Verbal Violence in Children’s Books

Books that are read during childhood play an important role in the preparation of the individual for life as well as for the family and friends' surroundings. In books prepared for children, part of real life needs to be reflected. It is expected that these reflections can include not only positive but also negative messages, situations and events so the child should be prepared to deal with adverse situations in real life and will be able to learn to cope with them. One of these negative aspects is verbal violence that an individual may encounter in different settings. In this framework, attempts have been made to detect examples related to verbal violence in children's books. The need for such a study on literary quality books for children is due to the lack of an independent research in Turkey on the reflections of verbal violence. The research was supported by document analysis. In the study, fourteen books were examined in the form of stories and novels prepared for children, which contained reflections of verbal violence in the curriculum. The reason why the story and the novel are examined is that it is highly possible to find fiction-based expressions in these species rather than in other literary genres. Documents examined in the study were obtained by taking expert opinion and read without any written notice. Subsequently, the works were first subjected to content analysis to obtain more in-depth data after descriptive analysis. It has been found that all the books examined in the study on the reflection of verbal violence in children's books contained examples of verbal violence. These are among the consequences of working with threats from a wide range of people, ranging from nicknames to disdain. Nevertheless, it was observed that verbal violence performers are more male characters while female characters rarely resort to violence, and many reasons were effective in practicing violence. The results show that examples of verbal violence should be included in children's books which are thought to be effective on child's self-preparation for life. It was found that the fact that violence is not justified as a solution to the problem and that the characters who conduct violence must not be confirmed are among the essential qualities that should not be forgotten when children's books are written.


