Symbol game

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Symbol game (also fiction game or as- if game ) is the name for a type of game in which scenes of environmental experience or imagination are symbolically imitated and implemented in a game or games with a symbolic character are practiced.

term

“The symbol assumes the idea of ​​an absent object. It works with fictitious representations and actions on objects. [...] It contains presented objects or actions, which, however, are detached from reality and thus strongly subject to their own availability. " " Even with children, games often take place on a double level a real level that becomes visible and on a level of thinking that is at home in the imagination. The level of imagination is symbolic. "

The synonymous term "fiction game" makes it clear that this game category is not about simply depicting and re-enacting everyday reality, but that the game idea implies and even suggests that realities can be changed. The term “pretend play”, which is widespread in everyday play, also signals to very young children that a creative transformation of reality is required.

The symbolism in play is understood by game science beyond the special game genre, since the work of the Dutch game researcher Johan Huizinga in a broader sense, as a general, fundamental characteristic of original play.

phenomenon

According to Jean Piaget's so-called 'cognitive game theory' , the forms of play that children develop parallel to the development of their thought structures. He differentiates between three “main forms of the game”, the practice game , the symbol game and the rule game . The exercise game or functional game of the first months of life, in which the child primarily tastes, touches, eyes and tries out their functional possibilities, is largely replaced by the symbol game according to Piaget from around the age of two to seven. The child increasingly frees himself from the child-typical egocentrism and thus puts himself in a position to assign roles to his environment and to take on such roles himself, i.e. H. to step out of the ego limitation mentally and practically. Reality is transformed in a so-called “pretend game”: the player transforms himself and the play objects into actors and objects representing them, and the game action into a fictional event: “The rocking chair becomes a horse and it becomes a rider. A row of chairs becomes a train and it itself becomes a train driver, a conductor, a passenger. Puppet shows and Punch and Judy games are becoming interesting. ” It is a phase of children's game development in which real and imaginary play partners are imitated and assimilated in order to make them available through play. As environmental experiences progress, shopping is simulated, a doctor's visit is simulated, school events or family experiences are realistically or fictitiously played out as game events and fantasy figures are playfully tested. The game arrangement can assume a reproductive function as well as a corrective function of the actual experience, for example to “deal with a thing”.

In contrast to Piaget, who sees the symbol game gradually transitioning into the “most mature form of the game that is closest to adult life”, the rule game, game scientists like A. Flitner or H. Nitsch-Berg emphasize, “that the game - and especially that Symbol games do not disappear more and more with school age, as Piaget claims, but that it continues in a more differentiated and partly internalized form into adulthood. ” Symbol games can be found in many forms, for example in movement games , in pantomime , in the Board games or in the mystery theater . Examples of this can be the game of dodgeball, chess or the game of mysteries.

Examples

Children's games

Even preschoolers understand, invent and practice symbol games. These include, for example, circle games such as the goose thief , puppet shows with which daily experiences are recorded and imaginatively designed, such as the mother-child relationship, shopping or using different means of transport. In role-playing games , the child transforms into animals, other people, objects or fantasy figures and breathes life into them with dialogues, noises and actions. In playing doctor , the doctor visit, in is a teacher playing the first school experience in Priestplay designed church attendance. The impulses mostly arise from the real life of the social environment, a farm for example or the family's adventure area, but also from fairy tales, legends or even imagined characters.

Teenagers games

Even young people usually no longer recognize that they are practicing the dodgeball game , which was once called the Battle of Nations, an old symbolic game in which two peoples wage a war of extermination against each other with the symbolic weapon ball. The set of rules, which has changed over time for educational reasons, now covers the once warlike basic idea of ​​the game. In the old school game Sink Ships , in which two playing partners stage a sea battle with pen and paper, the warlike background and symbolic character are still clearly recognizable for everyone.

In the cooperation game Gordian Knot , whose name is based on a legend about Alexander the Elder. Size When referring, the task is to solve a problem in which a group of people has become involved. The legendary node of Gordion serves as a symbol: "The symbol's Gordian knot, the game ends to associate with her arms at a first inextricably appearing nodes, they then try to unravel each other in communication and cooperation." However, the game situation and play concept put it in In contrast to the fabulous event, it is close to looking for a more sensitive solution to the problem than is ascribed to Alexander.

Adult games

The war games of adults also differ by their symbolic character from the bloody reality of a real war event: For example, the chess game with board pieces symbolizes the clash of two enemy armies among their generals, officers and teams on the battlefield, with the battle on the game board "Hitting" (= killing) the opposing warriors is intended with the aim of ultimately "mating" the enemy king, ie. H. to take prisoner and thus end the symbolic battle victorious.

