Cette thèse s’intéresse à la manière dont l’enfant est représenté dans la littérature pour la jeunesse britannique contemporaine. L’étude porte sur des œuvres publiées entre 1995 et 2005 par des auteurs britanniques : Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials ; Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl ; Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand ; J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone ; Kate Thompson, The New Policeman ; Alex Shearer, The Hunted ; Hilary McKay, Saffy’s Angel ; Anthony Browne, Into the Forest ; Lauren Child, Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent ; Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found. En nous appuyant à la fois sur l’examen des portraits d’enfants personnages et sur les représentations de l’espace et du temps, nous pouvons dégager une image de l’enfant contemporain tel que les auteurs britanniques pour la jeunesse le dépeignent. La représentation de l’enfant a souvent été analysée dans les livres pour adultes, mais son étude dans les œuvres qui lui sont destinées permet un éclairage différent, révélateur à la fois de la réalité de l’enfant telle qu’elle est perçue par l’auteur, et de l’enfant idéal sur lequel il aimerait que son jeune lecteur se modèle. L’analyse du lecteur modèle par le biais des théories de la réception dévoile l’enfant qui se cache entre les lignes et permet de souligner l’autonomie accrue dont l’enfant bénéficie dans la littérature, qu’il soit personnage ou lecteur. / This dissertation deals with the way in which the child is pictured in contemporary British children’s literature. This study analyses the image of the child in the following works of fiction published between 1995 and 2005 by British authors : Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials ; Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl ; Jonathan Stroud, The Amulet of Samarkand ; J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone ; Kate Thompson, The New Policeman ; Alex Shearer, The Hunted ; Hilary McKay, Saffy’s Angel ; Anthony Browne, Into the Forest ; Lauren Child, Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent ; Oliver Jeffers, Lost and Found. The analysis of the portraits of child characters and of the representations of their environment (both spatial and temporal) enables us to create a picture of the contemporary child as British children’s authors imagine him. The image of the child in adult literature has often been examined, but its analysis in the works that are meant to be read by children offers a different perspective, which illustrates both the reality of the child as it is perceived by the writers, and the ideal child which the author would like his young reader to emulate. Theories of reception enable us to investigate the child reader who is hiding between the lines of the text and to demonstrate the increasing autonomy granted to the child in literature, be it the child character or the child reader.

This essay examines how the image of the labyrinth appears in the novel Pólvora Negra (2008) by Montero Glez, a novel that we inscribe into the Spanish postmodern literature tradition.         The hypothesis of this essay is that the labyrinth works as a main theme or a macro theme for the novel since it recurs frequently and at the same time contains other topics, such as violence.         Our analysis shows, using a structural semiotic method, that the presence of the labyrinth occurs in four different ways in the text. The first is in the physical landscape since Madrid in the beginning of the 20th century, the space in which the novel is ambiented, is a labyrinthine town with small, dark, dirty and bad smelling streets. The second is in the structure of society, which is also labyrinthine since it represents an unjust and corrupt social order that is more obvious among the political leading class but that has an effect on all the segments of society. The third is that the physical and mental trayectories of the three main caracthers in the novel are labyrinthine, which is something that the reader can notice throughout the text. The fourth is that the novel itself has a labyrinthine narrative which means that the reader’s project also manifests itself as labyrinthine. The reader of Pólvora Negra has to deal with both the labyrinth in the text and the labyrinth of the text.         This essay analyzes the narrator’s voice as well as its function in the novel. The use of parody is abundant in the novel. Two kinds of parody are founded: the historical parody and the parody of the criminal novel.

This master´s degree essay aims to analyze and confront two travel memoirs on the Sami people, an indigenous group living in the geographical area of Northern Norway, Swedish and Finnish Lapland and Kola Peninsula in Russia. The descriptions were taken out of a Swedish work by Gustaf von Düben Om Lappland och lapparne, företrädesvis de svenske (1852) and a Polish one written by Faustyna Morzycka Z dalekiej północy: Norwegja, Szwecja, Danja, Islandja i Laponja (1896). The study focuses on the narrative aspects of the actual human representations on the examined topic. The working hypothesis is that the images of Sami people vary strongly depending on the specific bias of the writer i. e. nationality, background or gender. Additionally, the study points out the specification of two different political, social and historical contexts and shortly discusses the model reader´s role in the writing process. The results of the study indicate that there are several differences appearing in the examined travel literature depending on the author.

