A Study of the Effects of Intertextuality Awareness on Reading Literary Texts: The Case of Short Stories

Abstract

Intertextuality can be generally defined as the influence and presence of previous texts in the construction of the present one; it shows the internal relations of a text with all other relating texts (Booker, 1996; Halliday, 2003). The consensus is that no text is a complete creation of its author; rather, it is constructed through the process of interconnections of textual elements of the relating texts and the author's creativity. In literary texts, intertextuality plays crucial roles (Abrams, 1993: 185-6; Peck and Coyle, 2002: 143). The author, un/consciously appeals to intertextual elements, elaborates them in his artistic career and creativity to create the intended textprose/poetry. Accordingly, in reading literature, being aware of intertextuality seems to be important in better understanding of the text. The present paper studies possible effects of intertextuality awareness on reading literary texts-short stories. To this end, a group of 25 homogeneous students of English literature at Arak University, Iran, were asked to take part in the study. Two short stories, as tasks of elicitation, were first given to them as pretest to read and answer the questions. Then, after 6 sessions of treatments relating to intertextuality, its features and examples, they were given the same stories, as posttest, to read and answer the questions. Their answers in both pre-and post tests were scored by two raters, and then compared. The results revealed strong effects of intertextuality awareness on reading the texts. Possible causes of the results along with the implications of the findings are discussed.

A Linguistic Analysis of the Aesthetics of Intertextuality in Habib Al-Zyoudi’s Poetry

“…It is evidently a golden chance for poetry readers to better comprehend and accurately interpret texts (Ahmadian and Yazdani, 2013). This is because intertextuality sharpens their minds to discern the diverse layers of meanings embedded in the text through familiarising them with specific entities, notions and the matrix of relations (Ahmadian, 2010). It carries condensed connotations that connect previous and subsequent texts together besides enhancing the rhyme (Shabaneh, 2007).…”

Intrusive Voices: Translating Unexpected Changes of Speaker in the Bible

“…5 See, e.g.,Fee (2014, 792) and the long textual footnote to this passage in NET.6 Unless, of course, the Majority Text of the New Testament is the base text of the translation, as is the case in projects strongly influenced by Orthodox or conservative evangelical churches. In that event, such passages would not be seen as intrusions.7 For the problem of readers' potential unawareness of intertextuality, seeAhmadian and Yazdani (2013). For the purposes of this article, I do not differentiate between "citation" and "quotation" but use the terms interchangeably.…”

The Linguistic Features of Intertextuality in Jordan's Free Verse Poetry: Ayman Al-Otoum as a Case Study

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AbstractIntertextuality appears to be of crucial significance to better comprehend texts (Ahmadian and Yazdani, 2013).This research addresses intertextuality as an important technique manifested in modern Arabic poetry trying to investigate its conception, identify a sample of these salient embedded texts, and analyze them and their positive impact on enriching the text and illuminating some related issues such as ideology and perception of the world of experience in the Jordanian modern poetry, with special attention devoted to the recent poetry of Ayman Al-Otoum. Models representing this phenomenon in his poetry has been collected and compared with much assertion on the importance of this technique in enriching both levels: the idea and rhyme.

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“…A name of a tribe 13 Leon Sumfeil, "Intertextuality and New Criticism", Translation -Wael Barakat, "Alamat magazine", September 1996, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.0236 genres and quotations (Bloor and Bloor, 2007)that help in understanding and interpreting the target text by sharpening and deepening their minds to discover different layers of meanings of the text (Ahmadian, 2010).…”