A Critical Discourse Analysis of Holy Defense Poetry for children according to van Leeuwen's approach (2008)

Critical Discourse Analysis intends to reveal the interaction between language, power and ideology. To do so, it tries to uncover the discursive features by which power and ideology are inherent in language. The aim of this study is to analyze the discursive features in children poetry to find how and to what extent, Poets use these features to conceal their ideas. This study also examines the poet’s changing attitudes towards the Holy Defense and how they are represented in children poetry. In so doing, 6 poetry books from 3 poets were selected and analyzed for their discursive features based on Van Leewen’s model with slight modifications. With use of some proposed features, the poets’ changing attitudes and the concept of National Identity were examined as well. It was found that discursive features are also used in children poetry, along with a high frequency of literary features. It was also found that the poets have used the literary features to yield a positive meaning for National Identity. Additionally, their attitudes towards Holy Defense were found to have changed. This change is quite obvious in their poetic styles, where they have followed an international and humanistic trend to value the Holy Defense heritage. This change in styles and attitudes is more outstanding in the literary works of the postwar second-decade poets. National identity has changed into an important element of the Holy Defense poetry due to the extensive conscious and unconscious attention paid to the concept. It is suggested that more inquiries into children literature be carried out from critical discourse analysis perspective. Children literature is a so flexible field that more studies in the field will result in more revealing findings.