The purpose of this study is to investigate Chinese American images in selected children's fiction to determine whether or not data support the position of the Council on Interracial Books for Children, that the works of fiction studied tend to stereotype Chinese Americans. After reading the selected fifteen works of fiction, a criterion checklist was devised by the investigator to examine the behavior and lifestyle of Chinese Americans depicted in a variety of circumstances. validity of the criterion checklist was established by a panel of experts in the area of Chinese American studies. Inter-rater reliability was determined by two readers who utilized the criterion checklist to analyze the content of one lower elementary grade and one upper elementary grade work of fiction. Finally, the criterion checklist was used to analyze the fifteen works of fiction and draw conclusions related to the purpose of this study. The findings in this study do support the conclusions of the Council on Interracial Books for Children that this group of fiction portrays Chinese Americans in a one dimensional, stereotypic manner. In the checklist items related to environment, food, utensils, physical attributes, cultural celebrations, occupations, and recreation, Chinese Americans were portrayed as adhering to Chinese-specific characteristics. However, in cross-cultural and behavioral items, Chinese Americans were portrayed as desiring Western-specific characteristics. This tendency was especially prevalent in upper elementary grade fiction. A more integrative or multi-dimensional view of Chinese Americans appreciating, and able to function well in, both cultural contexts is disconcertingly absent. Based on the findings of this study, the following recommendations are made: 1. That teachers, librarians, and other school personnel who use this collection of books, supplement them with materials containing contemporary and realistic information about Chinese Americans. 2. That future writers of children's fiction dealing with Chinese Americans portray them in a multidimensional manner. 3. That curriculum writers of textbooks use a similar criterion checklist to offset the one-dimensionality of Chinese American images in existing children's literature. 4. That future writers of children's fiction on Chinese Americans utilize a criterion checklist such as the one in this study to assist them in developing multi-dimensional characters.

Text in English / This study focuses on the strategies and devices used to create humour in children’s literature. No language is a replica of another language and it is generally accepted that a translator has to be creative in order to make the Source Text (ST) meaning available to the Target Text (TT) reader. The research conducted in this study aims to fill a gap regarding the application of humour in the rather under-researched field of children’s literature. A descriptive framework was used to conduct this qualitative study in order to be able to describe the linguistic strategies and devices used to translate the English source text by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator into the Afrikaans Target Text, Charlie en die Groot Glashyser by Kobus Geldenhuys. Literary devices to create humour, employed by both the writer and the translator, were identified and analysed. Interviews and reading sessions with ST learners (English) as well as TT learners (Afrikaans) were conducted in order to observe their non-verbal reactions as well as document their verbal comments to complement the data obtained from the textual analysis. The textual analysis showed that the literary device most frequently applied in the ST was the simile and the main trend regarding the transference of humorous devices to the TT was to retain the device with formal equivalence. The most popular translation strategy was direct translation with the most important shifts identified on morphological and lexical level and shifts in expressive and evoked meaning were relatively low. With regard to the reading sessions, the most positive results from both groups of learners regarding humorous devices in the ST and TT were obtained for the device of inappropriate behaviour. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)

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Thesis (MPhil (Sustainable Development Planning and Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / This research explores spaces for enchantment and the unknown, exploring our relationship to fairy-tales and alternative ways of dreaming that break from a modern worldview, using complexity thinking as lens. I conducted extra-mural group work with two groups of adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds. I considered the world young people receive at a metaphysical level; the world they dream of, connect to and enact. My thesis is based on the premise that we must act towards a ‘sustainable unknown development’ that goes beyond modern deadly homogenisation. The research objectives were as follows: Firstly, to explore the relationship between dreams (about the future) and a sustainable future. Secondly, to reflect, based on the group’s holding-space, on our relationship to dreams. Thirdly, to reflect on possible alternative ways of approaching the unknown and enacting enchantment to create change. Fourthly, to explore the importance of imagination and creativity with regards to the above. I review literature pertaining to the affects of the modern paradigm, specifically in its fairy tale blueprinting form, on our world. I argue that this paradigm is currently dangerous to the earth as a living system; causing the oppression and abandonment of nature, the feminine, children and our imagination. Alternative ways such as states of ‘interbeing’, polycentric thinking, and the experience of thresholds and heterotopian spaces where differences meet, are considered. The importance of personal experience and imagination in building resilience and meaning in the unknown are emphasised. My research uses a practical design of ‘enchantment methodology’. Methodologically it tries to tackle some ontological questions, considering different approaches in which negotiation is possible at a metaphysical level. My findings were that although alternative approaches do exist they cannot be generalised in a modern thinking way. Beyond the modern numbness and the tantrums of breaking away from its devastating divides, is the potential of inner wisdom found in our own hearts. Recommendations are that more holding spaces are created to promote an alternative relationship to the unknown to nurture a sense of enchantment.

During the early twentieth century, Japan was modernizing in all areas of science and art, including children’s literature. Ogawa Mimei (1882-1961) was a prolific writer who advanced various literary forms such as short stories, poems, essays, children’s stories, and children’s songs. As a writer, he was most active during the late Meiji (1868-1912) to Taishō (1912-1926) periods when he was a socialist. During that time, he penned many socialist short stories and children’s stories that were filtered through his humanistic, anarchistic, and romanticist ideals. In this thesis, I analyze Mimei’s socialist short stories and children’s stories written in the 1910s and 1920s. I identify both the characteristics of his writing style and the themes so we can probe Mimei’s ideological and aesthetic ideas, which have been discounted by contemporary critics. His socialist short stories challenged the dogmatic literary approach of Japanese proletarian literature during its golden age of the late 1920s and early 1930s. His socialist children’s stories also deviated from the standard of Japanese children’s literature in the 1950s and 1960s. In this thesis, I break away from the narrow views that confined Mimei to certain literary standards. This thesis is a reevaluation of Mimei’s literature on his own terms from a holistic perspective.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 11, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 51-52).

