M.Com. (Information Science) / Although the influence of literature cannot be determined exactly, it is generally accepted that it can influence attitudes and values and therefore play an important role in the socializing process of the adolescent. One of the most important processes the adolescent undergoes is the development of his/her sex role through socialization, within the context of the family and society at large. In addition the traditional role of women through the ages has undergone such substantial changes that women play an increasingly important part in society. The modern woman can attain self-realization and self-expression through marriage, motherhood and a career. The problem addressed in this research, is whether the portrayal of women in available youth literature is a realistic reflection of society at a particular point. The ideal is that the attitudes that are projected are not biased toward either of the sexes and that boys as well as girls may develop to their full potential within the prescribed boundaries of their sex roles. Because of the feminist interest, much research has been done since the sixties and seventies regarding sexism in children's and youth literature. Virtually throughout, the findings of these investigations showed that the female characters are portrayed as passive stereotypes. The portrayal of women in literature awarded with the Scheepers Prize for Afrikaans youth literature is investigated in this research.

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During the nineteenth-century “Golden Age” of children’s literature, many British writers conceptualized childhood through the lens of restorative nostalgia, writing books that attempted to re-create an idealized version of childhood that never actually existed. This has led critics of children’s literature from this era to characterize many Victorian authors’ depictions of childhood as a fictionalized adult product that serves to colonize child readers, interpellating them into adult narratives and ideologies. Edith Nesbit was well aware of this tendency, and in The Story of the Treasure Seekers (1899), she attempts to subvert it with her child narrator, Oswald Bastable. With Oswald, Nesbit works to create a version of childhood that crosses what she calls the “great gulf” separating adult writers and child readers by activating “contraband memory.” Contraband memory is, for Nesbit, memory lacking the cloying nostalgia that makes other authors’ versions of childhood falsely idealized. Oswald begins the novel seeking to mimic the idealized memories he finds in children’s books, stealing them and reshaping them to fit his everyday life. But he soon discovers that many of these stolen memories do not play out in real life as they do in books, and Oswald ends the novel with an archive of unidealized memories that offer readers a model of resistance to the literary colonization common in children’s literature. By archiving his childhood memories before they have time to be distorted by adult nostalgia, Oswald creates the kind of contraband memory that Nesbit feels will lead to something new: the representation of more realistic versions of childhood.

(in English): The diploma thesis focuses on translating children's literature: literary works of K. I. Chukovsky in selected Czech translations and its specifics. Amongst these specifics we can mention the dual address, censoring during Soviet Union, adaptations, the questions of illustrations in translating children's literature and utmost importance of phonetic and rhythmic structures in Chukovsky's literary works. Last two specifics must be in harmony with text itself due to the reader's age category (preschool and school-age children). Specifics of children's literature as well as theory and strategies in translating children's literature are applied on selected Czech translations. The translation analysis will be carried out on following works: Телефон and Муха-Цокотуха. The analytic part of given diploma thesis focuses to what extent the translators took into consideration stated specifics. Both analyzed works has been selected thanks to their most characteristic elements on which we can demonstrate the author's style and then compare them with translations. The analytic part is by this mean focused on demonstration and expression of individual translation problems and their solutions. The results of given analysis are then presented in the conclusion and they are put into correlation with...

This thesis seeks to investigate the various forces that have shaped modern Persianate children‘s literature - history, revolution, political climate, government, institutions, writers, education, and so on. The historical origins of tales popular in modern times, and of themes recurrent in stories from past times to present are analyzed, along with other factors which have shaped Persianate children‘s literature. The thesis begins with a historical and theoretical overview relating to change and continuity in Persianate children‘s literature. It examines the influence of ancient texts on modern Persianate children‘s stories. The cultural development reflected in the organizational infrastructure of institutions is also examined, as well as other contemporary influences, both social and political, in order to assess how these have affected modern Persianate children‘s literature. The contents of children‘s books are analyzed from different aspects, including their representation of social values. Concerns of children themselves are shown in examples of their own work; in addition, works of illustrators of children‘s books, and examples from the extended body of Persianate children‘s literature in Tajikistan are analyzed. Modern children‘s literature is the product of a number of influences and while differences can be perceived between historical periods, underlying similarities can also be seen which show a continuity of socio-political purpose, either supporting the status quo or challenging it. The thesis is concerned with this interplay between the recurring uses of children‘s literature; moralistic, didactic, the political agenda of its authors, criticism of the status quo, etc. and the surface changes which attract attention and which create an appearance of change in its underlying purpose. Fashions and styles may change, but children still read, firstly in order to learn to read, and then for information and amusement. The author contends that, in reality a limited number of changes are possible in the purpose of children‘s literature, and the age-old arguments likewise continue about what those are: entertainment or preparation for the harsh realities of life, retreat into fantasy and acceptance of one‘s place or incitement to rebel and change the world. / Information Science / D.Litt. et Phil.

