional signs. It performs several functions in written text:

• Segmenting (spacing text elements apart)

• Syntactic (dividing and hierarchy of elements of the sentence)

• Emotional intoning (suggesting intonation)

• Direct speech introduction (indicating dialogue)

• Comment (indicating author’s interventions or additional notes)

Ravid and Tolchinsky argue that a primary function of punctuation is ‘signalling nuances of semantic significance which might otherwise not be conveyed at all.’ (2002, 438). Caracciolo (2014), citing the work of Nunberg (1990) suggests that punctuation needs to be considered alongside other graphical features of written text, as they serve the same kinds of purposes. According to Caracciolo, these written cues serve a similar function to non-verbal communicative cues that accompany spoken language (see also Ravid and Tolchinsky (2002, 437)). In spoken language, these include volume (loud/soft) and prosody (intonation, rhythm, etc.). However, writers are constrained by their inability to use such paralanguage. Instead, punctuation and typographical layout helps writers to achieve more nuanced meanings and convey emotions which Caracciolo (2014) explores using examples from such disparate literary narratives as James Joyce’s Ulysses (in which the punctuation is erratic), Mark Danielewski’s The House of Leaves and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Playful approaches to punctuation

People have long played around with punctuation and children sometimes use playful names for it, too. Hall and Sing (2011, 89) note how the term ‘speech mark’ was not a regular part of the vocabulary of the Years 3 and 4 children in their study (respectively 7–8 year olds and 8–9 year olds). Instead, the children favoured the terms ‘sixty sixes’ and ‘ninety nines’ to designate speech marks (a mnemonic useful for learning the order of punctuation with direct speech). Hall and Sing also found that children would sometimes invent terminology (such as ‘speech comma’ and ‘flying comma’).

Literary writing in particular has sometimes seen punctuation being playfully omitted. For example, the final chapter of Ulysses has no punctuation between two full stops. The poet e. e. cummings used capital letters inconsistently and often largely ignored conventional punctuation. Playfulness has sometimes been extended to the invention of new punctuation marks. The percontation mark was proposed by the sixteenth century English printer, Henry Denham. This mark takes the form of a mirrored question mark and was intended to be used at the end of a rhetorical question. Several forms of punctuation have been proposed to convey irony, including an inverted exclamation mark (by John Wilkins in 1668) and an oversized arrow head (by Marcellin Jobard in 1841). Tom Driberg (Houston 2015) suggested irony be conveyed using italics that leaned the other way.

In the nineteenth century, the French poet Alcanter de Brahm introduced the idea of the irony mark. Similar looking to the percontation mark, this mark is smaller, elevated and precedes the sentence to indicate its tone before it is read. In 1962 Martin K. Speckter, an American advertising executive, proposed the interrobang (see Figure 1) as a punctuation mark used to convey disbelief. This mark combines the function of a question mark (interrogative point) and an exclamation mark (known by printers as a ‘bang’) – hence the name interrobang.

Figure 1. An interrobang.

Other forms of playfulness have taken the form of unorthodox visual or auditory representations of punctuation. Nicholas Rougeux (a Chicago-based designer and data artist) examined the visual rhythm of punctuation in well-known works of literature for his Between the Words poster series (Rougeux 2016). This entailed removing all the letters, numbers (with the exception of chapter numbers), spaces and line breaks from these works so that only the punctuation was left in one continuous line as they appear in those texts. Rougeux arranged the text in a spiral, with markings for each chapter and an illustration in the centre (see Figure 2) to create a visual representation resembling a vinyl record. Ferro (2016) comments how ‘The designs evoke the rhythm and cadence of the texts in the abstract, revealing the authors’ predilections for endless dialogue or numerous dashes.’

Figure 2. The punctuation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (excerpt). Artwork from ‘Between The Words’ (Rougeux 2016).

The conversion of punctuation to speech in order to explore its auditory qualities has been explored by the Danish comedian Victor Borge; he improvised different onomatopoeic sounds while reading aloud, using what he called ‘phonetic punctuation’ (Nielsen Business Media 1946) that may be viewed on YouTube (Bradley 2013). It is interesting to note that Borge often used story extracts to showcase the way punctuation can confirm and embellish the narrative structure. Narrative provides rich source material for the addition of playful punctuation, as the following paragraphs illustrate.

Playful punctuation in narrative writing

According to authoritative studies in the field of rhetoric, narrative is one of the primary modes of discourse that can fulfil a range of communicative aims. One of the common features of narrative structure is the use of a timeline to convey characters’ actions. Where these actions are centred around some form of plot, perhaps leading to tension and resolution, the text may be deemed ‘a story’, although the distinction between narrative and story is the focus of continuing debate. If stories are commonly used as vehicles of entertainment in print media, they may be seen as fulfilling literary aims, as opposed to expressive, referential or persuasive ones (Kinneavy 1971; Kinneavy, Cope, and Campbell 1976; Nelson and Kinneavy 2003).

Punctuation use within a text can vary according to the narrative’s structure, with genre theorists providing a more linguistically-informed version of the traditional distinctions between a ‘beginning, middle and end’ framework, such as the ‘orientation, disruption (sequence of events) and resolution’ proposed by Martin and Rothery (1980). A more nuanced, five-part framework is provided by Graham (1997), ‘opening, inciting moment, development, denouement and ending’. Graham validates the framework by applying it to a selection of children’s literature and the framework has influenced recent work on language play in children’s writing (Burrell and Beard 2018b).

Some writers have added to the entertainment value of literary narratives through the extravagant use of playful punctuation. Lukeman (2006) suggests there are limitless benefits of punctuation for the creative writer. For example, he argues that a writer can:

• add complexity through the use of brackets

• capture a certain dialogue through the use of dashes

• keep readers hooked through the use of section breaks.

Character dialogue may include the use of additional punctuation besides speech marks. The exclamation mark is among several punctuation marks which have a particularly variable function, providing writers with the opportunity to use them in playful ways. For example, the exclamation mark can be used to indicate intensity in a range of emotions in writing (such as excitement, surprise, astonishment), as well as indicating sudden order, volume or emphasising a point. Writers can also use italics or block capitals for emphasis (McAteer 1989, 1992). Ellipses can be used to express hesitation in the character’s speech or create suspense. A dash may be used to indicate a dramatic pause in a character’s speech. Dialogue between characters might include the use of questions which can play an important role in sustaining the dialogue and engaging the reader.

Playful punctuation in children’s literature

Punctuation use can vary according to the writer’s style and also the type of text being written. Nicholas Rougeux’s (2016) exploration of punctuation in literary classics reveals some interesting differences between texts (see also Calhoun 2016). Regarding children’s literature, Rougeux remarks that, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, there are a large number of exclamation marks which reflect the expressions of surprise and strong reaction in the story.

