Literary processing and interpretation: Towards empirical foundations

Dixon, Peter; Bortolussi, Marisa; Twilley, Leslie C.; Leung, Alice W.Y.

doi:10.1016/0304-422x(93)90018-c

Cited by 120 publications

(86 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In the two examples above, the researchers replicate the methods of earlier studies by Dixon et al (1993) and Millis (1995) which pre-date our sample. These influential studies for stylistic accounts of re-reading are briefly summarised below.…”

Section: No Of Instancesmentioning

confidence: 72%

Re-reading in stylistics

Harrison

Nuttall

2018

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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Cognitive stylistics is primarily concerned with the cognitive processes -mental simulationsexperienced by readers. Most cognitive stylisticians agree that experiences of reading texts are dynamic and flexible. Changes in the context of reading, our attentional focus on a given day, our extra background knowledge about the text, and so on, are all factors that contribute to our experience of a fictional world. A second reading of a text is a different experience to a first reading.As researchers begin to systematically distinguish between the 'solitary' and 'social' readings that constitute reading as a phenomenon (Peplow et al., 2016), the relationship between multiple readings and the nature of their processing become increasingly pertinent. In order to explore this relationship, firstly we examine the different ways in which re-reading has previously been discussed in stylistics, grounding our claims in an empirical analysis of articles published in key stylistics journals over the past two decades. Next, we draw on reader response data from an online questionnaire in order to assess the role of re-reading and the motivations that underpin it. Finally, we describe an exercise for the teaching of cognitive stylistics, specifically applying schema theory in literary linguistic analysis (Cook, 1994), which illustrates the need to distinguish between readings as part of an analysis.Through these three sections we argue that our experiences of texts should be considered diachronically, and propose that the different readings that make up an analysis of a text should be given greater attention in stylistic research and teaching.

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Section: No Of Instancesmentioning

confidence: 72%

Re-reading in stylistics

Harrison

Nuttall

2018

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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“…The reader-oriented perspective (e.g., [2]), however, claims that the (perceived) literariness depends on a reader's attention to certain aspects of the text. Interactional approaches emphasize that an author can manipulate text characteristics so that the text fulfills certain necessary conditions of being literary, but the reader also needs to react in a certain way to those manipulations for the literary experience to emerge (e.g., [3][4][5][6][7][8]). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual Differences in Sensitivity to Style During Literary Reading: Insights from Eye-Tracking

et al. 2016

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Style is an important aspect of literature, and stylistic deviations are sometimes labeled foregrounded, since their manner of expression deviates from the stylistic default. Russian Formalists have claimed that foregrounding increases processing demands and therefore causes slower reading -an effect called retardation. We tested this claim experimentally by having participants read short literary stories while measuring their eye movements. Our results confirm that readers indeed read slower and make more regressions towards foregrounded passages as compared to passages that are not foregrounded. A closer look, however, reveals significant individual differences in sensitivity to foregrounding. Some readers in fact do not slow down at all when reading foregrounded passages. The slowing down effect for literariness was related to a slowing down effect for high perplexity (unexpected) words: those readers who slowed down more during literary passages also slowed down more during high perplexity words, even though no correlation between literariness and perplexity existed in the stories. We conclude that individual differences play a major role in processing of literary texts and argue for accounts of literary reading that focus on the interplay between reader and text.

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“…For instance, while discourse processing studies focus on narrative comprehension, what seems more relevant from the perspective of literary theory is what obstructs (direct) comprehension. It is in the delay of understanding that readers might find indications of a deeper meaning and cause for aesthetic pleasure (Shklovsky, 1965;Dixon, Bortolussi, Twilley, & Leung, 1993). Second, the social psychological approach is revealing that the persuasive effects of narratives may be due to the feeling of being transported into a (fictional) world.…”

Section: Pulling Your Legmentioning

confidence: 97%

Ways to engage readers

Hakemulder

2011

SSOL

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There must be more to reading than just text comprehension -stories are to entertain, Brewer and Lichtenstein (1984) famously proclaimed. Hence, they said, research should focus more on how stories do that. What are the implications of this statement? Could that knowledge be of interest to people outside academia? For example, could it result in guidelines for writing bestsellers and blockbuster scripts? Some would suggest that there is more to literary stories than just entertainment. One of the many things this journal could do for the world is find out what exactly this may be. To do this we should extend our knowledge about what distinguishes the processing of literary stories from that of narratives in other genres and media. Here it will be argued that the emotional and cognitive processes typically found in literary reading may offer profound improvements of our lives and the world, and more so than better results at the box office would.

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Literary processing and interpretation: Towards empirical foundations

Cited by 120 publications

References 6 publications

Re-reading in stylistics

Re-reading in stylistics

Individual Differences in Sensitivity to Style During Literary Reading: Insights from Eye-Tracking

Ways to engage readers

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