This thesis seeks to investigate the various forces that have shaped modern Persianate children‘s literature - history, revolution, political climate, government, institutions, writers, education, and so on. The historical origins of tales popular in modern times, and of themes recurrent in stories from past times to present are analyzed, along with other factors which have shaped Persianate children‘s literature. The thesis begins with a historical and theoretical overview relating to change and continuity in Persianate children‘s literature. It examines the influence of ancient texts on modern Persianate children‘s stories. The cultural development reflected in the organizational infrastructure of institutions is also examined, as well as other contemporary influences, both social and political, in order to assess how these have affected modern Persianate children‘s literature. The contents of children‘s books are analyzed from different aspects, including their representation of social values. Concerns of children themselves are shown in examples of their own work; in addition, works of illustrators of children‘s books, and examples from the extended body of Persianate children‘s literature in Tajikistan are analyzed. Modern children‘s literature is the product of a number of influences and while differences can be perceived between historical periods, underlying similarities can also be seen which show a continuity of socio-political purpose, either supporting the status quo or challenging it. The thesis is concerned with this interplay between the recurring uses of children‘s literature; moralistic, didactic, the political agenda of its authors, criticism of the status quo, etc. and the surface changes which attract attention and which create an appearance of change in its underlying purpose. Fashions and styles may change, but children still read, firstly in order to learn to read, and then for information and amusement. The author contends that, in reality a limited number of changes are possible in the purpose of children‘s literature, and the age-old arguments likewise continue about what those are: entertainment or preparation for the harsh realities of life, retreat into fantasy and acceptance of one‘s place or incitement to rebel and change the world. / Information Science / D.Litt. et Phil.

The dissertation takes as a point of departure that 1945 is usually mentioned as a start for a new type of Swedish children’s literature. In the majority of handbooks in and reviews of the history of Swedish children’s literature this is repeated as a fact. A reason for this is that three famous authors of children’s literature in Swedish all had their breakthrough this year: Lennart Hellsing, Tove Jansson and Astrid Lindgren. They are regarded as the most important examples of the new type of children’s literature. Especially Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Långstrump [Pippi Longstocking] has been seen as a symbol for the free child and for the revolt against the adult world and the stiff rules of etiquette. At the same time as 1945 has been assigned as the birth date for a new children’s literature the general view of the preceding period, between the two world wars, has been that it was stagnant and uninteresting. In this study, the hypothesis was that the new did not emerge from an empty space. After extensive reading of children’s literature from the time between the wars it was discovered that there were new tendencies in this literature similar to those ascribed to the literature from the period after 1945. A more detailed analysis was performed comparing Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Långstrump with works by the Swedish author Ester Blenda Nordström and the Danish author Karin Michaëlis’. The results show that the children’s literature produced between the wars was much more complex than previously stated and has several characteristics similar to the literature produced after 1945. As a consequence it seems necessary to modify the notion of 1945 as the definite starting point for the modern Swedish children’s book. A comparative analysis of the three authors is used as verification in the thesis. The analysis use among others the theories of Bachtin about the “popular laugh culture” and shows that the main characters in the books by Nordström and Michaëlis to the same extent as Pippi Långstrump illustrates the norm-breaking and independent child. The similarities between the work of Astrid Lindgren and Nordström and Michaëlis are obvious in terms of content as well as in expressions and type of language. The main focus in this dissertation is a textual analysis against a background of social context analysis. The conclusions state that there clearly were predecessors to the work of Astrid Lindgren. To simply state that 1945 was the year when the modern children’s book was born thus no longer seems relevant. / <p>Akademisk avhandling för avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen i litteraturvetenskap vid Göteborgs universitet, som med tillstånd av</p><p>humanistiska fakultetsnämnden kommer att offentligen försvaras fredagen den 27 maj 2011, kl. 10 i Lilla Hörsalen, Humanisten, Renströmsgatan 6, Göteborg</p>

