The Voice of the Child in American Literature

The Voice of the Child in American Literature PDF Author: Mary Jane Hurst
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813163498
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book

Book Description
We as adults are reflected in our children, those in our literature as well as those in our familes, and so it is natural to want to examine their presence among us. Children and child speech are important literary elements which merit careful critical analysis. Surprisingly, comprehensive studies of the child in American fiction have not been previously attempted and fictional child speech, even that of individual characters has been almost totally ignored. Nevertheless, the language of fictional children warrants attention for several reasons. First, language and language acquisition are primary issues for children much as sexual development is primary issues for adolescents. Second, because vast linguistic efforts have been directed toward language acquisition research, a broad base of concrete information exists with which to explore the topic. And, third, language is a key which opens many doors. An understanding of fictional children's language leads to discoveries about various critical questions, sociological and psychological as well as textual and stylistic. This study examines the presentation of children and child language in American fiction by applying general linguistic principles as well as specific findings from child language acquisition research to children's speech in literary texts. It clarifies, sorts, and assesses the representations of child speech in American fiction. It tests on fictional discourse linguistic concepts heretofore applied exclusively to naturally occurring child language. The aim is not to evaluate the degree of realism in writers' presentations of child language, for that would be a simplistic and reductive enterprise. Rather, the overall object is to analyze fictional child language using linguistic methods.

The Voice of the Child in American Literature

The Voice of the Child in American Literature PDF Author: Mary Jane Hurst
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813163498
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Get Book

Book Description
We as adults are reflected in our children, those in our literature as well as those in our familes, and so it is natural to want to examine their presence among us. Children and child speech are important literary elements which merit careful critical analysis. Surprisingly, comprehensive studies of the child in American fiction have not been previously attempted and fictional child speech, even that of individual characters has been almost totally ignored. Nevertheless, the language of fictional children warrants attention for several reasons. First, language and language acquisition are primary issues for children much as sexual development is primary issues for adolescents. Second, because vast linguistic efforts have been directed toward language acquisition research, a broad base of concrete information exists with which to explore the topic. And, third, language is a key which opens many doors. An understanding of fictional children's language leads to discoveries about various critical questions, sociological and psychological as well as textual and stylistic. This study examines the presentation of children and child language in American fiction by applying general linguistic principles as well as specific findings from child language acquisition research to children's speech in literary texts. It clarifies, sorts, and assesses the representations of child speech in American fiction. It tests on fictional discourse linguistic concepts heretofore applied exclusively to naturally occurring child language. The aim is not to evaluate the degree of realism in writers' presentations of child language, for that would be a simplistic and reductive enterprise. Rather, the overall object is to analyze fictional child language using linguistic methods.

The Voice of the Child in American Literature

The Voice of the Child in American Literature PDF Author: Mary Jane Hurst
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813117232
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book

Book Description
A companion to The Directory of rural development projects, Voices... encourages networking the exchange of significant means to sustainable development. The effective principles require accomodation to the subject country's culture, system of government, stage of economic growth and resource availability related to local needs. A study of the child figure in American fiction and of the language of children in literature, based on close readings of novels and short stories, from the classics of Hawthorne, James, and Cather to modern and contemporary works by Henry Roth, William Peter Blatty and Toni Morrison. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Inside Out & Back Again

Inside Out & Back Again PDF Author: Thanhha Lai
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
ISBN: 0702251178
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book

Book Description
Moving to America turns H&à's life inside out. For all the 10 years of her life, H&à has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by, and the beauty of her very own papaya tree. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. H&à and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, H&à discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food, the strange shape of its landscape, and the strength of her very own family. This is the moving story of one girl's year of change, dreams, grief, and healing as she journeys from one country to another, one life to the next.

Infant Tongues

Infant Tongues PDF Author: Elizabeth Goodenough
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814324318
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 350

Get Book

Book Description
"Using various critical approaches and disciplines, 20 contributors examine the representation of children in literature from the Renaissance to the present. The essays cover problems in imitation of speech and dialect, uses of narrative voice, creative development of child writers, and shifting cultural conceptions of childhood, illustrating the way children's voices have often been mediated, modified, or appropriated by adult writers." -- Book News, Inc.

What Do You Do with a Voice Like That?