This licentiate thesis addresses what textbooks in the school subject Swedish specifically oriented to pupils in different vocational programmes at Swedish high school/ upper secondary schools (Gymnasiet) offer to their readers. The study uses qualitative textual analysis as its main approach as well as, to a certain extent, quantitative data from textbooks in the Blickpunkt series (Blickpunktserien). Since they are included in so called comprehensive teaching materials, Bra Svenska A and Bra Svenska B, certain aspects of these two books, primarily their selection of texts are also studied. My point of departure is that a given textbook presumes a certain type of reader – this is supported by Umberto Eco’s theory that an author always writes with a reader in mind, a model reader, and I pose the following question: What views on subject matter, literature and cognitive approach are conveyed by the textbooks and what does this tell us about their model readers? My interpretation is that there are both many similarities and many differencies between the various model readers presumed by the textbooks. The focus on future professional activities permeates all of the textbooks, but is somewhat less prominent in Blickpunkt bygg and Blickpunkt el, where, to a certain extent, the model reader is presumed to be working with topics which can be attributed to the Swedish subject matter area. In Blickpunkt barn och fritid, Blickpunkt fordon, Blickpunkt hotell och restaurang and Blickpunkt omvårdnad, the postulated reader is assumed to be uninterested in literature and is expected to work in a field only marginally related to the Swedish subject matter area. Instead the textbooks are organized on the basis of a general assumption regarding what know-how and qualifications are currently in demand on the labor market. Therefore we cannot say that they contain a genuine Swedish subject matter area. The formulation of the textbooks implies that a model reader is not expected to approach the texts with a critical mind in order to help him or her develop cognitive thinking and oral and written language skills.

L'enfance des jeunes Brontë a été marquée par leurs jeux littéraires : ils ont créé un monde imaginaire dans lequel s'affrontaient héros réels et fictifs, en consignant leurs aventures dans de minuscules manuscrits. L'étude de ces textes permet d'observer chez Charlotte Brontë le processus de formation d'une écriture dialogique, qui se maintient dans les romans de maturité. Sa nouvelle situation énonciative lorsqu'elle soumet ses écrits au public amène toutefois un changement dans son rapport au lectorat, car ses nouveaux critiques ne dissocient pas dans leur réponse la femme de l'artiste. Ceci se traduit par la construction de deux Lecteurs Modèles, qui se voient chacun attribuer un rôle spécifique au sein d'un même texte. Les narrateurs font appel à la clémence du Lecteur Modèle / Juge, tandis qu'ils sollicitent – parfois simultanément – l'aptitude au déchiffrement du Lecteur Modèle / Interprète. Cette thèse a pour ambition d'identifier et d'analyser les différentes stratégies narratives résultant de cette création textuelle d'un double Lecteur Modèle, ce qui permet dans un second temps d'éclairer le sens des romans. Ces stratégies incluent notamment l'insertion de textes seconds ou de références intertextuelles, ainsi que la sémantisation d'éléments non-textuels, tels que les arts visuels ou les artisanats féminins. Cette intrication de plusieurs objets de déchiffrement crée des espaces d'équivoque et d'indécidabilité, qui doivent alors être investis par le lectorat empirique. / The Brontës' childhood was informed by their literary games: they created an imaginary world where they staged the confrontations between their heroes, real or fictitious, and which they used as a setting for numerous tales. A close study of these early writings sheds light on the formation, in Charlotte Brontë's work, of a dialogical mode of writing, which remains present throughout her later novels. Her new enunciative situation as she submits her work to the public at large leads to a shift in her perception of her readership: her new critics do not dissociate in her the woman from the writer, and assess her texts accordingly. This results in the creation of two Model Readers, each of whom is given a specific role within the frame of a same text. Brontë's narrators ask for the leniency of the Model Reader / Judge, at the same times as they call upon the Model Reader / Interpretant's aptitude at deciphering signs. This thesis aims at identifying and analysing the narrative strategies resulting from the creation of a double Model Reader, which help understand the meaning of the novels. These strategies include the insertion within the text of secondary texts or intertextual references, as well as the semanticisation of non-textual elements, such as visual arts or accomplishments. This intrication of various cyphers creates a locus of equivocation and undecidability, which must be invested by the empirical readership.

