1,720,959 research outputs found
\u201cBecause she can fly\u201d
No full textAbstract: What makes a fictional character someone\u2019s favourite? One of the factors scholars have explored is overlapping identity markers, for instance when boy readers favour boy characters. This article extends that discussion to age by discussing data gathered in individual interviews and focus-group conversations with 18 readers between the ages of 9 and 75. In the interviews, readers were asked about their favourite character in the children\u2019s book Iep! (1996) by Joke van Leeuwen. Readers up to the age of 14 all selected younger characters as their favourites, whereas older readers selected favourite characters from a wider range of age groups, including younger characters. Younger readers named distinct traits as their reason for selecting a character as their favourite, such as \u201cBecause she can fly\u201d, whereas adult readers also cited external factors for liking a character, such as a character reminding them of someone. Regarding the characters that readers did not like, readers up to the age of 11 were unable to select a character they did not like, whereas the majority of adults found this easy. Of these unpopular characters, only a small minority were children; in the main, adult readers disliked adult characters. Interestingly, several child readers defended adult characters disliked by adult readers
Decline narratives en wijsheid : hoe reflecteren lezers van alle leeftijden op de representatie van leeftijd in literatuur voor jonge lezers?
No full textAbstract: In dit artikel bespreek ik hoe lezers van verschillende leeftijden naar \u201cdecline narratives\u201d en \u201cwijsheid\u201d verwijzen om betekenis te geven aan hun leeftijd en de leeftijd van personages in twee kinderboeken: Iep!, geschreven door Joke van Leeuwen en Voor altijd samen, amen, geschreven door Guus Kuijer. Deze bespreking is gegrond in kwalitatieve data verzameld via 57 semigestructureerde interviews en 4 focus groep gesprekken met lezers van 9 tot 75 jaar oud. Decline narratives zijn een voorbeeld van \u201cageism\u201d: vooroordelen op basis van leeftijd, waarbij het proces van ouder worden vanaf middelbare leeftijd geschetst wordt als \u201cdecline which continues relentlessly into old age and death\u201d (Featherstone and Hepworth 357). Tijdens de interviews verschenen decline narratives op verschillende manieren in de antwoorden van lezers van alle leeftijden. Jonge lezers gebruikten ze bijvoorbeeld om hun verwachtingen over oudere personages vorm te geven. Zo werd ontbrekende informatie over oudere personages aangevuld met het geloof in hun nakende dood, en een vermoeden dat ze slecht te been zijn. Oudere lezers kaderden inzichten over oudere personages ook in decline narratives, maar nuanceerden dit verder via reflecties over hun eigen beleving van (oudere) volwassenheid en leeftijdsgebonden lichamelijke en cognitieve veranderingen. Als deel van dat proces benadrukten oudere lezers \u201cwijsheid\u201d als een belangrijk positief effect van het ouder worden, waarmee ze naast decline narratives ook positieve groei aan het verouderingsproces konden koppelen. Wijsheid werd door oudere lezers bovendien op complexe manieren toegeschreven aan jonge en oudere personages. Zo ging niet iedereen akkoord dat ouder worden je automatisch wijs maakt, en volgens sommige volwassen lezers kunnen kinderen ook wijs zijn. Decline narratives en wijsheid stellen op die manier een klein deel voor van het ingewikkelde proces waarmee lezers betekenis geven aan hun eigen leeftijd en de leeftijd van personages
\u201cI became much wiser over time\u201d Readers\u2019 use of innocence and wisdom as age norms in response to children\u2019s literature
No full textAbstract: Children\u2019s literature is often called didactic, with age norms being part of what books for children are said to teach. One such age norm is that children are \u201cinnocent and inexperienced\u201d, which leads to the belief that adults have \u201ca duty to teach children what they don\u2019t yet know\u201d (Nodelman 157). In contrast to childhood innocence, adults then emerge as \u201cwise\u201d, becoming progressively more so with increased age, as wisdom has been characterized as: \u201ca capacity for balanced reflection and judgment that can only accrue with long experience\u201d (Woodward 187). In such a light \u2013 both qualities, \u201cinnocence\u201d and \u201cwisdom\u201d, appear as age norms set at opposite ends of a scale, with \u201cexperience\u201d often serving as the unit of measurement. However, various scholars have also criticized both generalizations (Kitzinger 165; Woodward 206). In this paper I discuss how these age norms surface in data from reader-response research (one-on-one interviews and focus group conversations) conducted with readers of different ages, centered around constructions of age in children\u2019s