www.tjprc.org editor@tjprc.org CHILDREN’S LANGUAGES OF FILM APPRECIATION SWEETY LAKRA & Dr. V. SUDHAKAR Department of Education, The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, India ABSTRACT The present study was conducted to understand what children appreciate in the films E. T.: The Extra Terrestrial (ET) and Saving Private Ryan (SPR). The study consisted of a sample of 93 school children of class XI aged between 15-17 years. A film appreciation instrument was designed drawing insights from Teasley and Wilder (1997). The research study was quantitative in nature. It was found that the percentage of girls is more in the appreciation of literary aspects in the film ET and SPR in comparison to boys. The other important finding of the study is that the percentage of boys is more compared to girls with respect tothe appreciation of dramatic and cinematic aspects of the two films. KEYWORDS: Appreciation, Literary Aspects, Dramatic Aspects & Cinematic Aspects Received: Jun 06, 2019; Accepted: Jun 26, 2019; Published: Jul 09, 2019; Paper Id.: IJCMSAUG20197 1. INTRODUCTION Films are an excellent medium to teach children. It helps the children to know about the different cultures and it gives them a clear understanding about different values of diverse cultures. Films form the central part of the entertainment for children and they enjoy the most by watching films. While the children watching the films encounter various experiences. While watching films some children are deeply involved and identify themselves with the characters of the film with the result depending on the situation they watch, laugh, cry, shout and express their feelings in multiple forms. Oliver and Bartsch (2010, p. 76) defined appreciation as “the perception of deeper meaning, the feeling of being moved, and the motivation to elaborate on thoughts and feelings inspired by the experience”. While working on audience response they pointed out that the experience of appreciation was not only limited to a specific genre but also associated with genres like dramas, tragedies, and even documentaries rather than comedies, romances or thrillers. Bartsch and Hartmann (2015) state that the appreciation arises from the combined presence of cognitive and affective challenges. Films that are cognitively and affectively challenging give rise to eudaimonic appreciation. Films with the content that produce empathy, justice, violation, moral dilemmas or unresolved controversial issues give rise to eudaimonic appreciation. Oliver and Bartsch (2010, p.131) also found that people often recounted both high levels of appreciation and enjoyment for many specific films indicating that responses of enjoyment and appreciation are not opposite reactions, but both enjoyment and appreciation contribute exclusively to a positive evaluation of the movie. According to Bartsch (2012)there are audiences who anticipate a deeper level of gratification like self-reflection or the perception of artistic value. The gratifications provided by films are classified into two types reactive and reflective (Cupchik, 1994). The reactive type of gratification consists of films pertaining to contents just for pleasure, excitement or Original Article International Journal of Communication and Media Studies (IJCMS) ISSN (P): 2250-0014; ISSN (E): Applied Vol. 9, Issue 4, Aug 2019, 63-72 © TJPRC Pvt. Ltd.