Introduction
Books that are read during childhood play an important role in individual's preparation for life as well as for the family and friends' surroundings.In books prepared for children some reflection of real life is needed.It is expected that these reflections will include not only positive but also negative messages, events, situations so the child gets ready to deal with adverse situations in real life and learn to cope with them.One of these negative aspects is verbal violence that an individual may encounter in different settings.In this framework, efforts are made to detect verbal violence examples in children's books.The reason for such a study is the lack of research on the reflections of verbal violence in literary books in Turkey.
Today, there are many problems that may cause the human being to lose hope and confidence in the future.It is possible to say that one of the most important of these problems is violence.Violence is defined as having someone do something out of his will by using force or pressure (Polat, 2001).Ünsal (1996) states that violence is to force or press an individual to act outside his will.Violence is a situation in which an individual can encounter in every setting where he or she is in contact with society.The family, school, work and friendship settings are places where individuals most often face violence.
Violence is not only physical but also verbal.Aslan and Avcı (1994) describe verbal violence as humiliating, disdaining, threatening, insulting the other and raising the voice and ridiculing at him to make him do his requests.Yavuz (2014), on the other hand, enlarges the scope of verbal violence and puts it in a way to nickname, ridicule, scoff, insult, swear, gossip, threaten, tease, scream, scold.Fırat and Çeker (2016) emphasize that a significant proportion of behaviors related to verbal violence lead to psychological violence and also physical violence.From here, it is possible to determine that verbal violence is a step towards the process of psychological and physical violence.
Although violence is observed at all ages and in all genders in different forms, it appears to be more intense in males.As a matter of fact, in the related literature, it is determined that violence is a behavior that is resorted mostly by men, and that those who are exposed to violence are mainly women and children (Grace, 1995;Esen, 1996;Walker, 1994;Şenol and Yıldız, 2013;Fırat and Çeker, 2016;Eren, 2017).
It is possible to claim that one of the settings where violence is seen most is that of the family.Related literature (Grace, 1995, Şenol and Yıldız, 2013, Eren, 2017) supports this finding.Şenol and Yıldız (2013) point out that violence in family is harmful to the family structure and that exposure of the individuals to such violence results in growing-up unhealthy generations who are prone to violence.
It is understood that violence is observed not only in family, but it is also seen on the street and at school in the form of peer bullying, which is defined as older and physically stronger children's tormenting and disturbing other children who are weaker.Therefore, Pişkin (2002) suggests that peer violence is one of the types of violence encountered in schools and among friends, emphasizing that school is one of the secondary environments of violence.
The individual may encounter violent words and behaviors in the daily flow of life.Children's books are also an important part of their lives.For children who are in contact with the books not knowing how to read and write, pictures, events, messages and heroes in these books play an important role in children's lives.The question that comes to mind at this point is whether the negative events, messages and heroes should be included in books prepared for children and if yes, how?.In addition, Sever (2002) indicates that violence is presented as a problem-solving method in some children's books, sometimes physical and verbal violence negatively affect children's emotions and well-being, and emphasized that it is a wrong approach to violence and therefore aggression and violence are normalized for children.Fırat and Çeker (2016) argue that it is wrong to suppose that children do not confront any violence that they often encounter at school, at home, on television, in computer games and in children's books, and that there is no overlapping approach to reality.In case of violence seen in children's books, children should not subconsciously be exposed to violent scenes, and that the narration of events, people and the author should not endorse or encourage violence.In the works, it must be emphasized that violence is not a way to solve the problems among the children and the child reader must feel that violence causes another violence.The events and characters should be narrated in children's books that the child may encounter in the immediate vicinity (Şimşek, 2002).In this context, it is important that violent incidents and violence-prone characters be found in books prepared for children.
It is seen that there are not many studies on the place of verbal violence in children's books, which is important in individual's contextualizing life.When classified according to the contents of the studies with regards the topic, it is seen that most studies are related to the reflections of violence and fear in children's books prepared in accordance with different ages (Sever, 2002;Kara, 2007;Dağlıoğlu and Çamlıbel Çakmak, 2009;Şahin, 2012;Fırat, Güleç and Şahin, 2013;Leach 2014;Öztürk, Giren, 2016;Ülker Erdem, Aydos and Çoban, 2017).In these studies, it was found that there are elements of violence and fear in children's books though with different rates.
In the studies on violence and children's books, the second point is peer bullying.Esch (2008), Freeman (2013) and Daniel (2014) in their studies state that children could acquire the ability to cope with peer bullying through the event and the characters in the books and the reflection of peer bullying on children's books.
Reflections of violence in different authors' books and country's literature also exist.In this sense, Angelidou (2013), Eren (2015) and Morellato (2016) emphasize that rather than the reflections of violence in the works for children, its context must be taken into consideration.
Having a different perspective on the topic, Fırat and Çeker (2016) examined the language as a means of violence in children's books.In their study, except for a few works examined, most were found to contain elements related to verbal and symbolic violence.
In the literature, it is clear that no independent study has been reported on the reflection of verbal violence in children's books.In this context, the study was carried out in order to contribute to the related literature and to determine the reflection of verbal violence in the books written for children.In the present study, the question "How does verbal violence affect books written for children? is examined and answered.

Research Design
The work was designed with the document analysis.According to Yıldırım and Şimşek (2011), document analysis is an analysis of written and oral materials.Bowen (2009) notes that the document analysis pattern is functional in that it provides an opportunity for a detailed analysis.As in the study, the reflections of verbal violence were examined in the fictional books for the children, it was therefore appropriate to use document analysis.

Documents Examined
When the works for children, which are the sources of the data, were obtained for which expert opinion was taken and which were in the type of stories and novels where the reflections of verbal violence were seen.While the books were procured, an expert opinion was taken that the works were suitable for children in terms of the age they are at.In addition, we tried to find consistency that the works addressed to the 10-14 age group.In the study, fourteen books in story and novel types prepared for children, which contained reflection of verbal violence in the curriculum, were examined.The reason why the story and the novels were examined is that the possibilities of fiction-based expressions in these species were higher than in other literary genres.Information on the documents examined is given below.As seen in Table 1, 14 different works published by seven different publishing houses were examined.In case citations from the works are needed, they are given in their abbreviated forms.