In the twentieth century, Roald Dahl was generally recognised as one of the greatest storytellers for children. Dahl’s inventive and playful use of language have no doubt been key elements in his success as a children’s author. A detailed look at Dahl’s language play shows how children’s books can be made more appealing through the incorporation of memorable linguistic qualities within the narrative structure (Beard and Burrell 2021; Cheetham 2015; Rudd 2012; Tanto 2008, 2015a, 2015b, 2018, 2020). Dahl’s wordplay is most celebrated in the way he creates the language used by the ‘Big Friendly Giant’. There are recurrent uses of non-standard syntax in The BFG, with all the giants using features of non-standard English syntax, especially in their use of the verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’. Rudd (2012) draws parallels between Dahl’s writing and the qualities of advertising where particular consideration is given to language’s more oral features that he argues are frequently neglected in literature. Assonance, alliteration, puns and volume are examples of phonological elements cited by Rudd, with the latter being fulfilled orthographically in Dahl’s use of punctuation. A close look at Dahl’s books reveals recurrent use of the following:

• round brackets for humorous asides (particularly in The BFG and James and the Giant Peach);

• block capitals to express emphasis (particularly in George’s Marvellous Medicine and Danny The Champion of the World);

• dashes in disjointed speech or explanations (as in George’s Marvellous Medicine and Danny The Champion of the World);

• ellipses to leave something to the reader’s imagination or to create suspense (as in James and the Giant Peach, George’s Marvellous Medicine and The BFG);

• exclamation marks to emphasise a point or to attract the reader’s attention (as in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator and The BFG);

• italics to highlight onomatopoeic words (as in The Enormous Crocodile) or to emphasise moods and emotions (as in all the other books listed above).

Dahl’s work also includes an interesting approximation to an interrobang, to indicate a mixture of query and interjection (as in George’s Marvellous Medicine: ‘“Can you see it, Grandma?!” George shouted’).

The playful aspects of language by other best-selling children’s authors have been the subject of recent research by Nwokah et al. (2019) who provide an in-depth case study of language play in Dav Pilkey’s Captain Underpants series. Similarly, Tanto’s (2015a) research focuses on the different types of language play found in J. K. Rowling’s first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Typography in picture books has become especially diverse with a range of different devices being employed such as block capitals, bold, italics and different typefaces being used for playful effects. In the UK, the best-selling junior fiction books by David Walliams are a topical example. His books have used extensive typographic creativity, so that the text of virtually every page is broken up by typeface variations for verbal exclamations and the sounds that are an integral part of the narrative. Other topical examples include the best-selling books of Liz Pichon (Tom Gates series) and Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid series). Pichon’s books are heavily influenced by her background in graphic design. Her handwriting has created its own Pichon font which is used playfully with her black and white doodle-like illustrations. Kinney employs typographic creativity using the conventions of diary and comic strip writing.

Graphic novels, such as those of Pilkey, are similar to comics in that they include boxed pictures and text (known as lettering). According to Dong (2011), many of the conventions found in serial comics were borrowed by the creators of graphic novels. Piekos (n.d.), who has worked for both Marvel and DC Comics, explains some of the traditions of comic book lettering where typography and layout is used in a playful way as illustrated in the use speech balloons for different effects. For example,

• double outline balloons are used to add emphasis to dialogue;

• burst balloons are used to indicate a character screaming;

• dialogue inside these balloons is often in bold and particular words are enlarged or underlined for added emphasis;

• in contrast, whispered dialogue is shown by a balloon with a dashed stroke.

• one or two music notes inside a dialogue balloon indicates singing while sung dialogue is often shown in italic and follows a wavy baseline;

• a character muttering something is shown using a reduced font size creating additional space inside the balloon.

Children’s exposure to playful punctuation in the digital world

Narrative is only one of many genres where children will encounter the playful use of punctuation. In the digital world, text messaging is characterised by its own distinctive graphology in which punctuation marks are repurposed to create informal graphic representations of emotions called emoticons (formed from the English words emotion and icon). Two popular emoticons incorporating these (and the hyphen) are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Textisms incorporating playful punctuation.

Children often use a special type of register when they send text messages to their friends – referred to as textese (Van Dijk et al. 2016). Textese allows the omission of words and the use of textisms, of which a broad variety exist (see Table 1), some using punctuation in unconventional and playful ways. Drum (2015) comments how textisms allows the sender to express tone, which is often missing from simple text-based communication. Plester and Wood (2009) examined British children’s use of text messaging, particularly the abbreviations and characteristic language used within text messages. They argue that ‘Without the constraints of standard English conventions and rules, children are able to experiment and play with language, allowing their phonological skills to guide their experimentations without restriction. Children are in control of this text language and are free to adapt these graphical representations to express meaning how they wish’ (p.1124). Plester, Wood, and Joshi (2009) found that the most commonly-used forms of textisms among the 10–12-year-old children in their study were phonologically based, with symbolic forms being less common.

Table 1. Textisms types.

Textism type	Examples	English form
Emoticon	:-/	sceptical
	}:-)	devil
Acronyms	LOL	laugh(ing) out loud
	OMG	Oh my goodness
Abbreviations	l8r	later
	Thx	thanks
Purposefullymisused capitalisation	HE did WHAT to HIM?	He did what to him?
	I can’t believe you just said THAT!	I can’t believe you just said that!
Purposefully misused spelling	Oreeeaallllyyy?	Oh really?
	So you loooooove him!	So you love him!
Purposefullymisused punctuation	You did what???	You did what?
	I can’t believe that just happened!!!!?!?!!	I can’t believe that just happened!

Note. Table derived from: Drum (2015).

Zhao and Flewitt (2020) examined young immigrant Chinese children’s language and literacy practices on social media. Findings highlighted how young bilingual children are able to use the resources available to them on social media in creative and playful ways. This playfulness included the use of stylised semiotic resources that included visuals (emoji, kaomoji (text-based Japanese emoticons), and selfies), stickers (a combination of written language and image/moving image), and ‘virtual’ artefacts.

Despite children’s widespread exposure to playful punctuation in a variety of genres and a recent burgeoning of interest in children’s writing (e.g. Beard 2000; Beard et al. 2009; Beard and Burrell 2010a and b; Beard, Burrell, and Homer 2016; Burrell and Beard 2010, 2018a and b), the use of playful punctuation in children’s narrative writing has not been systematically investigated. The particular contribution of the present article is to report on an investigation of children’s unprompted use of playful punctuation when writing an imaginative narrative.

Previous research on children’s use of punctuation

Punctuation is one of the less-studied aspects of children’s written language development. Previous research, (see Hall and Robinson 1996 for a useful review), has tended to focus on how children develop their early understandings of punctuation. For example, Ferreiro and Teberosky (1979) showed that preschool children distinguish between punctuation marks and letters. Other studies have examined the emergence of different punctuation by children in their first years of school (e.g. Fayol 1997). Several of these studies examine the errors made by children (Cazden, Cordeiro and Giacobbe 1985; Cordeiro 1988; Cordeiro, Giacobbe, and Cazden 1983) based on a retrospective analysis of their writing. Hall and Sing (2011) report the findings of research that examined seven to nine-year olds’ understanding of speech marks. This was part of a larger study (Hall 1998) of children aged from seven to eleven-years that focused on the influence of the classroom context on children’s acquisition of punctuation.

