Children's Literature Studies
Year:2015 | Volume:5 | Issue:2 (10)|Papers Count:7

The Beautiful Heart of Babur written by Jamshid Khanian is a meta-story in which the writer has tried to use a new form of narration, avoiding the traditional ones simultaneously. In a meta-story, narrator thinks about the methods of narration. One of the other peculiarities of a meta-story is being skillful in using intertextuality. The relation between a text with other text or texts is termed intertextuality. The main technique of Khanian in this story, in addition to explaining the development of the story, is the use of intertextual elements as well as creating conversations, by using known stories for children and teenagers, especially Little Prince of Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Referring to well-known texts in the story of Beautiful Heart if Babur helps to develop the process of narration, forming elements of the story, and inspiring meanings, thus making them acceptable. The views of teenagers who are the audience of this story show that they can relate to this kind of story-writing.

The goal of this research is a comparison of text-picture relationship in selected Iranian and foreign picture story books with respect to elements of story. The sample of this study is purposeful and chosen in accordance with experts’ opinions. The unit of analysis is word, sentence, paragraph, single spread, double spread, context, picture and the whole story. This research is based on Maria Nikolajeva & Carole Scott’s view. Besides using a descriptive-interpretive approach, the interpretive-abstractive approach has also been applied. The methodology is based on Mayring’s (2000) deductive and inductive content analysis. As the consequence of such a reading, the theoretical framework of mentioned categories is modified thus accomplishing a new and more comprehensive model for text-picture relationship which is described as the “interactive web”. The findings of this research, point to the value of cooperation and discussion between author and painter for producing more creative works.The findings indicated the text-picture relationship in foreign stories is richer and even provides the audience with wider and more complex perspective of Maria Nikolajeva and Carole Scott theoretical framework than in Iranian ones.

Phenomenology is a special aspect of manifestation of knowledge and consciousness in a text which was established by Edmund Husserl (1859- 1938). According to Husserl, no normalized recognition and definition is considered valid unless it is acquired by Ego through experience, sensory perception and intuition. Based on Husserl’s views in order to acquire a pure knowledge, it is necessary for an individual to impose philosophical doubt upon definitions and presuppositions to and activate his/her Ego to manifest phenomena and concepts in original forms for him/herself. Therefore, phenomenological approach is very important in critical thinking in children’s literature. This article through the content analysis of Hooshang Moradi Kermani’s Majid Stories and also the analysis of the behavior and thoughts of the characters, especially Majid, has applied Husserlian views.

Mostafa Rahmandust is a prominent name among children’s poetry writers. In this study first a brief biography of Rahmandoust is provided followed by an analysis of features in twenty of his poetry collections. It is argued that Rahmandoust frequently uses auditory and visual imageries and paradoxes as well of coining words, and using slangs in a musical way. Other features of his poetry are realistic portrayals, simple language, word play and objective narration of events. He uses both first person and third person point of view suitable for very young children. He is also adept in writing ritual poetry, especially poems for Ashura.

Children’s stories can include different or similar subjects; however, different themes give variety to fiction. Theme is the authors` interpretation and reproduction of the subject. The aim of the present study was elicitation of the existing, expected and null subjects of children's fictions published between 2001 and 2006, according to Khosronejad’s (2004) suggested model. The approach of this study was interpretative-descriptive; data collection method was documentary and data analysis method was deductive-inductive content analysis (Mayring, 2000). Results showed some null subjects in children`s stories such as fear, anger, single parents families, war, culture and social issues. The findings also showed that some existing subjects were more emphasized than others`, such as love, identity, self-discovery and self-knowledge while some subjects such as independence, creativity, responsibility, and individual differences were not that frequent.

Politness theory was used to analyze the movie, Kolah Ghermezi and Pesar Khaleh (a Persian movie bestseller). The present study investigated the speech manner of one the most popular characters of children’s TV series, commonly known as “Kolah Ghermezi”. Furthermore, it studied the speech manner of MR. Mojri (literary, moderator), as the second character in this movie. It was observed that, except for one time when Kolah Ghermezi used performative, contributing to the comic atmosphere of the movie, he observed the politeness scales to the acceptable level. On the other hand, based on the scale introduced by the politeness theory, the manner of speech used by Mr. Mojri, as an adult character and one who tended to teach codes of conduct to children, failed to be acceptable.

Nassim-e Shomal and Ali Akbar Saber are among the first poets who wrote poetry for children by using child-like language. In Nassim-e Shomal's Divan thirty-three poems and in Hop Hop Nameh twenty-three poems are considered as children’s poetry. The two poets' language is simple, devoid of literary embellishments, and suitable for the comprehension of children. The two poets have used the masnavi poetic form. They both have used narratives in which the animals are heroes and anti-heroes in most cases thus making subjective topics objective. The use of personification and fable is more frequent in Nassim-e Shomal's poetry than in Saber's; however, both of them use symbols equally. Nassim-e Shomal has often a direct way of getting his message across while Saber does it indirectly.