Data Collection and Analysis
The data that constitutes the basis of the study are collected in two stages.First of all, the theoretical framework was constructed by finding the sources and the books on violence and the reflection of violence in books for children.Then, we reached the works that would compose the data set.The works were read afterwards without any written notice.Descriptive analysis was used on the image "verbal violence" in the works followed by content analysis of the data.In order to increase the validity and reliability of the work, the data set was revised several times and direct and indirect citations were made from the works.In addition, in order to provide coding consistency during analysis, part of the study was encoded with the help of a qualitative research expert and the consistency between these codes was calculated according to the reliability formula of Miles and Huberman (1994) (Reliability = Consensus/ (Consensus +Disagreement)).And the Reliability level was found above .70.The result of the formula showed that it was .85.Kurallara uymayanlar, gözünün yaşına bakılmadan okuldan atılacaklar (Those who do not obey the rules will be kicked out of school with no mercy).YB, 97

Reflections of Verbal Violence
Table 2 shows the reflections of verbal violence in children's books.Such reflections are composed of threat, raising one's voice, insult, nickname and despise.These are given in accordance with their frequencies.
The most common type of verbal violence in children's books is threat.Violent-tempered characters in books often use threats as a means to make somebody do what they want.The most common of these threats is threatening by (SG,113) killing the other or his loved one (ICR, 87).For this purpose, violence-prone characters (SG, 80), threaten the others by shooting them with guns, drowning or throwing them into wells (PG, 88), thus trying to make their wishes come true.
Another threat of violence-prone characters is to physically damage the other.Violence-prone characters who resort to threats such as pulling one's hair and tormenting (SG, 187), breaking feet (YB, 91) are also seen to use occasional threats such as expelling from the school (YB, 97) and tormenting their children.
The second most common reflection of verbal violence in the books examined is in the form of raising the voice.Violence-prone characters sometimes raise their voices to make somebody do what they want, and sometimes they often raise their voices in order to put the other under moral control (DSK, 14; YŞ, 107).Violence-tempered characters, who often achieve results by raising their voices, find their solution by raising their voice even higher when they do not get what they want.Another aspect of violence seen in children's books is insult.Violence-prone characters who address their subjects with words such as "dreary, sewer fare, worm, lazy, stupid" (SG, 87, PG, 35, PG, 91, YB, 134, GL, 77) are thus trying to outsmart and fulfill their wishes.An example would be insulting the employee (SG, 78) by saying stupid or stigmatizing his daughter's feelings (DARM, 128) for not fulfilling his wishes.
Nickname and disdain are also examples of verbal violence observed in children's books.The characters who disdain his friend just because his classmate is taller by nicknaming him as "poplar" (K, 20) or another friend, who lives in the same neighborhood by deeming him unworthy of the school they attend (YB, 52).Table 3 shows reflections of the characters who conduct verbal violence in children's books.The first example is about verbal violence originating from authority.That judges and prosecutors who judge children during court proceedings scream at the accused children and see them as potential criminals (Y 41) is the most important sample of authority-based violence.The prosecutor's shout as "I expect anything from this kind of people!" (JC, 40) is conspicuous in this context.In addition, that teachers use their authority as part of their duties to raise their voice at students and parents (YB, 39) is one of the reflections of authority-based verbal violence.

Characters That
In children's books, characters using verbal violence are often depicted as in the type of father."My dad looks as if he's crazy, he goes as red as beet from fury." (DARM, 129) is a good example.Another violence-prone character is a man with a black mustache looking for his dogs, who "call father and son with a tone of account for the lost dogs".This guy has a stick in his hand, too.Thus, if his wishes are not done, he implies that he would use not only verbal but also physical violence (ANO, 127).In addition, it is noteworthy that in the books examined, the characters who resort to violence are mostly male, and the characters exposed to violence consist of female or young children (DARM,23).In only one of the books examined is seen a female character with violence-prone trait.This character is also depicted as a "big toothed and swearing" character (ANO, 155).The reasons for the verbal violence in the children's books examined are given in Table 4.The reasons for the verbal violence are sometimes the child does not study (YB,134) or that the daughter refuses to marry the boy that the father chooses (DARM, 114).However, verbal violence can also occur by not obeying the employer's instructions (UKO,117) or not sharing the scientific information that one possesses with those he thinks are malicious (UKO 32).