Another form of the symbol game with a mystical or religious background is revealed by the mystery games widespread in many cultures : the dancers or actors slip into masks and roles of characters from their religious traditions or myths and play out certain events and beliefs in them. The devils and demons, which sometimes appear cruel to the superficial observer, do not perform any real, but only symbolic acts that can only be understood in a ritual context.

Problems

Problems arise from the symbol game, especially when it is improperly interpreted and used pedagogically, when the symbolic level of the game is no longer recognized and, for example, is confused and equated with the real level of everyday life, when certain conclusions are drawn from it with unproven transfer assumptions and interventions in the game happens:

Thus, by playing scientists recorded over and over again that the discernment of life reality and game reality, nor have the children usually adults who are not familiar with the essence of the game is often already been lost. As a result, this leads to misjudgments, prejudices and wrong conclusions, for example when properly assessing children's war games or when re- enacting the cruelty that is omnipresent in fairy tales .

opportunities

“The symbol games are essentially reproductions of the images that are determined by the imitation,” says Andreas Flitner. They illustrate how children experience or imagine a doctor's visit, school, parenting behavior, and "The game follows reality - not the other way around," says Siegbert Warwitz with reference to the development and effects of children's war games: According to the 'theory of defense against fear' , a depth psychological interpretation of the emergence of games in the wake of Freud, the symbolic game can also be assigned a therapeutic effect. The psychotherapy has the symbol game the potential to develop "self-healing" in man, which is why it in practice today, especially in children after traumatic is experience used.

The child's uninfluenced symbolic games also give the play teacher a fundamental insight into the child's psyche and give the child himself and his educators the chance to reinterpret experienced realities and forms of behavior experienced as negative and to try out alternatives in a creative way.

literature

  • Andreas Flitner: Play - Learn. Practice and interpretation of the children's game . Piper, Munich-Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-492-20022-2 , p. 61.
  • Eike Jost: Symbol game and movement theater , Meyer and Meyer, Aachen 2002, ISBN = 3-89124-274-3.
  • Jean Piaget: Imitation, Game and Dream , Stuttgart 1975.
  • Manfred Polzin: Children's play theories and play and movement education . Minerva, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-597-10055-4 , pp. 65-72.
  • Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas . Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, ISBN 978-3-8340-1664-5 , pp. 21, 245.
  • Hans Zulliger: Healing powers in children's play . Klotz Publishing House, Magdeburg 2007.

Web links

Wiktionary: Symbol game  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andreas Flitner: Playing - Learning. Practice and interpretation of the children's game . Piper, Munich-Zurich 1996, p. 62.
  2. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Symbolhandeln In: Dies: Vom Sinn des Spielens. Reflections and game ideas. 4th edition. Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, p. 21.
  3. ^ Johan Huizinga: Homo Ludens . Rowohlt, Hamburg 1956
  4. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: What play means and what features characterize it In: This: From the sense of play. Reflections and game ideas. 4th edition. Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 18–25.
  5. ^ Jean Piaget: Imitation, Game and Dream , Stuttgart 1975.
  6. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas. 4th edition. Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, p. 13.
  7. ↑ Manfred Polzin: Children's game theories and play and movement education . Minerva, Munich 1979, p. 67.
  8. ^ H. Nitsch-Berg: Childlike play between instinct dynamics and enculturation . Stuttgart 1987. p. 304
  9. ↑ Eike Jost: Symbolspiel and Movement Theater , Meyer and Meyer, Aachen 2002
  10. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: From the sense of playing. Reflections and game ideas. 4th edition. Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, p. 148.
  11. ↑ B. Sutton-Smith: Play and Sport as Potential for Renewal , In: A. Flitner (Ed.): Das Kinderspiel , Munich 1988, p. 64
  12. ↑ G. Wegener-Spöhring: Aggressiveness in childlike play , Weinheim 1995, p. 10
  13. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: Controversial forms of play, In: Dies: Vom Sinn des Spielens. Reflections and game ideas. 4th edition. Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 133-136.
  14. ↑ Andreas Flitner: Playing - Learning. Practice and interpretation of the children's game . Piper, Munich-Zurich 1996, p. 64.
  15. ^ Warwitz / Severin: Why peace games are controversial , In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung v. February 23, 2015
  16. ↑ Hans Zulliger: Healing powers in children's play . Klotz Publishing House, Magdeburg 2007
  17. ^ Siegbert A. Warwitz, Anita Rudolf: The assessment of the war game. In: Dies: On the meaning of play. Reflections and game ideas. 4th edition, Verlag Schneider, Baltmannsweiler 2016, pp. 131-136.