<p>This thesis deals with model readers in contemporary Swedish magazine advertising texts aimed at different target groups: children (aged 7–12), teenagers (13–19), and adults (20–29) of both genders. The model reader is the presupposed reader of the text, realised in the text itself and not identical with the empirical reader, who is anyone reading the text.</p><p>The study takes the consumer culture of late modernity and the gender system as its point of departure. The model readers are regarded as socially motivated mass mediated identities that are offered to the empirical readers of the advertisements. Through the theoretical assumptions of social semiotics and critical discourse analysis, the model readers are, on the one hand, treated as textual realisations of the consumer culture and the gender system and, on the other, as varying with respect to target group.</p><p>A total of 14 advertisements, selected according to the age and gender of the target groups, are analysed. The texts are multimodal; the copy combines with the images, graphics, colours etc. to create meaning. A qualitative model for analysis was developed and applied both to the copy and to other visual representations in the texts. This model allows an analysis of the construction of the model reader at different levels in the text. The textual composition of the ads as well as ideational and interpersonal meanings are analysed along with intertextual and extratextual presuppositions.</p><p>One of the main findings of the study is that the model readers in the ads with male target groups tend to relate to a reproductive type of consumption, where an already successful model reader reproduces success, activity and leadership through consumption of the advertised products. The model readers in ads with female target groups tend to be more concerned with looks and the female body, and are not as successful or leadership-oriented. They also relate to a pretentious type of consumption, where the product is needed to adjust or improve the identity of the model reader. A gender system in which masculinity is superior and femininity inferior can thus be traced in the advertisements analysed. Another result is that more traditional, often more person and product-oriented, advertising formats are found in the ads with older target groups whereas more collage-oriented, or intertextual, formats are found in the ads with younger target groups.</p>

The presented diploma thesis maps the situation of contemporary child's reading. It deals with the factors which form the child reader externally (especially family, school and libraries, or the projects supporting child's reading). The main part of the thesis presents an analysis of the contemporary poetry for children. It examines how the books can influence the readers and motivate them for further reading. For the text analysis, the books of poetry which were awarded in competitions of Zlatá stuha or Magnesia Litera in 2013-2017 were selected as representative samples, namely Poetický slovníček dětem v příkladech, Všelijaké řečičky pro kluky a holčičky and Moře slané vody by Radek Malý, Tetovaná teta by Daniela Fischerová, Vynálezárium by Robin Král and Hlava v hlavě by David Böhm and Ondřej Buddeus. When analyzing the illustrations, attention was paid to the selected books that won the art category of Zlatá stuha and the competition Nejkrásnější česká kniha roku (The Most Beautiful Czech Book of the Year) and to the books representing the model production of the publishing houses of Běžíliška, Meander and series Raketa in publishing house Labyrint. An aspect of illustration was analyzed in the concertina books Rekomando and Ferdinande! by Robin Král and concertina book O čem sní by Petr...