Results and Discussion
It was found that all the children's books examined contain verbal violence, a type of violence though with a different rate and specificity, which is also supported by the relevant literature.In their studies, Sever (2002), Kara (2007), Dağlıoğlu, Çamlıbel Çakmak (2009), Şahin (2012), Fırat, Güleç andŞahin (2013), Leach (2014), Öztürk, Giren (2016), Ülker Erdem, Aydos and Çoban (2017), elements of violence in children's books were observed though with different rates and types.Esen (1996), who examines violence from adult literature perspective different from children's literature, states that it is common for children or step-children of a family to be beaten in the novels.
The most important type of violence that comes to mind in children's books is threat.Threat that most violence-prone characters often resort to is mostly used to get what the former want from the threatened or make them ignore what they do.The type of these threats varies according to the shape and mood of the violence-prone character.It is obvious that violent-minded characters often try to reach their will by threatening their counterparts by harming their children because no parent wants their child to encounter any difficulty and trouble that he or she has suffered from.It is at this point noteworthy that parents are often threatened by means of harm to their children in the books examined in the ordinary flow of life.However, the use of a weapon as a threat can be regarded as a negative attitude as it may provoke the child reader to be interested in guns.The biggest problem with violence seen in children's books is the possibility of legitimizing violence for children.As a matter of fact, Sever (2002) points out the fact that protagonists in children's books use violence in order to reach their goal can cause significant emotional damage in the child.Violence seen in children's books regarded as a daily routine of life is specifically positive for preparing child for life.
It was found that raising the voice is another type of verbal violence used by violent characters.As a matter of fact, Dağlıoğlu and Çamlıbel Çakmak (2009) stated that the most common violence in children's books by 25.9% is to raise the voice.Violent-tempered characters who try to gain what they want by raising their voice sometimes consult to this way to ensure that third parties ignore what they do.It can be stated that raising the voice is the type of verbal violence that the children will encounter most in daily life and that children get prepared if it is mentioned in children's books.
One of the reflections of verbal violence in children's books is insulting.It is seen that violence-prone characters who oppress others and thus seek to achieve their purpose insult people who work with them or those whom they can do physical harm.This is important because verbal violence can easily turn into physical violence.Fırat and Çeker (2016) determined in their work that a significant proportion of behavior and attitude containing verbal violence induced psychological and physical violence.It is also possible to say that insults are sometimes reflected in books in the form of peer bullying.It was determined that nicknames and contempt are another reflection of verbal violence in children's books.It is possible to consider this verbal violence, which takes place mostly in the neighborhood and school setting, in the context of peer bullying, just like insults.
Violent-tempered characters, who nickname or underestimate their physical or psychologically weaker peers, are trying to isolate their peers from their social circles in this way and try to get them to realize their wishes under pressure.It can be said that this reflection can help the child to cope with the bullying that he can encounter in school or friend setting.Esch (2008), Freeman (2013), and Daniel (2014) state in their works that the peer bullying in children's books and the way to deal with them can help children cope with peer bullying that the child can be exposed to.
When characters in children's books were examined, it was seen that resorted to verbal violence by taking power from their own positions.Sometimes these characters who appear as judges / prosecutors and sometimes as teachers threaten, blame or insult without giving the right to speak.These characters, who think that they will not be subject to any punishment due to the verbal violence due to their position seek to outdo their counterparts in this way.Similarly, teachers who conduct verbal violence on students and parents also view it as a right to do so because of their duties.As a matter of fact, Arendt (1997) supports this finding by emphasizing that violence in the public arena is a concept intertwined with authority.
Of course, there might be officials who misuse their position and mission.However, in children's books, it is not a correct perspective to show all public officials as verbal violence-prone characters.Authors should make a distinction.Otherwise, all public officials would be a potential source of verbal violence for child readers.Angelidou (2013), Eren (2015) and Morellato (2016) emphasize that violence should be examined in children's books from a very contextual perspective.Yılmaz and Yakar (2017) also examined in their work the reflection of teacher and administrator characters in literary children's books and found that the forms of authority and communication, assignments and some personal weaknesses were depicted as negative.In this context, it is seen that the results found in the present study are consistent with the literature.Particularly in works examined are seen father characters who use verbal violence due to their position in the family.In addition, almost all of the characters who resort to violence appear to be male.Those who are exposed to violence are women and children, which is in parallel with the literature.Şenol and Yıldız (2013) stated that in-family violence is a way to have control over women for men who practice violence in the family and who are practitioners in the family, indicating that men apply violence to the household for training purpose.
Similarly, Grace (1995) states that in-family violence is directed towards women.Walker (1994) emphasizes that 50% of all women are victims of in-family violence at some point in their lives.Arın (1996) indicates that one out of every four married women in Turkey is exposed to physical violence.Fırat and Çeker (2016), who approach the issue from children's perspective, found that there is violence more or less in every society, and that the weakest and the unprotected subjects of violence are children.All these researches prove that the practitioners of violence are usually men, while the subjects are women and children.However, in a few books examined in this study, it was found that female characters also resort to violence in rare cases.The subjects that are exposed to violence in such cases are children.
The reasons for verbal violence in the study were reported not to study, to marry a man a father proposes, not to share scientific information with malicious people, and not to follow the employer's instructions.As a matter of fact, Fırat and Çeker (2016) also found that the desire to have someone do what they wanted was an important reason for conducting violence.The first two reasons for violence could be evaluated in the context of in-family violence.Every parent wants their child to be successful.However, it is not right to use verbal violence in such a way as to insult the child, which is reflected in the children's books.It is good to reflect the types of violence in children's books they read so that children could see the reflection of life they live.
The fact that people do not share scientific information they possess with malicious people is extremely positive and is also an important message for child readers.Thus, children, who read these books, are taught positive values.Not to obey the employer's instructions, is a negative behavior and the employer's use of verbal violence is not a positive approach, either.Thus, it can be said that positive and negative messages are conveyed over the same event in the books examined.
Reflections of verbal violence in all the children's books examined contained elements of verbal violence.These vary from threat and nickname to disdain.Nevertheless, it was observed that those practicing verbal violence are more male characters while female characters rarely resorting to violence, and many reasons are listed in applying for violence.It is a correct approach to include reflections of verbal violence in children's books which are thought to be effective in preparing child for life.It was found that violence should not be justified as solution for a problem and those who conduct violence should not be confirmed, which are the essential qualities when children's books are written