What Do You Do with a Voice Like That? PDF Author: Chris Barton
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1481465627
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 52

Get Book

Book Description
“When Barbara Jordan talked, we listened.” —Former President of the United States, Bill Clinton Congresswoman Barbara Jordan had a big, bold, confident voice—and she knew how to use it! Learn all about her amazing career in this illuminating and inspiring picture book biography of the lawyer, educator, politician, and civil rights leader. Even as a child growing up in the Fifth Ward of Houston, Texas, Barbara Jordan stood out for her big, bold, booming, crisp, clear, confident voice. It was a voice that made people sit up, stand up, and take notice. So what do you do with a voice like that? Barbara took her voice to places few African American women had been in the 1960s: first law school, then the Texas state senate, then up to the United States congress. Throughout her career, she persevered through adversity to give voice to the voiceless and to fight for civil rights, equality, and justice. New York Times bestselling author Chris Barton and Caldecott Honoree Ekua Holmes deliver a remarkable picture book biography about a woman whose struggles and mission continue to inspire today.

When I Was a Child I Read Books

When I Was a Child I Read Books PDF Author: Marilynne Robinson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374709416
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
Marilynne Robinson has built a sterling reputation as a writer of sharp, subtly moving prose, not only as a major American novelist, but also as a rigorous thinker and incisive essayist. In When I Was a Child I Read Books she returns to and expands upon the themes which have preoccupied her work with renewed vigor. In "Austerity as Ideology," she tackles the global debt crisis, and the charged political and social political climate in this country that makes finding a solution to our financial troubles so challenging. In "Open Thy Hand Wide" she searches out the deeply embedded role of generosity in Christian faith. And in "When I Was a Child," one of her most personal essays to date, an account of her childhood in Idaho becomes an exploration of individualism and the myth of the American West. Clear-eyed and forceful as ever, Robinson demonstrates once again why she is regarded as one of our essential writers.

The Man Who Loved Children

The Man Who Loved Children PDF Author: Christina Stead
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1453265252
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 733

Get Book

Book Description
“This crazy, gorgeous family novel” written at the end of the Great Depression “is one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century” (Jonathan Franzen, The New York Times). First published in 1940, The Man Who Loved Children was rediscovered in 1965 thanks to the poet Randall Jarrell’s eloquent introduction (included in this ebook edition), which compares Christina Stead to Leo Tolstoy. Today, it stands as a masterpiece of dysfunctional family life. In a country crippled by the Great Depression, Sam and Henny Pollit have too much—too much contempt for one another, too many children, too much strain under endless obligation. Flush with ego and chilling charisma, Sam torments and manipulates his children in an esoteric world of his own imagining. Henny looks on desperately, all too aware of the madness at the root of her husband’s behavior. And Louie, the damaged, precocious adolescent girl at the center of their clashes, is the “ugly duckling” whose struggle will transfix contemporary readers. Named one of the best novels of the twentieth century by Newsweek, Stead’s semiautobiographical work reads like a Depression-era The Glass Castle. In the New York Times, Jonathan Franzen wrote of this classic, “I carry it in my head the way I carry childhood memories; the scenes are of such precise horror and comedy that I feel I didn’t read the book so much as live it.”

Ethnic Literary Traditions in American Children's Literature

Ethnic Literary Traditions in American Children's Literature PDF Author: M. Stewart
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230101526
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
Esteemed contributors expand the range of possibilities for reading, understanding, and teaching children's literature as ethnic literature rather than children's literature in this ambitious collection.

The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature

The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature PDF Author: Hana Wirth-Nesher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316395340
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 1254

Get Book

Book Description
This History offers an unparalleled examination of all aspects of Jewish American literature. Jewish writing has played a central role in the formation of the national literature of the United States, from the Hebraic sources of the Puritan imagination to narratives of immigration and acculturation. This body of writing has also enriched global Jewish literature in its engagement with Jewish history and Jewish multilingual culture. Written by a host of leading scholars, The Cambridge History of Jewish American Literature offers an array of approaches that contribute to current debates about ethnic writing, minority discourse, transnational literature, gender studies, and multilingualism. This History takes a fresh look at celebrated authors, introduces new voices, locates Jewish American literature on the map of American ethnicity as well as the spaces of exile and diaspora, and stretches the boundaries of American literature beyond the Americas and the West.

American Literature and Culture, 1900 - 1960

American Literature and Culture, 1900 - 1960 PDF Author: Gail McDonald
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470680474
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
This introduction to American literature and culture from 1900 to 1960 is organized around four major ideas about America: that is it “big”, “new”, “rich”, and “free”. Illustrates the artistic and social climate in the USA during this period. Juxtaposes discussion of history, popular culture, literature and other art forms in ways that foster discussion, questioning, and continued study. An appendix lists relevant primary and secondary works, including websites. An ideal supplement to primary texts taught in American literature courses.