Periodic Reporting for period 4 - CAFYR (Constructing Age for Young Readers)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-08-01 do 2024-01-31
Constructing Age for Young Readers, or CAFYR, developed pioneering research for understanding how age is constructed. The researchers used a combination of methods to accomplish this. They studied a corpus of 800 children’s books published in Flanders, the UK and the Netherlands in the period 1970-2020, as well adaptations of some of these titles in other media. CAFYR focused on fiction for young readers as a discourse that often naturalizes age norms as part of an engaging story and that is endorsed in educational contexts for contributing to children’s literacy, social and cultural development. Five factors in the construction of age were studied: the content of the books (style, characterization, plot), the age of the author, the age of the intended reader, the age of the real reader and the construction of age in books adapted to other media. CAFYR investigated how the age and aging process of authors affect their construction of the life stages in their works. It shows how various crosswriters adapt the style and content of their books when they address readers of different ages. It brought together readers of various life stages in a reception study that helps understand how real readers construct age, while reading and in dialogue with each other. Finally, it looked at what happens to constructions of age when children’s books are adapted to other media. CAFYR adopts an interdisciplinary approach that enriches children’s literature research with concepts and theories from age studies and other fields. It combines close reading strategies with distant reading. It contributed to participants' awareness about age, and facilitated and investigated dialogues about age, with the aim of ultimately fostering them more.
CAFYR developed a digital method for studying age in children’s literature and a qualitative empirical method to study the impact of the age of readers on their interpretation of age in literature, with intergenerational focus groups to boost the dialogue about age between readers in different life phases. Through the narrative analysis of individual case studies, CAFYR has contributed to putting age more central in 4E cognition theories, fairy-tale studies, new materialism, environmental studies and analyses of the oeuvres of trending authors. Finally, the reflections on adaptations have laid the groundwork for age-aware adaptation studies.
Important results and output:
1. The construction of age through fictional characters, their speech and interactions. Some trends CAFYR laid bare: the prevalence of age norms related to childishness and the decline narrative, even if various works challenge these; the potential to read the construction of age intertextually; the interaction with objects and the importance of dreams in the construction of age; the different adaptation of age in films and TV series based on the same book; the value of “childism” in analysing intergenerational relationships.
2. The effect of the age of the author on the construction of age and the stages in life their literary works (based on digital analyses of 738 texts, close reading of 50 texts, interviews with 12 authors, archival material). The age of the author affects the writing style (but not as strongly as the intended reader). CAFYR revealed the professionalism of teenage authors and the intergenerational collaboration crucial in making their first publications successful. Adult authors draw inspiration from memories and “kinship” with childhood rather than their interaction with real children. Switching genres, short forms and a good collaboration with a younger editor can help sustain an older author’s career.
3. The digital analysis revealed that the age of the intended reader significantly influences the stylistic clustering of crosswriters’ works. The style of Young Adult fiction is more similar to adult works than to children’s literature. The incorporation of authors’ poetics added a layer of understanding, acknowledging the conscious and subconscious elements in authors’ choices.
4. The age of the real reader affects their interpretation and appreciation of books. Adult readers tended to construct children as innocent and imaginative, and associated adulthood with knowledge and wisdom. Child readers revealed a more complex construct of childhood: an awareness of being perceived as innocent and of the difference between the real vs the fantastic. Memory, age and empathy were entangled in readers’ responses. Material aspects and power relations, governed by age, were key in the reading and research experience. The link between readers’ ages and their (least) favourite characters is complex. Child participants preferred child characters, but based on traits that are rarely related to age. Adult readers explicitly referred to age, but picked favourite characters from across the lifespan.
5. In adaptations of children's books, the age of audiences, marketing considerations and formal features affect the construction of age in the narratives (e.g. by contrasting a television adaptation versus a film adaptation).
6. Age in David Almond’s oeuvre. A monograph based on intense CAFYR team work, exploring the limits and affordances of different theories and methods to study age in children’s literature (life writing studies, cognitive narratology, digital humanities, comparative literary studies, reader- response research and media studies).
7. A website that makes the CAFYR scholarship and data available and accessible to a wide audience (English and Dutch). It offers links to and summaries in lay-people’s terms for all publications. It makes available the author interviews (for which we received permission) for readers to access in full themselves. With a user-friendly online tool, users can digitally explore the age-related characteristics of characters in the annotated corpus (based on our parser). Our fully annotated Zotero bibliography can be accessed through the website to assist researchers who want to work on age studies, children’s literature and/or digital humanities. Finally, the website gives reading tips and ideas for teaching classes about age in primary and secondary schools.