Table 1 .
Documents examined in the study

Table 3 .
Resort to Verbal Violence/Are Subject to Verbal Violence Characters that resort to verbal violence in children's books Bu tür insanlardan her şey beklenir, diye bağırdı savcı (Everything is expected from such people, the prosecutor shouted).YŞ, 40 Tamam tamam, diye bağırdı hâkim.Panayıra çevirdiniz burayı.Atarım hepinizi dışarı ha! (Okay, okay, shouted the judge.You turned here into a fair.I will get all of you outta here, huh?) YŞ, 41 İdareci öğretmen elini masaya öyle bir vurmuş ki babası yerinden sıçrayıp hazır ola geçmiş (The managing teacher hit his hand on the table, so that his father leapt from the place and got atten-hut.Here is one of the parents who did not know their children, he cried.).YB, 39 Karşı evde hapsolan adam, kanlı canlı, gerçek bir canavar.Konuşmayı, gülmeyi, sarılmayı, ağlamayı bilmeyen, sadece tekme tokatla, küfürle, aşağılamayla beslenen bir canavar.O küçücük evde kapalı kaldıkça daha beter kuduruyor (The man trapped in the other house is a bloody living, real monster.A monster who does not know how to talk, laugh, cuddle, cry, only to kick, slap, swear, and eat with humiliation.The worse he gets the more he stays in that tiny house.).D, 134 Küfreden, kırıp döken, deliren elbette babam (Of course, it is of course my dad, who breaks and curses and gets crazy.).DARM, 23 Hesap soran sesin sahibi siyah gür bıyıklı bir adamdı.Elinde kalın bir sopa tutuyordu (He was a man with a black mustache with a voice asking for an account.He was holding a thick stick in his hand).ANO, 127 Charlie ve koca dişli Suzan, anlamadığımız bir şeyler söylüyorlardı ve büyük olasılıkla bunlar küfürdü (Charlie and Suzan with big teeth were saying something we could not understand, and they were probably cursing).ANO, 155