Week 8: Linguistic Characteristics

There are many similarities and differences between word use in children’s literature and adult fiction. Children’s books are usually used to convey an idealistic world through the use of narrative words like, “said”. The use of direct speech is more prevalent in children’s literature than in adult fiction, due to the popular story style in children’s literary works. Johnson’s study found that adult and children’s fiction are closely linked by certain linguistic characteristics that are prevalent regardless of the designated audience. Although these styles are linguistically similar, children’s literature is often definable by the use of certain words and sentence structures that are characteristic of writing for children and how they see the world. After reading several of the books that we have completed this semester, I can see how Johnson’s observations are true, such as in The Copper Sun. Although adults can read this book and draw more from it, when children read it, the style and word usage is appropriate for the mind of a child while still getting the point about slavery and hope across. In my opinion, I think that Johnson’s observations are for the most part correct and can be seen while analyzing literature.