Thompson Article

I found this article on the linguistic characteristics of literature written for children to be very interesting. I did not expect that when comparing the features of literature for children and literature for adults, at least in the category of fiction, that there would be such similarity. Almost all of the tables and figures illustrated a high level of similarity in many of the linguistic characteristics that were explored in the chosen corpora. As the author pointed out, both adult and adolescent literature were very different from the newspaper corpus, which was expected. Newspaper writing, in my opinion, is very informative, to the point, and matter of fact. Yes, some writers of newspaper articles do express satirical views in their columns, but the point of the articles is still to present the news and some opinion about it.
It is hard for me to believe, although the evidence has been presented to me in this article, that adult and adolescent literature are very much alike in the ways presented in this study. When I consider the many various topics and writing styles of different authors in both categories it would seem to me that they would be different. Adolescent literature is much more simple in terms of both plot and writing styles. Also, the range of topics for this type of literature is limited to keep it at a PG rating. Adult literature has much more range in plot, writing styles, and topic. Because of this, I am compelled to believe that the linguistic characteristics that were presented in this study do not come close to fully classifying by any comparative means these different types of literature. I do not believe that just by counting which words and phrases appear most often in a work of literature that you can truly access the work. Much deeper analysis that considers the messages and philosophical views of a piece, as well as its complexity are needed to attempt any sort of classification by comparison. I do however commend this article for analyzing the way the world and human relation to the world is presented in these types of literature and finding that there are indeed differences.