FOLKLORE COMPETENCE IN THE REPRESENTATION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ESSAYS

The article, using the theory of conceptual analysis and the principles of SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) taxonomy, analyses the manifestations of folklore competence in the essays of secondary school students, available in the corpus of essays www.korpuss.lv. The levels of folklore competence were determined by analysing the use of lexemes belonging to the semantic field of folklore in secondary school students’ essays. Out of 157 (or 34%) essays containing lexemes belonging to the semantic field of folklore, the majority (i.e. 43%) show the lowest level of folklore competence with domination of the naming function without further elaboration, or is limited to a broader elaboration of just one element without any perceived correlation with a broader folklore context. At the second level of folklore competence that can be observed in 45 essays (29%), secondary school students show the ability not only to name but also to classify into simpler systems 2- 3 realia belonging to the semantic field of folklore. At the third level of competence represented in 9 essays (or 6%), secondary school students show the ability to reason, analyse, explain causes, integrate, infer and identify problems using 4-6 lexemes belonging to the semantic field of folklore. The overview of the essays written in 2018 shows that most of the secondary school pupils’ folklore interests are related to the events dedicated to Latvia’s centenary, in particular Latvian Song and Dance Festival, which is typologically connected with the folk songs and Cabinet of Dainas (‘dainu skapis’) collected by Krisjanis Barons. In terms of genres, secondary school pupils have mostly stayed in the genre of fairy tale, which dominates at the first level of folklore competence (43 out of 100 essays), but it often merges with the understanding of the literary fairy tale and is subject to a formal application of genres. The study shows that folklore competence at its highest possible levels is more convincingly demonstrated by pupils from minority schools, which may be explained by the socio-cultural competence building content included in the minority school curricula.