Playing with words: linguistic and ludic elements in the poetry of José Paulo Paes

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing the poetic production of José Paulo Paes, emphasizing his work with words, through which he links ludic activities to verbal language. In our view, by operating in phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic levels, Paes’ poetry plays an additional role to aesthetic enjoyment, a fundamental principle in every artistic manifestation, in that the ludic element contributes to children’s language acquisition.