A study by Ferreiro and Pontecorvo (1999) aimed to understand the use of punctuation in children’s early writings in connection with the organisation of the written text, with data being drawn from a larger comparative study in which children’s written stories of Little Red Riding Hood were collected from primary school children (ranging from first to fourth grade). They found even those marks rarely used in expert writers’ texts (for example, the semicolon and brackets) occurred at least once in the children’s stories. The authors also found some unexpected punctuation which included the use of multiple exclamation marks typical of comics.

Hall (1999) examined KS1 (between the ages of 5 and 7) children’s writing development over a two year period and found that children used graphic principles – where the positioning of punctuation was determined by space (such as end-of-line punctuation) – rather than linguistic principles.

Dávalos-Esparza (2017) conducted a study into primary children’s understanding of the uses and functions of punctuation. Sixty children, aged between seven and 12 years of age, were asked to independently introduce punctuation into a comic strip inspired by Aesop’s fable The Lion and the Mouse. Working in pairs alongside a researcher, children of the same year group were then asked to discuss and justify their decisions for the punctuation that they had used to complete the task. Findings suggest an evolution in the children’s conceptualisation of punctuation that progresses from punctuating by using graphic criteria to punctuating using textual criteria. Analysis of the data led to the identification of certain evolutionary indicators of the development of punctuation. Initial indicators include: punctuation at the edges; graphic criteria focussing on order or visual highlight. In contrast, later indicators of development include: combining the use of basic punctuation with expressive forms (question marks and exclamation marks) in almost all areas of the text; choosing one mark – among several – to create an effect on the reader or to change a word’s meaning.

Dávalos-Esparza’s (2017) study provides useful insights into children’s reasons for using particular punctuations marks within a narrative. Among these reasons, was the ability to select punctuation to create an effect on the reader. This resonates with the current English National Curriculum focus on how children use ‘punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning’ (DfE 2013) in their writing. Children need to be able to punctuate in ways that are appropriate to the specific kind of writing they are engaged in. This is evident when consideration is given to the aims of written discourse, as outlined in the seminal work of Kinneavy (1971).

Taylor and Clarke (2021, 22) examined the relationship between free choice reading and volitional writing in Year 5 children (9–10 years) using a survey and independent writing journals completed by the children. The researchers found ‘that children skilfully replicate stylistic and linguistic features of their preferred text types.’ Furthermore, they argue children’s ‘reading choices inform their writing in a range of different ways, including form, content, style and language’ highlighting the impact popular authors and texts have on the children’s own writing. Two of the three vignettes included in their article are comic strips – both of which contain playful punctuation. The third vignette incorporates emoji style symbols.

Pantaleo (2011) reports an intervention study where a class of Grade 7 (12 years old) children were taught about graphic books, comics and the storytelling features of these texts. A culminating activity involved each child creating their own text. Pantaleo provides an in-depth analysis of one such text to illustrate the child’s adeptness at working in multimodal ways and her ability to include several conventions and features of graphic books including narrative boxes, speech balloons, thought balloons and other text.

The present study

The present study extends recent work on language play (Beard and Burrell 2021; Burrell and Beard 2022) by examining children’s use of playful punctuation in their narrative writing. The data are from a parent study that focused on writing development in the 9–11 age-range. (The parent study was undertaken before the English National Curriculum in England was revised to include greater emphasis on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar.) It became apparent that the scripts contained a range of language play features, including the use of ludic punctuation, and these were then systematically studied. This was done by subjecting to detailed analysis the texts of three distinct focus attainment sub-groups from the parent study to address the research questions posed in the present study.

In line with the standardised task that was used, the investigation took account of five constituents of writing: purpose and organisation; grammar, vocabulary and style; punctuation; spelling; and handwriting. Although aggregate attainment scores are used in selecting the pupil sub-samples (see below), the present article addresses in particular the children’s use of playful punctuation in relation to the purpose and organisational features of the writing and aspects of grammar, vocabulary and style.

Method

The standardised task that was used to investigate the writing of an imaginative narrative by primary school children was Literacy Impact Test B (Twist and Brill 2000). It involves writing a story about a surprise reward in the form of a gift, from collecting cereal tokens. The task is supported with a teacher introduction that is set out in the Test Guide. The story prompt for the task briefly introduces a character, ‘Alex’, who receives an unexpected cereal packet gift, which ‘wasn’t what was expected’. Children are then invited to use this idea as the basis for a short story. The task is complemented by an additional one, the writing of a persuasive description, details of which are reported elsewhere (Beard, Burrell, and Homer 2016; Burrell and Beard 2018a, 2022).

Participants

The participants were 112 Year 5 (9–10 year-old) pupils (60 boys; 52 girls) from two English Local Authorities representing a range of socio-economic catchments. At the time of the investigation, the five schools that were involved all followed the statutory national curriculum and the same non-statutory guidance (additional details are provided in Beard and Burrell 2010a and Beard and Burrell 2010b).

Procedure

In line with the Guide for Literacy Impact Test B, the children were given 30 minutes to complete the task. The prompt makes no mention of the use of playful language or punctuation. The task was then administered a year later when the children were in Year 6.

The children thus completed the task twice, first in Year 5 and then 12 months later in Year 6. The tasks were administered by the respective class teachers and the extant ethical guidelines of the British Educational Research Association were followed. The Guide states that the content of the task has ecological validity in that the content was likely to appeal to both boys and girls and that it includes a gender-neutral main character (‘Alex’). As indicated above, the parent study took account of five constituents of writing, including handwriting. Children wrote their narratives in handwritten form as this was part of the children’s usual classroom practice. The analysis of the writing was undertaken on both the Year 5 and Year 6 scripts. The present article includes examples taken from Year 5 scripts (indicated accordingly in brackets after each example).

Analysis

The test guide provides a numeric scheme focused on the five constituents of writing, referred to above, applied to the narrative and the persuasive tasks (Twist and Brill 2000, v). The scheme and its administration have been discussed in a previous publication (Beard, Burrell, and Homer 2016). For the purposes of the investigation reported in the present article, the scheme was used to identify three attainment sub-groups whose use of playful punctuation writing could be analysed in detail and comparisons be made. The sub-groups comprised (i) the highest-attaining children in the Year 6 administration of the task (n = 13); (ii) the children with the lowest scores in Year 6, whose scores were also the lowest in Year 5 (n = 12); (iii) the children whose attainment increased most between Year 5 and Year 6 (n = 13, three of whom were also in the high attainment group). The attainment sub-groups were the same as those used for the earlier study of persuasive writing (Burrell and Beard 2022).

The principal research questions were:

• What features of playful punctuation are evident in children’s narrative writing?

• How does the use of this punctuation vary between different attainment sub-groups?

• What characterises the uses of this punctuation in the writing of (i) the highest attaining children (ii) the lowest attaining children and (iii) in the children whose attainment increased most over the 12-month period?

In answering the first research question, ‘What features of playful punctuation are evident in children’s narrative writing?’, all the anonymised scripts were re-read by the present authors and all forms of playful punctuation were categorised and tabulated. Only punctuation that was used by the children themselves was included in the analysis (with any missing punctuation being overlooked).

