24.764, Review: Discourse Analysis; Ling & Literature; Syntax: Sunderland (2012)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-24-764. Mon Feb 11 2013. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 24.764, Review: Discourse Analysis; Ling & Literature; Syntax: Sunderland (2012)

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Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:30:14
From: Monika Pleyer [monika.pleyer at gmx.de]
Subject: Language, Gender and Children's Fiction

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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-3306.html

AUTHOR: Jane  Sunderland
TITLE: Language, Gender and Children's Fiction
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury Linguistics (formerly Continuum Linguistics)
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Monika Pleyer, Universität Heidelberg

SUMMARY

This book presents current and older research into how fe/male characters and
gender relations are represented in novels for child readers. From the
perspective of  a critical feminist approach, combined with insights from
stylistics, this volume investigates a variety of children’s books from the
last 50 years, as well as fairy tales, due to their potential of being
recontextualised.

Although not divided by sections, the book’s chapters could be grouped into
two parts: The first four chapters present a theoretical perspective on the
topic and introduce the main concepts, methods, and goals of this book, while
the following five chapters deal with case studies of specific books or text
types.

Chapter 1, an introductory chapter, discusses the importance of the concept of
fiction for the present studies. Drawing on early studies of gender and
fiction beginning in the 1960s (e.g. key French theorists Irigaray, Cixous and
Kristeva), the chapter summarises the main objective of the book: the analysis
of textual representations of gender, i.e., ideas about masculinities and
femininities expressed in texts, either through written texts (e.g.
characterizations) or through accompanying visuals.

Chapter 2, titled “Language and Gender: Issues and Applications” establishes a
model of the core concept of “gender” underlying the book, which sees it as an
idea or set of ideas about men and women, boys and girls, and gender
relations. It advocates the application of such a model to the analysis of
fictional texts. Seeing gender as a constitutive, discursive practice, the
notion of “discourse” (Fairclough/Wodak 1997) is further exemplified.

Chapter 3 (“Content Analysis: The Early Days”) presents a critical account of
content analysis, whose main focus lies on actors and their activities, not on
the language used in the text. As this method is used throughout the book, the
chapter presents a careful discussion of its benefits and limitations. Content
analysis can demonstrate and raise awareness for the (over-) representation of
gender, traditional and non-traditional occupational and social roles, and
gender role stereotyping. However, it is limited in that it does not consider
the writer’s perspective: an author may wish to talk about men or women only
without being discriminatory, or s/he may present gender-stereotypical
characters as a target for feminist critique. Also, content analysis by itself
cannot address texts’ impact on the self-image or gender perceptions of child
readers. Further, summarizing early studies of female and male characters’
attributes and activities in relation to gender, the chapter concludes that
female oppression and marginalisation (Adler 1993) was the usual case in older
texts.

Chapter 4 (“The Importance of Language and Linguistic Analysis”) then
investigates the significance of language and linguistic analysis for
understanding gender. Drawing on methods used in the fields of stylistics and
critical discourse analysis (CDA), the chapter makes a case for the importance
of analyses of transitivity and mood, as well as speech acts (cf. Knowles/
Malmkjaer 1996: 77; Halliday’s (1971) ideational grammar, and van Leeuwen’s
(2008) social actors/action). It also looks at levels of ideology (Hollindale
1988) which influence and subject-position readers. The rest of the chapter is
dedicated to the few studies which have focussed explicitly on the language
used to describe characters and their actions.

The following chapters, i.e., Chapters 5-9, involve case studies of gender
representations in diverse types of stories for children with a different
focus (e.g. whether linguistic or visual).

Asking the question of “Happily Ever After?”, Chapter 5 analyses the language
surrounding the depiction of marriage proposals and acceptances in a selection
of fairy tales by Perrault (1957), the Brothers Grimm (1983) and Andersen
(1872), while also considering differences to earlier versions of these tales.
The chapter conducts a simple linguistic analysis, investigating mood and
actors in proposals in 14 fairy tales, and concludes that apart from some
notable exceptions, there is no indication as to the point of view of the
brides -- most proposals stem from male characters.The end of the chapter then
briefly touches on feminist rewritings of the fairy tales in question.