Important results and output:
1. The construction of age through fictional characters, their speech and interactions. Some trends CAFYR laid bare: the prevalence of age norms related to childishness and the decline narrative, even if various works challenge these; the potential to read the construction of age intertextually; the interaction with objects and the importance of dreams in the construction of age; the different adaptation of age in films and TV series based on the same book; the value of “childism” in analysing intergenerational relationships.
2. The effect of the age of the author on the construction of age and the stages in life their literary works (based on digital analyses of 738 texts, close reading of 50 texts, interviews with 12 authors, archival material). The age of the author affects the writing style (but not as strongly as the intended reader). CAFYR revealed the professionalism of teenage authors and the intergenerational collaboration crucial in making their first publications successful. Adult authors draw inspiration from memories and “kinship” with childhood rather than their interaction with real children. Switching genres, short forms and a good collaboration with a younger editor can help sustain an older author’s career.
3. The digital analysis revealed that the age of the intended reader significantly influences the stylistic clustering of crosswriters’ works. The style of Young Adult fiction is more similar to adult works than to children’s literature. The incorporation of authors’ poetics added a layer of understanding, acknowledging the conscious and subconscious elements in authors’ choices.
4. The age of the real reader affects their interpretation and appreciation of books. Adult readers tended to construct children as innocent and imaginative, and associated adulthood with knowledge and wisdom. Child readers revealed a more complex construct of childhood: an awareness of being perceived as innocent and of the difference between the real vs the fantastic. Memory, age and empathy were entangled in readers’ responses. Material aspects and power relations, governed by age, were key in the reading and research experience. The link between readers’ ages and their (least) favourite characters is complex. Child participants preferred child characters, but based on traits that are rarely related to age. Adult readers explicitly referred to age, but picked favourite characters from across the lifespan.
5. In adaptations of children's books, the age of audiences, marketing considerations and formal features affect the construction of age in the narratives (e.g. by contrasting a television adaptation versus a film adaptation).
6. Age in David Almond’s oeuvre. A monograph based on intense CAFYR team work, exploring the limits and affordances of different theories and methods to study age in children’s literature (life writing studies, cognitive narratology, digital humanities, comparative literary studies, reader- response research and media studies).
7. A website that makes the CAFYR scholarship and data available and accessible to a wide audience (English and Dutch). It offers links to and summaries in lay-people’s terms for all publications. It makes available the author interviews (for which we received permission) for readers to access in full themselves. With a user-friendly online tool, users can digitally explore the age-related characteristics of characters in the annotated corpus (based on our parser). Our fully annotated Zotero bibliography can be accessed through the website to assist researchers who want to work on age studies, children’s literature and/or digital humanities. Finally, the website gives reading tips and ideas for teaching classes about age in primary and secondary schools.
CAFYR has enabled:
1. The mutually enriching dialogue between children’s literature studies and age studies. Our research appeared in important venues from both fields (e.g. chapters in The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture and The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Aging) and is regularly cited by scholars in children’s studies and age studies.
2. A substantial contribution to establishing digital humanities as a valid method for studying children’s literature and age. This was established through Lindsey Geybels’s PhD, article publications, the conference "Children's Literature and Digital Humanities" (2020), a special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn (due to appear in 2024), our website and various public lectures and workshops for students and teachers.
3. Empirical, qualitative research into children’s literature on an unprecedented scale with readers of various ages and a total of +/- 420.000 words of transcripts. Reviewers have called this “a stellar contribution to children’s literature studies.”
1. The mutually enriching dialogue between children’s literature studies and age studies. Our research appeared in important venues from both fields (e.g. chapters in The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature and Culture and The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Aging) and is regularly cited by scholars in children’s studies and age studies.
2. A substantial contribution to establishing digital humanities as a valid method for studying children’s literature and age. This was established through Lindsey Geybels’s PhD, article publications, the conference "Children's Literature and Digital Humanities" (2020), a special issue of The Lion and the Unicorn (due to appear in 2024), our website and various public lectures and workshops for students and teachers.
3. Empirical, qualitative research into children’s literature on an unprecedented scale with readers of various ages and a total of +/- 420.000 words of transcripts. Reviewers have called this “a stellar contribution to children’s literature studies.”