خلاصة:
My article addresses the qualities of “good” literature and how an understanding of the nature of literary devices, so-called “literariness”, can enhance the reading experience. Focusing on Hans Rosling’s Factfulness (2018), I discuss some of the most important features of good writing. Six literary devices have been selected for special attention: point of view, tone, amplification, anecdotes, flashbacks, and parallelism. Factfulness is not only good writing, it carries an important message: “[w]hen we have a fact-based window, we can see that the world is not as bad as it seems – and we can see what we have to do to keep making it better” (p. 255). Rosling emphasises the importance of knowing the facts about our planet, and relying on these rather than primitive instincts to make assessments and decisions. The elegance of Rosling’s language makes the message not only convincing but also palatable.
ملخص الجهاز:
Why we need to read and understand literature: literariness and Hans Rosling’s Factfulness (2018) Dr. Jane Mattisson Ekstam Professor of English literature, Department of Economy, Language and Social Studies, Østfold University College, Halden, Norway E-mail: jane.
Focusing on six literary devices that are particularly prominent – point of view (who is telling the story), tone (the attitude of the writer to his subject or character(s)), amplification (elucidations by explanation and/or example), anecdotes (short, often personal stories), flashbacks (interruptions in the chronology of the story to enable the insertion of past events), and parallelism (repetition of a word, phrase or grammatical structure, or a full sentence for emphasis), I demonstrate why Factfulness is such a powerful as well as enjoyable book.
The thirteen questions relate to the number of girls who finish primary school in low-income countries; where the majority of the world population lives; how many people in the world live in extreme poverty; what the average life expectancy is in the world today; how population rates will change by the year 2100; why the UN predicts that the world population will increase by 4 billion by the year 2100; how the number of deaths per year from natural disasters has changed over the last hundred years; how the population of the world is distributed; the number of one year olds who have been vaccinated against a disease; how many years thirty-year-old women have spent in school; how many tigers, giant pandas, and black rhinos have been listed as endangered species and are still endangered today; how many 22 The Journal of Applied Linguistics and Applied Literature: Dynamics and Advances, Volume 4, Issue 1, Winter and Spring, 2016, pp.