Language And Control In Children S Literature

This study examines the work of children's writers from the 19th and 20th centuries in order to expose the persuasive power of language. Looking at the work of 19th century English writers of juvenile fiction, Knowles and Malmkjaer expose the colonial and class assumptions on which the books were predicated. In the modern teen novel and the work of Roald Dahl the authors find contemporary attempts to control children within socially established frameworks. Other authors discussed include, Oscar Wilde, E. Nesbit, Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis.

In this important and timely study Murray Knowles and Kirstin Malmjkaer examine the work of some of our most popular children's writers, from this and the last century, in order to expose the persuasive power of literature.

When children read fiction they are exposed to the beliefs which inform and structure their society. The books encourage child readers to internalise particular ways of seeing the world and help shape their development as individuals. Although this process forms a key part of their education, it remains largely invisible. As well as a story, fictions impart a significance to readers - often without revealing its presence or ground - and therefore have considerable potential to socialize their audience. John Stephens analyses this process and shows how fictions can work to constrain or liberate audience responses. He explores picture books as well as historical, realistic and fantastic fictions to show how both a character within the narrative and the implied reader are positioned within ideology. The author considers areas of ideology not previously examined and offers new perspectives on realism and fantasy. The book will be of interest to linguists and teachers as well as to the general reader.

This book provides an introduction to some of the critical theories useful in the study of children's literature. The 14 chapters examine the context, application and relevance to this area of concepts such as feminism, ideology, psychoanalysis and literacy studies.

Provides articles covering children's literature from around the world as well as biographical and critical reviews of authors including Avi, C.S. Lewis, J.K. Rowling, and Anno Mitsumasa.

Diplomarbeit aus dem Jahr 2002 im Fachbereich Amerikanistik - Literatur, Universität Wien, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: I have never stopped loving children's literature, and I have been interested in it as a field of research ever since I took a course on the history of children's literature at the University of Toronto. When I started out on this paper I had little idea what it would be about, only that the focus would be on language. I knew I was fascinated by the subject so I started exploring the issue in general terms, reading more or less randomly about children's literature, and reading children's literature, before I decided on the structure of the paper and the texts I would use for it. My fascination for children's literature is grounded in its potential for change and for development which is one of its major aspects. The fierce attempts to control children's readings, adults' prescriptions of what is good for them and what is not, have to do with this aspect of children's literature which has always been considered dangerous by some adults, because there is nothing more powerful than the potency of the literary imagination. Fairy tales, which were viewed as suspicious for a long time, as the history of children's literature shows, are a good example of this perceived threat. The question of what children should read, how much freedom they should have to choose, which ultimately comes down to the question if they should be allowed to have an imagination or not, has had to do with changing notions of childhood, on which the emergence of imaginative literature for children depended, but to which it has contributed a lot in turn. The question really is if children's natural liveliness, curiosity, and open-mindedness should be suppressed, if children should be frightened, and kept in their place, taught to accept everything unquestioningly, or be offered what they need to develop and grow at their own pace, and develop into critical, self-confident, open-min

This book offers foundations for a literary criticism which seeks to mediate between writers and readers belonging to different historical periods or social groupings. This makes it, among other things, a timely intervention in the postmodern “culture wars”, though the theory put forward will be of interest not only to students of literature and culture, but also to linguists. Sell describes communication in general as strongly interactive, as very much affected by the disparate situationalities of “sending” and “receiving”, yet as by no means completely determined by them. Seen this way, men and women are both social beings and individuals, capable of empathizing with sociohistorical formations which are alien to them, sometimes even to the extent of changing their own life-world. By treating literary activity as communicational in this same dynamic sense, Sell radically modifies the main paradigms of twentieth-century literary theory, casting much new light on questions of genre, interpretation, affect and ethics.

Children's literature continues to be one of the most rapidly expanding and exciting of interdisciplinary academic studies, of interest to anyone concerned with literature, education, internationalism, childhood or culture in general. The second edition of Peter Hunt's bestselling International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature offers comprehensive coverage of the subject across the world, with substantial, accessible, articles by specialists and world-ranking experts. Almost everything is here, from advanced theory to the latest practice – from bibliographical research to working with books and children with special needs. This edition has been expanded and includes over fifty new articles. All of the other articles have been updated, substantially revised or rewritten, or have revised bibliographies. New topics include Postcolonialism, Comparative Studies, Ancient Texts, Contemporary Children's Rhymes and Folklore, Contemporary Comics, War, Horror, Series Fiction, Film, Creative Writing, and 'Crossover' literature. The international section has been expanded to reflect world events, and now includes separate articles on countries such as the Baltic states, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Iran, Korea, Mexico and Central America, Slovenia, and Taiwan.