Chapter 6, titled “Sixty Years of Reading Schemes,” discusses both early and
recent studies of content, language, and visuals in older and modern British
reading schemes, i.e., early readers children’s book series. While it is shown
that gender equality has improved from early, dominantly male-oriented reading
schemes, the chapter demonstrates that especially parent figures are still
represented unequally in terms of gender occupations and activities.

Chapter 7, written with Mark McGlashan, focuses on “Stories Featuring Two-Mum
and Two-Dad Families.” Conducting an explorative linguistic and visual
analysis of 29 stories, i.e., the majority of texts dealing with this topic,
the authors seek to answer the question of which strategies are used to create
positive representations of these family models and establish three different
narrative strategies for the promotion of same-sex families. The ‘gay
strategy’ explicitly references gay identity, often by explaining the word to
the child in the story. In contrast, the ‘different’ strategy shows diverse
approaches to rationalising a two-mum or two-dad family model for children
while not using the word ‘gay’; this is often accomplished by the child
questioning their family situation after having witnessed other families. A
third strategy, termed ‘backgrounding,’ is employed by books in which gay
sexuality is taken as read; these texts focus on issues around the personal
and family life which are not specific to gay families.

Chapter 8 (“‘Miss Katherine Shot the Sheriff’: The Literary Affordance of
‘Achronological Intertextuality’”) focuses on a closer qualitative analysis of
two Newberry award winning books for older children, “Holes,” by Louise
Sachar, and Linda Sue Park’s “A Single Shard.” Using the concept of
achronological intertextuality, the chapter investigates traces of feminist
discourses in male coming-of-age stories.

Focussing on “Hermione, Harry and Gender Relations at Hogwarts,” Chapter 9
addresses gendered discourse, gender construal and gender relations in J.K.
Rowling’s “Harry Potter” series. Analysing transitivity and semiotic action in
one episode of the first “Harry Potter” novel, as well as general character
traits, the chapter seeks to understand how the main female protagonist is
construed differently to her male counterpart(s) and establishes traditional
and progressive discourses underlying the representation of her femininity.

As a conclusion, Chapter 10 summarizes key aspects and proposes different
areas of future research, such as a closer analysis of different masculinities
or femininities in a single text, readers’ reactions to visual representations
of characters, or contrasting findings with books for older children. It
further devotes a lot of space to research focussing on the consumption of
texts by child readers of different genders.

EVALUATION

Chapters 1-4 review the theoretical background to the studies presented in
Chapters 5-9, as well as explain and concretise previous research in the field
of gender and children’s literature. In doing so, the book also addresses the
limitations of earlier studies and thus points to areas for further research
and theoretical improvement. These chapters may thus serve as a broad overview
for students familiarizing themselves with the history of research of gender
and children’s fiction.

While the book is mainly addressed to researchers and students, it is also
accessible for laypeople interested in or working in the field of children’s
fiction (e.g. authors and/or publishers of children’s reading material). Also,
authors from any field studying children’s literature might profit from the
findings of this book, since, e.g., core texts on translating children’s
literature from the early 1990s still speak of the genre of “girls’ fiction”
and uncritically quote texts that are seen as sexist in the present volume
(see, e.g., O’Sullivan 1992: 91-95).

Chapters 5-9 focus on case studies of quite diverse types of children’s books.
As the individual chapters don’t presuppose knowledge of the preceding ones,
it might be recommended to read only select chapters, depending on one’s
research interests.

Most of the chapters present data that is based on small-scale studies.
Overall, the outcome of these studies is well worth reading, although further
research might be needed to achieve statistically sound findings on a larger
scale. This is especially so since the excerpts analysed are very short at
times (in one case, less than one page of the novel is concerned), and only a
single criterium is analysed. This raises the question of the explanatory
power of these analyses, and thus, the degree to which these results can be
generalised to other texts for children might be fairly limited. Further, in
some instances, the selection of criteria for the analyses seems somewhat
arbitrary. In particular, readers not intimately familiar with research in
gender and children’s literature might profit from more detailed explanations
as to the relevance of the chosen criteria.