For the purpose of the study, playful punctuation included both conventional and unconventional use of punctuation. Some marks (e.g. the exclamation mark) have a particularly nuanced function (which was evident in the ways they were used by the children). Full stops and commas (basic punctuation) were not included in the analysis.

As brackets and (single and double) quotation marks only occur in pairs, each pairing was recorded as one occurrence, for example brackets – All day he played on it (except for tea and dinner); quotation marks (single) – ‘My mum is the best mum in the world.’ and (double) “Mum, I'm going to the post-box.”. Children’s use of capital letters (to express emphasis) was recorded as one occurrence where all the letters in an abbreviation (e.g. T.V.) or a single word or consecutive words appeared in block capitals (i.e. NO ONE EVER SAW HIM AGAIN). When capitals were not used in this way, they were not included in the analysis (for example, Lets sEE). Where children used multiple exclamation marks together, each mark was recorded as an individual occurrence, as was a line of spaced-out asterisk symbols.

In order to answer the second research question, concerning how the use of playful punctuation varied between different attainment sub-groups, stacked bar charts were compiled from the aggregates of playful punctuation occurrences from the two administrations of the writing task and these are shown in Figure 4. According to authoritative sources, stacked bar charts are a visualisation method that is particularly useful for presenting the sums of data attributes while allowing users to see how the values of these attributes contribute to the totals (Indratmo, Howorko, and Daniel 2018; Streit and Gehlenborg 2014).

Figure 4. Frequency and distribution of children’s playful punctuation.

In order to answer the third research question, concerning the use of playful punctuation in the writing of the highest and lowest attaining children, and children whose attainment increased most over the 12-month period, further use was made of the earlier categorisations and tabulations that were undertaken to address the first research question. Differences between occurrences of playful punctuation use in Year 5 and Year 6 were analysed in relation to the attainment groups.

Results

Figure 4 summarises the frequency and distribution of the children’s use of playful punctuation. The Figure reveals differences in the use of playful punctuation across the three attainment sub-groups. Some punctuation marks were particularly evident, most notably the use of quotation marks, exclamation marks and question marks. In contrast, the asterisk, interrobang, underlining, brackets and dash were used infrequently among the subgroups. Repeated exclamation marks were used on a few occasions.

Highest attaining group

The five-part framework outlined by Graham (1997) was consistently used by all the children whose writing was judged to be in the highest-attaining 10% of the sample. Within this organisational framework, specific techniques were employed that reflected a playful use of language and related punctuation.

Rhona’s Year 6 script, and her use of playful punctuation, is discussed in detail below, in order to exemplify the writing of the high attaining group. A synopsis of her narrative and her use of the five-part framework is set out in Table 2. (All pupil names are pseudonyms and the examples are from Year 6 scripts unless otherwise stated.)

Table 2. Narrative structure of Rhona’s Year 6 Breakfast Surprise story.

Narrative structure	Script content
Opening	Alex has finally collected enough tokens to send off for his free gift. He rushes to the postbox with his envelope containing the required number of tokens to claim the free gift
Inciting moment	Alex’s free gift arrives in the morning post
Development	Alex opens the envelope addressed to him. He discovers he has won tickets for a holiday to Las Vegas. Alex runs upstairs to inform his mum
Denouement	Alex and his mum pack their bags ready for their holiday
Ending	The holiday draws to an end (although they forget about the return flight)

Rhona’s opening sentence engages the reader whilst attending to the specified story prompt: ‘“Yes!” Alex shouted, he’d finally collected enough tokens to send off for his free gift.’ This engagement is partly achieved through the use of an interjection (used to express a strong feeling or sudden emotion) and is made more impactful through the use of the exclamation mark that has been placed directly after it. Rhona’s story opening includes some important details of time (breakfast time), place (Alex’s home) and participants (Alex and his mother). Brackets are used to add extra comment: ‘His mum, Carla, picked one off her desktop, which was covered in important papers (she was an accountant), and gave it to Alex.’ Single quote marks are placed around both ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to highlight Alex’s impoliteness in not thanking his mother for the envelope which he asked for in the following idiomatic phrase: ‘without so much as a “please” or “thank you” ran off.’ Dialogue is used to advance the story’s plot (‘“Mum, I’m going to the post-box.” He shouted.’) where Alex rushes to the postbox with his envelope containing the required number of tokens for his free gift. The inciting moment occurs when, after three days of waiting, the post arrives. This is signalled through the use of an exclamatory sentence to convey excitement (‘The post was here!’). Rhona then incorporates an asterisk mark to refer to an explanatory note, given at the bottom of the same page: ‘The post was here! Suddenly, Barker * barked, as the morning post was slipped through the door.’ There is further development in Rhona’s story as Alex tears open the envelope. The use of an ellipsis creates a pause for effect with the free gift being revealed as not one, but two tickets to Las Vegas: ‘Alex tore open the paper, and, inside was a … ticket to Las Vegas! No 2!’ Exclamation marks convey Alex’s excitement. Single quote marks are used again, on this occasion, to replicate the letter Alex received with his free gift. Dialogue, signalled through the use of quotation marks, then adds further development. An exclamation mark is used to convey excitement when Alex tells his mother that they are going on holiday (‘“We’re going on holiday. To Las Vegas!”’). Rhona playfully incorporates a range of punctuation in the final dialogue exchange. This begins with the use of both block capitals and underlining to express emphasis and also an exclamation mark to indicate volume (‘“WHAT!” she suddenly sat bolt upright’). The use of an ellipsis creates a pause for effect when Alex’s mother asks to see the tickets to make sure that Alex is not joking with her. Rhona incorporates an unconventional punctuation mark – the interrobang – to express disbelief in the form of a question: ‘Let me see those … tickets to Las Vegas?!”.’ The asterisk, used to call attention to a word, is then repeated at the end of Rhona’s story to mark an explanation: ‘* (their black and White Border Collie).’

Other examples of playful punctuation use by the high attainment group

Other examples of playful punctuation use by the high attainment group included the following.

Dashes

Bryony included a slightly narrower range of punctuation marks than Rhona. However, unlike Rhona, she frequently included dashes in her Year 6 story. Her story included 13 dashes serving a variety of purposes, including to insert a break in a sentence to replace:

• a colon which is offering more information about something mentioned previously in the sentence: ‘Alex and Hayley were already awake and off to school – walking with their friends.’ Bryony’s choice to use a dash rather than a colon creates a more relaxed and conversational style.

• a semicolon: The next day came – another day at school. The dash appears to indicate a break between two independent clauses, with the second being abbreviated, again to maintain a relaxed and conversational style: ‘[It was] another day at school’.

• ellipsis used for effect: ‘You and all your friends can go to Ghostland Themepark – if you dare!’ Bryony’s use of a single dash creates a break from what went before, thus prompting a reaction from the reader.

Bryony also used dashes as an alternative to brackets and commas: ‘When they all climbed on board the bus, they were all very excited – like a hungry dog getting it’s food – to busy deciding what to do.’ Here, Bryony’s use of dashes sets off an interruption in a sentence that is stronger than can be achieved by commas or brackets. Mary used a dash to indicate unfinished speech in her Year 6 story: ‘I can do anything you want me to, but – ” Began Robo Docter.’

