LANGUAGE AND STYLE IN CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: A DISCOURSE- STYLISTIC CONSIDERAT

Abstract

Literature and language share a functional relationship, because language is the vehicle for which the literary writer uses to reach his destination. To underscore this fact, three children’s literary texts published by Lantern Books were selected to analysis language use in those texts. Theories adopted for the analysis were Eric Berne’s Transactional Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis Theory and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistic Theory. Data were analysed along these lines. To select data, random sampling was adopted. The study revealed that writers of children’s literature are purposeful in their writings and employed simple language structures, simple lexical choices, pictorals and illustrations, as devices to enhance meaning. It also revealed that their stylistic presentation help shape the content of the texts as well as enact connection between the linguistic choices and social phenomeno