Character Focalization in Children's Novels

by Don K. Philpot

Overview

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of character focalization in ten contemporary realistic children’s novels. The author argues that character focalization, defined as the location of fictional world perception in the mind of a character, is a prominent textual structure in these novels. He demonstrates how significant meanings are conveyed in a variety of forms related to characters’ personal and interpersonal experiences. Through close analysis of each text, moreover, he exposes distinctive perceptual, psychological, and social-psychological patterns in the opening chapters of each novel, which are thereafter developed by the principles of continuation, augmentation, and reconfiguration. This book will appeal to scholars, teachers, and students in the fields of narrative studies, stylistics, children’s literature scholarship, linguistics, and education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781137558107
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Publication date:	01/26/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	749 KB

About the Author

Don K. Philpot is Professor of Reading and Literacy at Shippensburg University, USA, where he specializes in the field of children’s literature stylistics. He teaches courses on disciplinary literacy, children’s literature, and literacy instruction for diverse students. His current research focuses on resilient fictional children and their transformative effects on real children.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction.- PART I: INVESTIGATING CHARACTER FOCALIZATION IN CHILDREN’S NOVELS.- Chapter 2: Conceptualizing Character Focalization.- Chapter 3: Focalizing Structures.- Chapter 4: Character Focalization Selection and Development.- PART II: PERCEPTUAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT.- Chapter 5: Perceptual Facet Developments: Seeing and Hearing Experiences.- Chapter 6: Psychological Facet Developments: Emoting Experiences.- Chapter 7: Psychological Facet Developments: Cognitive Experiences.- PART III: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND UNDERSTANDINGS.- Chapter 8: Understandings About Self.- Chapter 9: Understandings About Others.- Chapter 10:  Understanding Personal ExperiencesPart IV Character Focalization In And Beyond Children’s Novels.- Chapter 11:  Character Focalization In and Beyond Children’s Novels.

Editorial Reviews

This ambitious study tracks and categorises the experiences of fictional child characters in ten examples of contemporary realism for children, with publication dates spanning fifty years … . this study represents a welcome application of systemic functional linguistics to the study of children’s literature and provides many interesting ideas and practical tools for future research.” (Sarah Hardstaff, Barnboken, Vol. 41, 2018)

From the Publisher