Ellipsis

Several children in this subgroup used the ellipsis to mark an interruption at the end of a sentence, so leaving the conclusion to the reader’s imagination. Sometimes this was to show an unfinished thought: ‘Well, maybe he was at that time at school when … Alex’s mind snapped back to the Barbie.’ (Elizabeth C) and ‘Who knows, I don’t …… . Do You?’ (Bryony, Year 5) the latter being used at the end of the story. On other occasions it was employed to show a trail off into silence such as Bryony’s story about a magic pen: ‘Alex agreed and then in class he used it – as he wrote with it on the paper, something extrordinary happened … .’ Bryony also used the ellipsis in this way to end her story: ‘The driver turned his head towards Alex and …… .’ Sometimes children used more than three dots, such as Susan at the end of her story: ‘But he dosen’t know that properly does he …… …… .’ (Year 5). In contrast, Natalie used more than three dots in the opening of her story in which the ellipsis was used to create a pause for effect: ‘He opened the parcel and to his surprise, it was …… …… a game!’ (Year 5). Theo used the ellipsis for the same purpose, but in a later stage in his story’s development: ‘He opened the box and there was … a book.’ (Year 5). Ellipses were also used to indicate hesitating speech: ‘“I … I … I drowned, didn’t I?”’ (Georgina) and ‘“Look Alex if you were expecting something big then … . then”’ (Tony, Year 5).

Quotation marks

Dialogue was used frequently by all the children in this subgroup and served several purposes. Theo uses dialogue to elaborate on one of the characters:

‘“Who are you?” Alex asked the boy.

“I'm Edward VIII, I'm the son of chalses I,” answered Edward’.’ (Year 6).

Carol also uses dialogue to advance the story’s plot but by combining with the use of a time-shift to introduce an unexpected event: ‘“Oh my god I’m in world war two,” said Alex, “I want to go home.”’

The dialogue used by the children was often made more lively and playful through the use of exclamation marks and question marks. On some occasions single quotation marks were used for reasons besides indicating direct speech. Bryony used single quotation marks within dialogue to highlight the name of a film: ‘“D’you think it’ll be like that 'Scooby Doo Movie'?,” Matthew desperately asked.’ (Year 5). Besides setting off a film’s title, single quotation marks were also used to identify previously written words. This is illustrated in Bryony’s Year 6 story where she uses them to identify the writing made by a magic pen: ‘Congratulations Alex. You have now received enough tokens for your prize. You and all your friends can go to Ghostland Themepark – if you dare! The bus will come tomorrow at 8.30am till 10.45pm.’ They were also used to draw attention to a particular word or phrase:

‘he got upstairs and there on his bed was bob all wrapped up in a blanket witch said ‘BOB.” (Daisy)

‘“I’m going to the park today,” she announced, with a look at Sam meaning 'you are not coming'’ (Georgina, Year 5)

‘He thought, “My mum is the best mum in the world.” He was right. He gave his mum a big hug and said “Thank you”.’ (Theo, Year 5)

Exclamation marks

Elizabeth C and Georgina’s stories were characterised by the high number of exclamation marks that occurred in them. These were typically part of character dialogue: ‘“A BARBIE!” screamed Candy “Even I’m past that stage. Alex is a girl, Alex is a girl. A baby girl too! HA, HA, HA, HEE, HEE!”’ (Elizabeth C) and ‘“I thought you were never coming!” she exclaimed. “Hurry up!”’ (Georgina, Year 5). Elizabeth C also chose to end her Year 5 story with two consecutive exclamation marks ('At this rate, he could own the world!!') whereas Susan used several (‘The end!!!!!!’ (Year 5)).

Question marks

Direct questions were mostly used as part of the dialogue between the main characters in the children’s narratives. This is illustrated in the opening of Tony’s story: ‘“When will it be here?” Alex moaned to his mum.’ The inclusion of direct questions helped to sustain tension, provoke thought and keep the reader’s interest. Less frequently, direct questions were included as part of the narration: ‘As he ripped open the package, he felt something furry on his knuckles, what was it?’ (Lata, Year 5) and ‘The book was on the mantelpiece. How did it get there?’ (Theo).

Block capitals

Block capitals were used to express emphasis by Elizabeth C: ‘Alex was REALLY excited.’ She also combined their use with an exclamation mark to indicate a sudden order (‘Alex croaked, “You will be my servant, and bring me sweets, NOW!”’ (Year 5)) and for drama (‘Any minute now. Any second now. NOW!’ This combination was also used by Theo (‘“SURPRISE!” shouted his mum.’ (Year 5)) and Daisy (‘“NO!” He shouted at the top of his voise.’)

Brackets

Round brackets were only used on a few occasions. They served to enclose additional information – either in the form of an extra comment (‘He could tell (even though they pretended not to be) that all his family was just as excited as he was.’ (Elizabeth C, Year 6)) or for clarification (‘All day he played on it (except for tea and dinner) and didn’t go outside, as he didn’t feel like sharing it.’ (Lee, Year 5)).

Interrobang

Rhona was not the only child in this subgroup to include the interrobang in her story. Both her and Carol used it to express disbelief in the form of a question (although it may also be used to ask a question in an excited manner, express excitement or ask a rhetorical question). Carol included hers in the opening paragraph in her story after Alex’s mother heard a bang from the living room: ‘“What is going on?!” screamed mum.’ Rhona also included one in her Year 5 story again to express disbelief: ‘He kept on wishing things,* [*but they never worked,] but then he said, ”I wish I could go to Mitharj, so I could, … what?!”

The world had started to spin.’

Asterisk

Georgina used a line of asterisks on three occasions in her Year 6 story to indicate that a period of time has passed. Rhona also included the asterisk in her Year 5 story (see immediately above).

Lowest attaining group

Children whose writing was judged to be the lowest attaining also demonstrated an ability to use punctuation in a playful way, although its use was far less evident in the stories of this sub-group than the highest attaining group. Children in this sub-group demonstrated a less secure knowledge of punctuation with some stories only incorporating full stops.

In terms of narrative structure, most of the stories included the elements in Martin and Rothery’s (1980) three-part framework, comprising an orientation, disruption (sequence of events) and a resolution. In a few instances, the children’s overall structural development was not secured because they did not manage to use the story prompt to link to a setting in which key events were portrayed from Alex’s point of view. This was not the case for Max, whose use of playful punctuation in his Year 6 Story is discussed in detail below, in order to exemplify the writing of the low attaining group. A synopsis of his narrative and his use of a three-part framework is set out in Table 3.

Table 3. Narrative structure of Max’s Year 6 Breakfast Surprise story.

Narrative structure	Script content
Orientation	Alex receives his free gift of a soft toy after collecting cereal tokens. He takes the soft toy everywhere
Disruption	One day he accidently leaves it at home and finds he no longer knocks objects over. He begins to wonder why
Resolution	Alex believes the soft toy to be cursed. He burns it and eats bread (rather than cereal) for the rest of his life

Max dispenses with any build up as to the identity of the surprise gift. Instead, the reader is told that the gift is a soft toy. Alex’s thoughts are used to convey his disappointment with the gift. Max uses an exclamation mark to indicate surprise when Alex becomes aware that he was no longer knocking over objects: ‘he Started to wonder why had everything stayed exactly where it was!’ Max then employs a direct question to engage the reader: ‘What was different?’