Child-oriented Chinese indigenous children's literature was created with the translation of western children's works and theories on children's literature. The study on translated children's literature in China is significant not only to the research on Chinese children's literature, but also to Chinese translation history. At present the study on translated children's literature both at home and abroad occupies a marginalized position. Particularly in China, the limited research that has been done on the subject is of poor quality. / Key words. Translation Studies; translated children's literature; poetics; patronage; linguistic elements; personality; influence study; reception. / This dissertation combines the methods taken from Descriptive Translation Studies, children's literature research and Comparative Literature to describe and analyze the production, reception and influence of translated children's literature in China during the period of 1898-1949. Based on two catalogues compiled by the author of this dissertation, namely, A Catalogue of Translated Children's Literature During 1898-1919 and A Catalogue of Translated Children's Books During 1911-1949, the dissertation describes a picture of translated children's literature in China during the period of 1898-1949. The production of translated children's work is analyzed from four perspectives: poetics, patronage, linguistic elements and personality of translators. The reception part, based on the reception models by Yves Chevrel, takes Curoe translated by XIA Mianzun, The Watch translated by LU Xun, and "Translated Russian Children's Literature in China" as three case studies to examine the reception of translated children's literature in the Chinese context. The influence part adopts the methodology of chronology and doxologie to prove and conduct the detailed aspects of the influence of translated children's literature upon indigenous Chinese children's literature from three aspects: techniques, content and image. The dissertation ends with an outlook for future research on translated children's literature in China. / 李麗. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2006. / 參考文獻(p. 222-238). / Adviser: Chee Fun Fong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-02, Section: A, page: 0562. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts in Chinese and English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006. / Can kao wen xian (p. 222-238). / Li Li.

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The portrayals of mothers and fathers in children's literature as companions, disciplinarians, caregivers, nurturers, and providers were documented in this research. The impact of time of publication, sex of author, award-winning status of book, best-selling status of book, race of characters, and sex of characters upon each of the five parental roles was assessed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation, and multinomial logistic regression techniques. A survey instrument developed for this study was completed for each of the 300 books randomly selected from the list of easy/picture books in the Children's Catalog (H.W. Wilson Company, 2001). To ensure all time periods were represented, the list was stratified by decades before sampling. It was expected that parental role portrayals would become more egalitarian and less traditional in each successive time period of publication. Male authors were expected to portray more egalitarian parental roles, and the race and sex of the young characters were not expected to influence parental portrayals. Award-winning books were expected to represent more egalitarian parental roles. Books that achieved the Publisher's Weekly all-time best-selling status were expected to portray parents in less egalitarian roles. Secondary analyses explored the prevalence of mothers' occupations, parental incompetence, and dangerous, solo child adventures. While the time of publication affected role portrayals, the evidence was unclear as to whether the changing roles represented greater egalitarianism. The race and the sex of the young characters significantly affected parental role portrayals, but the sex of the author did not influence these portrayals. While award winning and bestselling texts portrayed parents differently than books that did not achieve such honors, most did not provide enough information to adequately assess parenting roles. Half of the mothers who worked in the texts worked in conjunction with their husbands rather than independent of them. Over 10 % of mothers and fathers acted incompetently. The time of publication and the sex of the author was associated with the prevalence of solo, dangerous, child adventures. Subsequent implications and recommendations suggest the inclusion of stronger parental characters in children's books. Many of the parents are portrayed as inactive, incompetent, or neglectful. The concern is that children are exposed to these picture book portrayals during the primary years of identity acquisition.