The aim of this thesis is to operationalise the concept of other-orientation. Based on an explorative approach, a tentative model for analysing the marks of other-orientation is developed. The model consists of four grammatical and pragmatic categories in language: deixis, speech acts, modality, and evaluative words. The process of finding out the significant marks in each category and develop a model has been an interplay between a thorough linguistic coding, an interpretative, evaluating reading, and abductive reasoning in a step-by-step process. Theoretically the study is based on dialogism. From this perspective, the very fact that human nature is social indicates that other-orientation is a constituent component in every communicative act. For that reason, the challenge has not been to prove that other-orientation exists in texts, but to explore how a text is made interactive, contextual, dynamic and other-oriented by means of grammatical and pragmatic selectives such as words, phrases, and clauses. The data consists of eight personally addressed mass communication letters about everyday matters. Each text has its model reader in a readers’ collective. Consequently the language in the texts is construed to form a dialogue between an in-text writer and reader that share the same context, although the distance between the real writer and reader is crucial. One result of the study is the model as such, another the analyses in which the functions of other-orientation related to the four categories are presented. Moreover, the linguistic analyses show differences between texts and readers’ collectives. Texts aimed at large anonymous collectives generally feature a direct address singular you, a high rate of positive evaluative words, more responsive speech acts, and some more potential modality. In texts aimed at a small familiar collective, there is an "I" or a "we" addressing a collective "you". There are not as many evaluative words but more assertions without any evaluation or modality. When it comes to other-orientation, the categories of deixis and speech acts tend to be of greater importance compared to modality and evaluative words. It makes a difference if you address a reader with a singular or collective "you" and if you choose to interact with responsive speech acts or informative statements. These contrast ways to address a reader are of importance for the construction of genre and say a great deal about other-orientation in texts.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine the content and communicative strategies in texts used in a project on tobacco policy delegated by the Swedish government to the National Institute of Public Health (“The National Tobacco Assignment 2008–2010”). The study uses communicative strategies as an umbrella term for the way the texts fulfil the political assignment through adaptation to suit different receivers in a discursive practice with set guidelines for communication between experts and users, and how these strategies are visible in the studied texts. The material consists of six guides for care personnel and ten brochures for smokers. The study is a text-focused critical discourse analysis combining methodological tools from different linguistic traditions. These are chiefly taken from critical text linguistics, new rhetoric, and sociosemiotics. The main question posed in the study is how the public authority’s assignment to influence people through the texts is combined with ideas about smokers’ empowerment. The investigation problematizes how the content and form of the texts relates to the authority’s assignment to exert influence, and to motivational interviewing as a discursive practice with an empowerment perspective on lifestyle changes. The analyses show that controlling ideas and notions about smokers’ empowerment exist in parallel in the government texts about smoking cessation. Controlling elements are most prominent in the sections of the guides about groups who, in the encounter with care personnel, do not show any interest or desire to quit smoking. In the studied brochures the controlling elements are most prominent in those aimed at operation ­patients, adolescents, and parents-to-be. Both groups of material – the guides and the brochures – nevertheless give the impression of being designed to be compatible with a patient-cent­red discursive practice. This is noticeable, for example, in the occurrence of associative and dissociative argumentation strategies which legitimize or tone down controlling elements.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-28T19:59:13Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Marcia Regina Scarpa Pilon.pdf: 566909 bytes, checksum: 20c9cfd7d0ca214fe03b4e717317a927 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-06 / Secretaria da Educação do Estado de São Paulo / The novel Quincas Borba, written by Machado de Assis, has two different versions published in two different distinctive holders: the newspaper, as a serial publication, and the book. Both versions carry important differences that reveal the main subject observed in the present work: the formation of the reader under educative and evolutive focus, acknowledged in a comparison between the two versions. That comparison has also revealed the process of narrative composition of Quincas Borba. The investigation puts in doubt and discusses the role of the reader in the different holders, noticing that the reading attitudes vary and structure themselves in different ways in the two versions. We intended to investigate, in the first chapter, the reading in different levels of perception, or the differences between the serial publication and the book in the act of reading; in the second chapter, we searched in the novel the model of reader roused by the narrative, as much as the differences of the narrated matter in the crossing serial publication book; finally, in the third chapter, the question of the authorship and the reading in the fictional context, comprehending that the changes made between one version and the other are, in their majority, adjustments played by the author in the search of a model-reader of his work this is a question that receives enormous attention by the contemporary critics and that finds in Machado de Assis works a productive investigation to the development of the various studies about the subject. To the effective rendering of this work, it was necessary to approach theoretical hypothesis about serial publications, being Marlyse Meyer the main reference. It was also necessary to search Umberto Eco s considerations about the model-reader, a kind of reader foreseen by the author and printed in the text writing. Other aspects of the work of Machado de Assis were observed through the reading of the vast bibliography about the writer and his production, among which we detach the studies of John Gledson, Hélio Seixas Guimarães and Alfredo Bosi / O romance Quincas Borba, de Machado de Assis, possui duas versões publicadas em dois suportes distintos: o jornal, sob a forma de folhetim, e o livro. As duas versões carregam diferenças importantes que revelam o principal ponto observado neste trabalho: a formação do leitor em foco educativo e evolutivo, percebido na comparação entre uma versão e outra do romance. Comparação essa que revelou, também, muito do processo de composição narrativa para Quincas Borba. A investigação problematizou, então, a função do leitor nos dois suportes, observando que as atitudes de leitura variavam e estruturavam-se de forma diferente nas duas publicações. Procuramos investigar, no primeiro capítulo, a leitura em níveis diferentes de percepção, ou seja, as diferenças entre o folhetim e o livro no ato de leitura; enquanto, no segundo capítulo, tratamos de buscar dentro do romance o modelo de leitor suscitado pela narrativa, bem como as diferenças da matéria narrada na travessia folhetim livro; posteriormente, no terceiro capítulo, a questão da autoria e da leitura no contexto ficcional, entendendo que as mudanças sofridas entre uma versão e outra são, em sua maioria, ajustes feitos pelo autor na busca pelo leitor-modelo de sua obra, questão que recebe enorme atenção da crítica contemporânea e que encontra em Machado de Assis terreno fértil para o desenvolvimento dos mais variados estudos sobre o assunto. Para a efetivação deste trabalho, foi necessário transitar em pressupostos teóricos acerca do folhetim, sendo Marlyse Meyer a principal referência. Também foi necessário buscar nas considerações de Umberto Eco o conceito de leitor-modelo, tipo de leitor previsto pelo autor e impresso na escrita do texto. Outros aspectos da obra machadiana puderam ser observados através da leitura de vasta bibliografia sobre o autor e sua produção, entre eles destacamos os estudos de John Gledson, Hélio Seixas Guimarães e Alfredo Bosi