Humour is employed at the end of the story. The reader is told that Alex no longer eats cereal and an exclamation mark is used to emphasise this statement: ‘for the rest of his life he ate

Bread!’ Irony is incorporated into the final sentence: ‘collect $\underset{\_}{\underset{\_}{\mathit{5}}}$ tokens to claim your free mystery gift.’ No other children in this subgroup used underlining for emphasis (‘collect $\underset{\_}{\underset{\_}{\mathit{5}}}$ tokens’).

Other examples of playful punctuation use by the low attainment group

Ellipsis

Denise used an elongated ellipsis to create a pause for effect: ‘sodnly a big …… swimmg pool alayvs in avan.’ (Year 5). Nathaniel also used the ellipsis for the same purpose but incorporated it within dialogue: ‘“15 minits later … ’ (Year 5) and ‘“hey hold on a second … ”’ (Year 5). Max used the ellipsis to mark an interruption at the end of his story, so creating a cliffhanger type ending and leaving the conclusion to the reader’s imagination: ‘da-da-da … to be continued!’ (Year 5). Lilly used more than three dots in her ellipsis: ‘What do you want asked the teacher I’ve got a present for …… … Jim.’ (Year 5).

Block capitals

Block capitals were used for emphasis by two children in this subgroup when including an abbreviation: ‘RIP Alex died by snake attak’ (Ethan, Year 5); ‘A real E.T.! in my house’ (Max, Year 5). Ethan also used block capitals for emphasis at the end of his story: ‘NO ONE EVER SAW HIM AGAIN.’ (Ethan, Year 5). Capital letters were used in an unconventional way by including them among lowercase letters (for example, ‘Lets sEE’ (Noah, Year 5)).

Brackets

Only Ethan included round brackets in his story – where they were used to provide extra information: ‘Alex collected enough tockens to get a free gift only it wasent what he expected he found a tranchala (spider) in his cearial’ (Year 5); ‘RIP (rest in peace)’ (Year 5).

Exclamation marks

Ben used an exclamation mark when using an interjection: ‘“oh! grate” said Alex’ (Year 5). Max used an exclamation mark to convey surprise: ‘A real E.T.! in my house’ (Year 5).

Question marks

Lilly used questions marks as part of character dialogue: ‘i’ve collected all of my tokens from the shuger puffs cerel box. isent it great? oh yeh it’s great said Stephaine’; ‘then on the way to football i saw that man i said what did you want?’

Quotation marks

There were fewer examples of dialogue being used in the writing of children in this subgroup than the highest attaining group. Ben began his Year 5 story with an example of interrupted speech that used the story prompt to link to a setting in which key events were portrayed from Alex’s point of view: ‘“At last” shouted Alex “I’ve got enough tokens to get my mystry Gift”, he said after the last box of serial had just ran out.’ There was another example of interrupted speech within the opening of his story: ‘“oh! grate” said Alex “just a stupped old pencil shapener”.’ A few children attempted to use dialogue exchange to advance the story plot, such as the dialogue between Alex and his mother in Jake’s story about a free ticket to see a film at the pictures. There were a couple of instances where children used quotation marks to indicate the main character’s speech to himself: ‘“thats odd” I said to myself “the box was full aminite ago.’ (Ben); ‘“What is that” I wonderd’ (Lilly, Year 5).

Highest gains group

Helen was one of the children whose writing was judged to be in the 10% of the sample whose writing attainment indicated the clearest gains between Year 5 and Year 6. Her use of playful punctuation is discussed in detail below in order to exemplify the writing of the high attaining group. The five-part overall framework was regularly employed by the children whose writing was assessed as indicating high gains. Helen’s Year 5 writing is an example.

Helen’s narrative opens with some story setting. The inciting moment in her story is the arrival of a parcel through the letterbox signalled by the narrator and reinforced in the character dialogue (‘“Its here” yelled Alex delightedly’). Alex’s delight to receive the parcel is contrasted with her little sister’s disappointment not to receive one which is also expressed through character dialogue (‘“Aw, thats not fair I want a parcel”’). Development occurs when Alex rushes upstairs and opens the parcel: ‘When she had it undone she gave a cry of amazement – for sitting inside was a little. well …… . what was it?’ Helen uses a dash to indicate an expansion whereas ellipses (both shortened and elongated) are used to create pauses for effect and a question mark to engage and create reader suspense. A further elongated ellipsis is used (‘“Are you a” … . Alex ventured.’) to show a trail off into silence. Helen uses character dialogue to indicate the Pixie’s speech (‘“Pixie” muttered the Pixie “Name’s Fledge”.’) and Alex’s reaction (‘“Oh” gulped Alex.’) in the form of an interjection to convey her acknowledgement. Further character dialogue pursues with the pixie suggesting they play ‘pixie tricksies’ (‘“Do you like playing pixie tricksies?”’). Hyphens are then used to indicate Alex’s stammering (‘“I-I-I” stammered Alex.’) indicating her unease with the pixie’s suggestion. However, this is ignored by the pixie (‘“Good” said the pixie “lets go!”’) who stops outside Alex’s little sister’s bedroom door. The final character dialogue belongs to Alex and includes the use of block capitals for emphasis (‘“NO not in there”’).

Helen’s use of exclamation marks in the opening of her Year 6 story helps to quickly and effectively establish the core of the plot and develop it extensively: ‘Alex stared, disappointed, at the tiny packet of powder on her bed. “Vanishing powder!” she scoffed “as if it’ll really work!”.’ She includes interrupted dialogue to convey Alex’s disappointment in receiving the ‘vanishing’ powder after she had spent all her money on cereal packets in order to collect enough tokens for the free gift. Alex’s thoughts and feelings are conveyed again through the use of exclamation marks: ‘What a rip off! “if only I could get my money back,” she muttered angrily.’ A dash is then used to convey the moment of realisation Alex has when she thinks of an idea to resolve this (‘Then – ahah!’). Her idea is conveyed to the reader through character dialogue with an exclamation mark to express Alex’s strong mental attitude: ‘“If I try it on something and it doesnt vanish, I’ll write and tell the silly people who chose this free gift!”’ Helen’s opening paragraph ends with Alex trying the vanishing powder on her baby brother with the use of terminal ellipses providing weightier pauses especially in the second instance where it denotes a significant lapse of time (‘Hmmm shame it wont work … ” she grinned slyly … ’). In contrast the former indicates the character’s voice trailing away.

The story develops in Helen’s second paragraph which begins with an expression of surprise conveyed through character dialogue and the use of an exclamation mark (‘“Oh my goodness!” Alex heard her mother shriek’). The plot can be guessed at from an extract of character dialogue which includes an interrobang (‘“Wheres the baby?!”’) used to express disbelief in the form of a question. Alex’s mother then asks another question this time directed to Alex’s father. His reply (‘“NO, I thougt you had him”’) is emphasised through the use of block capitals. The tension is further heightened when Alex screams aloud a question (‘“Whats happened?”’) and the paragraph ends with a revelation (‘“The baby’s gone!”’) which is demarcated with an exclamation mark to convey shock and despair.

