A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF THE DISCOURSE OF FAIRY TALES IN ENGLISH AND ITS ARABIC TRANSLATION

Abstract

.1 Children's Literature Literature is one of the most widespread writing activities, which is playing an important role in people's lives around the world. It,is a popular means used to teach about other cultures. The great influence of literature on human lives can be understood from the following definition of 'literature' in the article titled 'Children's Literature' by Charlotte Huck: Literature is the imaginative shaping of life and thought into the forms and structures of language. The province of literature is the human condition, life with all its feelings, thoughts and insights. The experience of literature is always two dimensional, for it involves the book and the reader. Literature enables us to live many lives and begin to see the universality of human experience (Huck 2001: 1 ). The above quote shows how people perceive the importance of literature with its various types, including children's literature. Literature is important in a child's life as it helps him recognize the world in which he lives as well as his role in society and the roles «· of those around him. Children should discover first their own identities so that they could identify with their world and appreciate the differences and similarities between themselves and the others. Providing children with literature is one way to help them achieve this sense of identity. For this reason, people throughout the ages have used fiction to teach children the norms and values of their societies as well as the ways in which they can deal with different situations. McDowell (1973: 51- 63) stated that since children's literature is a well-established genre it has its particular characteristics which make it attractive to young children. Moreover, these particular characteristics enable children's literature to perform its functions. In fact, children's literature serves both to entertain and educate children, for it gives them the chance to see different characters interacting with each other in settings that are appealing to them. In this way, they identify themselves with these characters and try to find solutions to their problems, in addition to acquiring their cultural norms and values. In fact, there is a magnificent heritage of children's literature. It can be classified into five types: firstly, adult books that were adapted to suit children's needs as they are read by children and are affecting the course of children's literature. Some examples are: Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the Collection of Folktales by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, the folk-verse anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn ["The Boy's Magic Horn"], edited by Achim Von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, and William Blake's Songs of Innocence; secondly, books that their creators may have ignored their audiences, but these books are now fixed stars in children's literature. Examples are Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Charles Perrault's Fairy Tales. Thirdly, picture books and easy-to-read stories. Fourthly, first