A further problem concerns the data selection, which is highly subjective, as
the data sample of the case study presented in Chapter 5 consists of texts in
the author’s possession which she is intimately familiar with. However,
Chapter 7 presents a study in which the data is balanced and where the
criteria for selection are given and are justified in a scientifically
satisfying manner.

Chapters 6 and 7 devote much space to a visual analysis of gendered
representations of male and female characters. The book stresses the
importance of visuals as complementing and supporting narration in children’s
books. Hence, it makes a case for a visual analysis to underline and support
findings from content analysis and linguistic analysis. However, concerning
the title of the volume, visuals are given quite a lot of room. Quite a
similar case can be made for the importance given to content analysis
throughout the book. In content analysis, the researcher focuses on a text in
terms of what it is about, not on its structure or the language used by
characters or the narrator.

A quantitative analysis of, e.g., the occupation of adult characters in a
given number of children’s texts, can give valuable insights and help to
expose and understand hidden sexism and/or non-progressive gender ideals in
fiction. However, the book might have profited from a stronger focus on
language. This is especially so since Chapter 4 stresses the limitations of
content analysis and advocates that content analysis always be supported by a
linguistic analysis.

While analyses in the book focus on the language used to represent characters,
no space is devoted to the question of how characters construct their own
gender and that of others using language, nor the subject of how readers
understand and evaluate these constructions of gender. This is mainly due to
the author’s stance, which sees talk in fiction as fundamentally different to
talk in natural, spontaneous interactions, which thus cannot be analysed using
the same methodological means.

Contrary to this view, Tannen (1984) and Yos (1996), among others, have argued
that literary dialogue is not that much different from spontaneous
conversations and can thus be analysed in a similar fashion. Hence it would
have been desirable for the book to have analysed more talk by characters.
This remains one area for further research.

To give a final evaluation, this volume presents a theoretical summary of
previous research in the field of gender and children’s fiction, as well as
case studies. While the latter could have been more sound methodologically,
the findings tie in with older studies, and thus, the book paves the way for
further, in-depth research in these and other, related areas.

REFERENCES

Adler, Sue. 1993. “Aprons and Attitudes: A Consideration of Feminism in
Children’s Books.” In: Claire, H., Maybin, J. and Swann, J. (eds). Equality
Matters: Case Studies from the Primary School. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters,
111-23.

Fairclough, Norman and Wodak, Ruth. 1997. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In:
can Dijk, T. (ed.). Discourse as Social Interaction. (Discourse Studies: A
Multidisciplinary Introduction, Vol. 2) London: Sage. 258-84.

Halliday, Michael. 1985. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London:
Arnold.

Hollindale, Peter. 1988. Ideology and the Children’s Book. Stroud: The Thimble
Press.

Knowles, Murray and Malmkjær, Kirsten. 1996. Language and Control in
Children’s Literature. London: Routledge.

O’Sullivan, Emer. Kinderliterarische Komparatistik. Heidelberg: Winter, 2000.

Tannen, Deborah. 1984. Conversational Style: Analysing Talk among Friends.
Norwood, NJ:
Ablex Publishing Corporation.

van Leeuwen, Theo. 1996. “The Representation of Social Actors.” In:
Caldas-Coulthard, C. and Coulthard, M. (eds) Text and Practices: Readings in
Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. 32-70.

Yos, Gabriele. 1996. „Reden sie wie du und ich? Gesprächsstilistische
Untersuchungen an epischen Texten für junge Leser.“ In: Feine, A. & Siebert,
H.-J. (eds.). Beiträge zur Text- und Stilanalyse (Sprache -- System und
Tätigkeit Band 19). Frankfurt a.M. u.a.: Lang. 181-92.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Monika Pleyer is a PhD student at the Department of English at the University
of Heidelberg and the Heidelberg Graduate School of Humanities and Social
Sciences. Her PhD project is on “A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Impoliteness in
Children’s Literature.” Apart from impoliteness studies, her research
interests include general pragmatics studies, gender studies and semantics.








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