The final part of Helen’s story is indented and centred so that the visual layout draws attention to the difficult predicament Alex is in: “NOW! collect 10 tokens to find the cure!!!’ She looked desperately about. Where in the world would she find the money to buy $\underset{\_}{\underset{\_}{\mathit{10}}}$ packets of cereal … ? She read it again. there was some more writing at the bottom “we regret to say that your new gifts power will not wear off till after 10yrs!!! … Okay now she was really in trouble…” Her punctuation use adds to the story’s drama. She combines block capitals and an exclamation mark to emphasise Alex’s predicament when she discovers that more tokens are needed in order to find a remedy. This predicament is presented as a question directed at the reader and using double underlining to emphasise the required number of tokens needed to rectify the situation. The use of consecutive multiple exclamation marks adds strong emphasis to Helen’s writing expressing despair and astonishment. Helen purposefully employs a terminal ellipsis (to trail off into silence (aposiopesis)) so leaving the ending of her story to the reader’s own imagination.

Discussion

In relation to the first research question, ‘What features of playful punctuation are evident in children’s narrative writing?’, it was evident that children from all three subgroups incorporated some playful forms of punctuation into their narrative writing. This punctuation ranged from those frequently found in children’s literature (such as quotation, exclamation and question marks) to those less commonly used (such as the asterisk, interrobang and underlining). The range of punctuation used helped to increase engagement and appeal for the reader while maintaining the narrative purpose of the writing.

In relation to the second research question, ‘How does the use of this punctuation vary between different attainment sub-groups?’, there were noticeable differences between the three sub-groups. The highest attaining group used more punctuation, while the lowest attaining group used the least. The highest attaining group also included asterisks, dashes and the interrobang which were not found in any of the narratives of the lowest attaining group. Both the highest attaining and high gains groups frequently included exclamation marks, question marks, block capitals and ellipses. Quotation marks were the most frequently employed punctuation used by all three sub-groups but with noticeable differences between the highest and the lowest attaining groups.

Over the 12-month period, the highest attaining group increased their use of exclamation marks and quotation marks, almost doubled their use of block capitals and question marks and doubled their use of asterisks and ellipses. They also increased slightly in their use of the interrobang and brackets. The dash was used frequently in one child’s Year 6 story, but not at all in Year 5. The lowest attaining group increased their use of question marks. No other discernible increases in the use of punctuation marks was observed in the lowest attaining group over the 12-month period whereas the highest gains group increased their use of exclamation marks and quotation marks, doubled their use of ellipses and used almost three times the number of question marks than they had in their Year 5 stories.

In relation to the third question, the highest attaining group produced longer imaginative narratives (mean length – 274 words in Year 5; 338 words in Year 6) that included increased and more varied use of punctuation. Children in this group successfully incorporated playful punctuation within the five-part framework outlined by Graham (1997) whilst also demonstrating a lively, animated and confident style. For example, Rhona used a wide range of punctuation marks in her Year 6 story. Her use of an exclamation mark in the opening of her story helps to engage the reader: ‘“Yes!” Alex shouted, he’d finally collected enough tokens to send off for his free gift.’ Brackets are used to add explanation and additional character description: ‘His mum, Carla, picked one off her desktop, which was covered in important papers (she was an accountant), and gave it to Alex.’ Dialogue, indicated through the use of double quotation marks, is used to advance the story’s plot (‘“Mum, I’m going to the post-box.” He shouted.’) Rhona makes a distinction between double and single quotation marks. The latter being used to draw attention to the words ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to highlight Alex’s impoliteness in not thanking his mother. In the final dialogue exchange, Rhona effectively combines block capitals to express emphasis and an exclamation mark to convey loud speech (‘“WHAT!” she suddenly sat bolt upright’). Rhona makes judicious use of an unconventional punctuation mark – the interrobang – to express disbelief in the form of a question: ‘Let me see those … tickets to Las Vegas?!”’ An ellipsis indicates a lengthy pause. The use of an asterisk to signal a footnote adds novelty appeal for the reader: ‘The post was here! Suddenly, Barker * barked, as the morning post was slipped through the door.’ The explanatory footnote itself is included within a set of brackets.

In contrast, the children in the lowest attainment group produced shorter narratives (mean length – 189 words in both Year 5 and in Year 6) using considerably less punctuation and a narrower range of marks within a simpler (three-part) narrative framework. This is illustrated in the writing of Max. His Year 6 story did not contain any of the following punctuation marks: asterisks, block capitals, interrobangs, brackets, dashes, ellipses or quotation marks. He did, however, include an exclamation mark on three occasions with each of these being used for a slightly different purpose: to express surprise, draw attention and as part of an ironic comment. Max’s story also included a direct question (‘What was different?’) which served to engage the reader. Underlining is included in the story’s concluding sentence to emphasise the irony. Children in this group were less successful in using punctuation for playful purposes. They demonstrated less secure knowledge of punctuation in general and this was reflected in their scores for punctuation in the Literacy Impact test (Beard and Burrell 2010a). Hall (1999) remarks how graphic punctuation can persist even among older children. This was the case for Ethan where graphic punctuation was evident twice in his Year 5 narrative through the use of end-of page punctuation. Other children whose writing was judged least developed (such as Noah) often omitted some punctuation. They were less likely to include playful forms of punctuation. In contrast, the punctuation of those children judged most developed in their writing was more playful and included later indicators of development (Dávalos-Esparza 2008) such as the ability to select punctuation to create an effect on the reader.

Children in the high gains sub-group chose punctuation more appropriately for narrative effect. They also produced longer texts (mean length – 203 words in Year 5; 230 words in Year 6) than the lowest attainment group. Furthermore, they also used almost twice the amount of playful punctuation than the lowest attainment group. These characteristics were illustrated in the writing of Helen who used a broad range of punctuation marks both in Year 5 and Year 6. Both stories incorporate the use of block capitals, exclamation marks, ellipses, question marks, quotation marks and dashes. In her Year 6 story she also included underlining (both single and double) and even used an unconventional punctuation mark – the interrobang. This varied use of punctuation helped Helen to create imaginative stories that would be entertaining for readers.

As was stated earlier, the children’s use of playful punctuation was unprompted. This makes the results of the study particularly interesting: various questions arise from a close scrutiny of the findings. For example, why do children turn to some types of playful punctuation and not others?

Looking across all three sub-groups, there were relatively few examples of the asterisk, brackets, dash, interrobang and underlining for effect. In the present study, the asterisk was used as follows:

• to refer to a footnote at the bottom of the same page: ‘He kept on wishing things,* but then he said, “I wish I could go to Mitharj, so I could, … what?!”’ ‘* but they never worked ’ (Rhona, Year 5).

• to refer to an explanatory note, given at the bottom of the same page: ‘The post was here! Suddenly, Barker * barked, as the morning post was slipped through the door.’ ‘* (their black and White Border Collie).’ (Rhona).

• to indicate that a period of time has passed: ‘ * * * * ’ (Georgina).

