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Volume 9, Issue 1
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Abstract

Abstract

We test the literariness of genre fiction with an empirical study that directly manipulates both intrinsic text properties and extrinsic reader expectations of literary merit for science-fiction and narrative-realism stories. Participants were told they were going to read a story of either low or high literary merit and then read one of two stories that were identical except for one genre-determining word. There were no differences between the science-fiction and narrative-realism versions of the story in literary merit perception, text comprehension, or inference effort for theory of mind and plot. Participants did, however, exert more theory-of-world effort (i.e., world-building) for the science-fiction version. The more inference effort science-fiction readers dedicated to theory of world, the more cognitively and emotionally engaged they were. These results contradict the assumption that science fiction cannot achieve literariness and instead demonstrate a “literary genre effect.”

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2020-02-04
2025-04-28

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/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19010.joh
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The literary genre effect
Scientific Study of Literature 9, 34 (2019); https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.19010.joh
/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19010.joh
/content/journals/10.1075/ssol.19010.joh
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): genre; inference; literariness; literary fiction; realism; science fiction; theory of mind; theory of world

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