Rituals, vocalisations, and creating comfortable spaces: A spatialised view of young children’s language in museums

In this co-authored chapter, we describe a research collaboration between the Humber Museums Partnership and Manchester Metropolitan University, focused on families with young children visiting museum sites in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research was motivated by the following questions: How might public places like museums shape children’s language and communication? What role might Humber Museums Partnership play in supporting children and families in this context? This chapter focuses on how more-than-human soundscapes are involved in young children’s languaging practices. Vignettes illustrate how children’s vocalisations and words combine with movements and environmental sounds to produce meanings that are collective and entangled with place. Important themes coming out of the study were that children visiting the museum sites had the opportunity to experiment with different kinds of vocalisations, in different kinds of soundscapes, to playfully use communication rituals and language to create connection and a sense of belonging, and to do these things in an atmosphere that felt comfortable and hospitable. These themes can inform the work of museums in designing places that facilitate children’s encounters with new spaces and soundscapes and their languaging as part of those encounters.