Brackets were used:

• to give extra comment: ‘His mum, Carla, picked one off her desktop, which was covered in important papers (she was an accountant), and gave it to Alex.’ (Rhona, Year 6).

• to add an explanation: ‘* (their black and White Border Collie).’ (Rhona).

• for clarification: ‘All day he played on it (except for tea and dinner) and didn’t go outside, as he didn’t feel like sharing it.’ (Lee, Year 5).

• to provide extra information: ‘Alex collected enough tockens to get a free gift only it wasent what he expected he found a tranchala (spider) in his cearial ’ (Ethan, Year 5).

The dash was used:

• to indicate unfinished speech: ‘I can do anything you want me to, but–” Began Robo Docter.’ (Mary).

• to indicate an expansion: ‘When she had it undone she gave a cry of amazement – for sitting inside was a little. well …… . what was it?’ (Helen, Year 5).

• to convey a moment of realisation (in the form of an expansion/as a pause for effect): ‘Then – ahah!’. (Helen).

• to offer more information about something mentioned previously in the sentence: ‘Alex and Hayley were already awake and off to school – walking with their friends.’ (Bryony).

• as a pause for effect: ‘You and all your friends can go to Ghostland Themepark – if you dare!’ (Bryony).

• to set off an interruption in a sentence that is stronger than can be achieved by commas or brackets: ‘When they all climbed on board the bus, they were all very excited – like a hungry dog getting it’s food – to busy deciding what to do.’ (Bryony).

The interrobang was used:

• to express disbelief in the form of a question: ‘Let me see those … tickets to Las Vegas?!”.’ (Rhona).

Underlining was used:

• for emphasis: ‘collect $\underset{\_}{\underset{\_}{\mathit{5}}}$ tokens’ (Max).

• for additional emphasis combined with block capitals: ‘“WHAT!” she suddenly sat bolt upright’ (Rhona).

However, it is also worth noting that, besides the differences between the subgroups, there were also some differences in punctuation use among individual children especially in Year 6. While punctuation marks may ebb and flow over a single narrative, some children stylistically chose to use some punctuation more than others. For example, Bryony used 13 dashes in her Year 6 imaginative story (with only one being used by another child in the same subgroup and only two other instances being recorded among the sample as a whole). Helen (see above) used 14 exclamation marks in her Year 6 story but only one in her Year 5 story. Block capitals were used on six occasions in Elizabeth C’s Year 6 story.

Multiple consecutive exclamation marks were used by a few children. Although typographically effective they are often considered inappropriate (although they are frequently used in informal contexts such as social media). However as noted above, they added strong emphasis to Helen’s Year 6 imaginative writing enabling her to express despair and astonishment. Elizabeth C chose to end her Year 5 story with two consecutive exclamation marks (‘At this rate, he could own the world!!’) whereas Susan used several (‘The end!!!!!!’ (Year 5)) reflecting the individual’s stylistic judgement about how many to use at any one time.

The ellipsis is usually recorded as a series of three full stops. However, a few children used an elongated form. Helen (as noted above) used this form twice in her Year 5 story – both to create a pause for effect and also to show a trail off into silence. Within the same story, Helen also recorded a shorter ellipsis composed of two full stops. An elongated ellipsis was used to create a cliff hanger type ending by four of the children. Although the ellipsis is normally recorded as three dots, early versions of some style guides such as the first edition of The Chicago Manual of Style stipulated four (University of Chicago Press 1906, 59: 164). Natalie and Susan used 12 and 13 dots respectively for their elongated ellipses. Whereas Natalie used the elongated form at the beginning of her story, Susan instead used it at the end. Denise used an elongated ellipsis consisting of six dots in her Year 5 story.

In typography, the asterism (three asterisk marks arranged as a triangle (⁂)) is rarely used today as a device to divide text (dinkus). Instead, it is more common to use three or more asterisks arranged in a horizontal row. These were included on three occasions in Georgina’s Year 6 story to indicate that a period of time had passed. No other children used asterisks in this way.

As previously mentioned, the interrobang was used on a few occasions by the children in their imaginative stories. This unconventional mark is somewhat controversial with some arguing it is unnecessary and violates the rules of terminal punctuation (as it uses two marks when only one is required). There is a further debate relating to how it should be written in its ‘deconstructed’ form with some favouring ‘!?’ while others advocating ‘?!’. Only the latter form was used by the children in the present study with three of the four occasions being in Year 6. On each occasion, the mark was used as a question that displays disbelief. However, it can also be used as a question to express surprise, excitement or irony, or as a rhetorical question. The children’s choice to use the question mark first would appear to be appropriate given that on each occasion they are emphasising a question (rather than a statement) and is consistent with data from the British National Corpus showing more instances of ‘?!’ than ‘!?’ from its samples of written language. According to a post on Stack Exchange (2010, 2014), The British National Corpus has 224 instances of ‘?!’ and 121 instances of ‘!?’

Conclusion

Findings from this study indicate that 10–11 year-old children find that narrative writing offers a range of opportunities for creative and playful uses of punctuation, even though they were not prompted to consider using this. The intuitive recognition of these opportunities led to children demonstrating how they could make numerous stylistic choices. These choices enhanced the children’s imaginative writing, helping them to support the writer’s intention in a similar way that paralanguage does in speech using tone of voice, hesitation noises and body language to convey a message. More nuanced meanings and emotions were conveyed using a broad range of punctuation.

It is important to note that this was an exploratory study that had some limitations. These included the relatively small sample, the arbitrary and limited nature of the task, and the lack of choice in the task that the children were asked to complete. It is highly likely that an alternative task (or even the one reported above) would have resulted in an even more playful use of punctuation if it were to be completed under normal classroom conditions. Context was a limiting factor as there were some punctuation and typographical features that the children were not able to use. For example, italic is sometimes employed in narrative as a means of emphasis in printed text whereas in the present study children used block capitals or underlining as a way of providing emphasis. If children had completed the writing using a computer, it is likely that they would have included other typographical features.

A wider recognition of the use of paralinguistic cues (Caracciolo 2014) in narrative, combined with more explicit opportunities for children consciously to incorporate language play in their own narrative writing, is likely to enhance further the special role of narrative in literacy education. In turn, children’s accumulating knowledge of how punctuation choice can be used ‘to enhance effects’ (DfE (Department for Education) 2013) may also contribute to their ability to tackle other forms of writing, an issue that also warrants further study.

Data availability

All original scripts have been anonymised and archived.

Ethical statement

We confirm that the research presented in this article was carried out in line with the extant Ethical Guidelines of the British Educational Research Association.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Nicholas Rougeux for his kind permission to reproduce the material in Figure 2, which is derived from https://www.c82.net/work/?id=347

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The parent study was funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council, RES-000-22-1050;

Notes on contributors

Andrew Burrell

Andrew Burrell is a primary school teacher and an Associate of the UCL Institute of Education. He has published extensively on children's writing and language play.

Roger Beard

Roger Beard is Emeritus Professor of Primary Education at the UCL Institute of Education and has published widely on Literacy Education. In 2019 he was elected to the Hall of Fame of the Literacy Research Association in the USA.