Language and Ideology in Children's FictionLongman, 1992 - 308 pages 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. |
Contents
Examining ideology in childrens fiction | 1 |
Ideology discourse and narrative fiction | 21 |
Readers and subject positions in childrens fiction | 47 |
Copyright | |
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actual world adult assumptions attitudes audience Baby behaviour book's carnivalesque Chapter child children's fiction children's literature Cinderella Cinders closure complex constructed context conventional conversation cultural Diana Wynne Jones discourse effect encoded Erica especially example exchange existents fantasy father focalization frame function further Garfield genre historical fiction human ideology illustrations implicit implicitly implied reader inquit-tags interaction interpretation interrogative text intertextuality Jan Mark Jill Paton Walsh kind language linguistic literary London main character Maria meaning Meg's metafictional metonymic mode mother Mouse narrative narrator Nobody's Family novel offers overtly parents particular picture books play point of view pre-text present reading realism reality relationship representation represented response role selfhood Selkie semantic sense shift Shofiq significance situation social practice society story strategies structure subject positions suggest Summer to Die Tenar text's textual thematic theme Theodore tion Tombs of Atuan top-down utterance versions Wagstaffe Wild Things Youngmouse