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Melbourne, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 104-114).

This thesis examines the use of storytelling as a tool to facilitate writing in English language learners. It examines specifically the effects storytelling had on the student use of expressive language, story structure and creativity in their writing. It also analyzed the enjoyment level storytelling brought to the writing experience of the student.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-09-09T12:21:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) 69580.pdf: 498929 bytes, checksum: 1bcc6aad8c661493b352c587adc9da4c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Nacional de Saúde da Mulher, da Criança e do Adolescente Fernandes Figueira. Departamento de Ensino. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Saúde da Criança e da Mulher. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil. / O alto número de nascimentos de bebês que necessitam de internação em UTIN e os agravos decorrentes da mesma nos convocam a pensar e pesquisar alternativas no campo dos cuidados. Grande importância é dada ao desenvolvimento/ manutenção da relação mãe-bebê como medida capaz de amenizar as dificuldades a serem enfrentadas por essa dupla, bem como pelo núcleo familiar. Estas dificuldades são ainda maiores quando trata-se de uma mãe adolescente ou jovem. No que tange à assistência ao recém-nascido, significativos avanços tecnológicos e de humanização do cuidado são descritos na história recente. O presente estudo tem como objetivo principal analisar, sob a ótica de enfermeiras e mães jovens, quais os sentidos atribuídos à atividade de leitura dirigida a bebês em Unidade de Terapia Intensiva Neonatal, e quais as possibilidades da leitura atuar como facilitadora da relação mãe jovem-bebê, considerando a metodologia do Projeto Biblioteca Viva. Trata-se de estudo com abordagem qualitativa. Paraa coleta de dados, foi utilizada a técnica de entrevista semi-estruturada. Foram entrevistadas 10 (dez) enfermeiras que trabalham em UTINe 7 (sete) mães jovens de bebês internados na unidade referida. A pesquisa demonstrou que a leitura de histórias infantis para bebês em UTI neonatal, que tem por objetivo aproximarmãe e bebê, possibilita para esse par um momento em que o foco principal não seja relativo ao adoecimento e vem a somar às propostas de atenção a essa clientela e às estratégias de aproximação da dupla mãe-bebê. Este estudo revelou ainda que mães e profissionais de enfermagem compreendem a atividade de leitura comouma qualificação da assistência em UTIN, percebendo a promoção de leitura como meio de tornar a oferta de carinho uma dinâmica institucional e como alternativa de oferecer ao RN estímulos positivos ao seu desenvolvimento. / The high number of needed-hospitaliz ation babies born in NICU and its complications lead us to reflect and pro pose alternatives ways in the field of medical care. The development/kepping of mother-baby relationship as a manner to overcome the difficulties by them selves, as well as their families, is a thing to be considered. These difficu lties are even harde r when it is an adolescent or young mother. As regard the newborns care, signifi cant technological advances and in the humanization care field were recently described. This study has the aim to analyze, under the nurses and young mothers perspective, which are the meanings attributed to the reading activity to babies in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, as well as its possibilities to become easier the young mother-baby relationship, considering the methodology of the Biblioteca Viva Project. This is a qualitative study. For t he data collection, a half-structured interview approach were used. We interv iewed 10 (Ten) nurses that work in the NICU and seven (7) young mothers of hospi talized babies in the same unit. The results showed that the readi ng of children's stories to babies in NICU, allows them a time when the major focus is no t the illness but the approximation of the mother-baby. This study also showed that mothers and nurses understand the reading activity as a qualification for NICU assistance, realizing that the promotion of reading is a way to bec ome the care offering in a dynamic institution and as an alter native way to offer the newborn positive stimulation for their development.

This thesis reports on an analysis of the discursive construction of female and male physical identity in children’s literature and explicitly combines corpus linguistic methods with a critical discourse approach. Based on three novels from each of the Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series, it shows clear gendering of body parts, not only in terms of the purely quantitative preferences for certain body parts to be associated with one or other gender, but in terms of discourse prosody, or the uses to which the body parts are put. Human body parts in these series are mostly used in the following four ways, all of which show differences in realisation in terms of gender: · to describe individuals, physically, in order to distinguish one from the other; · to convey emotion, unintentionally as well as consciously; · for physical interaction between people and · for interaction with the world more broadly: responses to danger and agency, i.e. the ability to act on the world and the nature of what is achieved. The use of body parts by characters to express emotion and act agentively on the world is revealed to be strongly gendered in the two series. I characterise the most prominent patterns in terms of the bodily products blood, sweat and tears, of which the last is strongly connected to female characters, who are generally associated with emotion. The other two, referring to active participation in fighting and injury, as well as agency, are almost exclusively reserved for males, with female characters rendered unable to act on the physical world as a result of overwhelming feelings. The females’ response to danger suggests stereotyped discourses of inequality which see women and girls as requiring protection and being physically incapable. Thus gender is still a particularly salient aspect in these widely-read examples of children’s literature, despite plots which appear to be fairly positive towards women. The strength of the inclusion of a corpus approach in this study lies in its capacity to reveal objective, and often fairly covert, trends in language use. These in turn enrich the critical analysis of discourses in these influential texts, which facilitates social change through linguistic analysis.