literature. By recounting and comparing selected examples of readers\u2019 use of wisdom and innocence as markers of age, I delve into some of the complex ways respondents adopted them to make sense of their own age and the age of characters. Generally, the higher the age of the participants, the more the perceived value of their own experiences and wisdom increased. By contrast, younger readers were at times hesitant to think of themselves as innocent. At the same time, characters that were perceived as especially wise by some, were thought of as dumb by others. Thus, the complexity of my readers\u2019 responses challenges straightforward age-bound generalizations of wisdom and innocence, and demonstrates how different readers can use these age norms to construct characters in different ways
Dynamics of age and power in a children's literature research assemblage
No full textAbstract: The link between age and power in children\u2019s literature has been explored through various lenses in recent years, with some scholars emphasizing the adult\u2019s power and others focusing on the child\u2019s power. To add to the current debate, this chapter analyses empirical qualitative data from readers\u2019 reflections on their own age and the age of characters in the Dutch children\u2019s book Iep!, written by Joke van Leeuwen. The chapter aims to adopt a \u201cpost-age\u201d (Haynes & Murris 2017) perspective, with the participants\u2019 individual experiences of Iep! becoming entwined and changed through encounters with human beings and matter
Responding to the constructions of age in children\u2019s literature : an intergenerational approach
No full textAbstract: Age is one of the most fundamental identity markers that humans use to categorize people. Yet, compared with other traits like race and gender, little attention is paid to the messages and prejudices about age that are present in fiction. In that respect, children\u2019s literature is particularly interesting. It is one of the first forms of fiction that we are exposed to and tends to contain characters of a broad range of ages. These characters also often explicitly reflect about topics such as growing up, or what it means to be a child or adult. Additionally, reader response critics have long remarked that the age of the reader is an important determining factor in how a reader gives meaning to literature. This PhD-thesis combines these insights by empirically exploring how the age of the real reader affects the understanding of age in literature for young readers. To answer this research question, I conducted a series of individual interviews and focus group conversations with 51 readers between 9 and 79 years old. Each reader received and read a children\u2019s book, and participated in an individual interview about that book. During this individual interview we discussed readers\u2019 own age and their view on age in the children\u2019s book they read. Some of these readers then joined a focus group conversation in which they discussed their view on age in the book with a group of readers of different ages. The analysis highlights \u2013 among other topics \u2013 how readers reflected about innocence, wisdom, fantasy, empathy, shame and childhood memories to give meaning to their own age and the age of characters. For instance, younger readers showed remarkable insight into adult perceptions of children, admitting that they sometimes act more innocent than they are, to escape punishment for bad behaviour. Additionally, some characters that were perceived as exceptionally wise by adult readers were deemed na\uefve by teenage and early-adult readers. Readers also shared complex childhood memories that sometimes engendered empathy with (child) characters, and sometimes hampered empathy. Finally, readers\u2019 participation often took place in an intergenerational context that added further depth to the data. For instance, young readers always participated with their parents close by, while the oldest readers sometimes needed help from young relatives to be able to participate in the first place
'I became much wiser over time' : readers' use of innocence and wisdom as age norms in responses to children's literature
No full textAbstract: Age norms are the social norms that, within a specific socio-cultural environment, operate as the expectations about the appearance and behaviour of members of various age groups (Radl 758). In addition, age is \u2018relational\u2019 (Pickard 203), meaning that age groups are defined in relation to other age groups. In that context, children are often described as \u2018innocent and inexperienced\u2019 (Nodelman 157) and adults as wise (Woodward 187). However, scholars have also criticised childhood innocence and adult wisdom as problematic generalisations (Kitzinger 79; Woodward 206)
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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