Reflections of social relations in the language of Andrić's prose for children and young adults

Abstract

The paper examines the language of Andrić's prose on the example of his short stories 'Deca' (Children), 'Kula' (Tower), and 'Prozor' (Window) written for children and young adults, interpreting social relations which represent their thematic, sociological, cultural, and historical context. We studied causes of social prejudices which represent the main cause of interpersonal and internal conflicts of the main protagonists in the context of learning sociological theories (sociocognitive theory, theory of social identity, and theory of social learning) and from the standpoint of the psycholinguistic approach. We also observed language as a medium in discovering the internal and external characterization of protagonists achieved by means of verbalization of internal and external conflicts. We interpreted social relations and conflicts reflected in the language as an aesthetic, cultural, and social phenomenon as the conceptual framework of Andrić's prose. Literary language thus becomes a medium that achieves a cognitive role, in addition to its aesthetic role, discovering and illuminating social relations and conflicts which represent a reflexive core woven into the conceptual framework of the three short stories for children and young adults: 'Deca' (Children), 'Kula' (Tower), and 'Prozor' (Window).

Keywords

• literary language
• psycholinguistic approach
• Andrić's prose for children and young adults
• social relations
• conflicts