Expressive reading: A phenomenological study of readers' experience of Coleridge's The rime of the ancient mariner.

Abstract

To articulate what constitutes expressive reading, we conducted a phenomenological study of readers' responses to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. After reading the poem twice during 1 week, each of 40 readers chose five passages that they found striking or evocative and then commented on each one. Numerically aided phenomenological methods [(Kuiken, D., & Miall, D. S. (2001). Numerically aided phenomenology: Procedures for investigating categories of experience. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 2(1). Retrieved from http:// www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/976] were used to (a) compare these commentaries, identifying and paraphrasing recurrent meaning expressions (called constituents); (b) create matrices reflective of the profiles of constituents found in each commentary; (c) create clusters of commentaries according to the similarities in their profiles of constituents; and (d) examine each cluster to ascertain their distinctive attributes. Among the six distinct types of commentary identified, one in particular involved (a) metaphoric and quasi-metaphoric engagement with sensory imagery from the poem; (b) progressive transformation of an emergent affective theme; and (c) metaphoric blurring of boundaries between the reader's and narrator's perspectives. This mode of reading, which we call expressive enactment, contrasted with five other types of response: ironic allegoresis, aesthetic feeling, autobiographical assimilation, autobiographical diversion, and nonengagement.

An Uncommon Resonance: The Influence of Loss on Expressive Reading

“…This preliminary characterization of expressive enactment was derived from a prior study (Sikora et al, 1998) in which senior undergraduate and graduate level English students described their experience of self-selected striking or evocative passages from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Numerically-aided phenomenological methods (Kuiken & Miall, 2001;Kuiken, Schopflocher, & Wild, 1989) were used to: (a) comparatively examine these experiential commentaries, identifying and paraphrasing recurrent meaning expressions (called constituents); (b) create matrices reflective of the profiles of constituents found in each experiential commentary; (c) use cluster analytic algorithms to create clusters of experiential commentaries according to the similarities in their profiles of constituents; and (d) systematically examine each cluster to ascertain its distinctive constituents.…”

“…This occurs, as Kuiken, Phillips, Gregus, Miall, Verbitsky, and Tonkonogy (2004) suggest, when readers "appropriate the text's figurative forms (e.g., borrowing its metaphors) or transform its narrative elements into figurative forms (e.g., using a fictional battle as a metaphor) in reflective reference to aspects of their own lives" (p. 268). Following Sikora, Kuiken, and Miall (1998), they refer to this form of reading as expressive enactment, proposing that one consequence of this mode of reading is to modify (or deepen) self-perception.…”

Empathy and literary style

“…One group read the original version high in literariness markers in a published translation, while the other group read a manipulated version low in those markers (see below). The readers’ sense of engagement was assessed with the use of a Post‐Process Scale consisting of an adaptation of Busselle and Bilandzic's () Narrative Engagement Scale, and Kuijpers, Hakemulder, Tan, & Doicaru's () Story‐World Absorption Scale (SWAS), as well as some items developed specifically for this study (see below for further details on the scales). We assessed participants’ reading experience qualitatively by asking them to mark passages in the text that they found “striking and evocative” (e.g. Sikora, Kuiken, & Miall, ) and then comment on three of these after having finished reading. Session 2 ended with participants completing the empathy (RMET) measure again.…”

“…After reading, readers were asked to describe what they were reminded of at each marked passage. (For a more recent use of this paradigm in poetry reading, see Sikora, Kuiken, & Miall, ). In the present study, readers were instructed to mark (in the text, on paper) any passage that they found particularly striking or evocative.…”

Illness narratives and chronic patients’ sustainable employability: The impact of positive work stories

“…A large body of studies shows that narratives have a profound impact on people [34], influencing people's world-beliefs [35], enhancing social skills, such as empathy [36,37] and increase self-awareness and self-reflection, ultimately leading to changes in people's sense of self [38,39]. Recently, the persuasive power of narratives has been applied in medical contexts [40], where narrative methods were used for patient communications [41][42][43].…”