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- Volume 12, Issue 1-2, 2022
Scientific Study of Literature - Volume 12, Issue 1-2, 2022
Volume 12, Issue 1-2, 2022
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The new monstrous and its resonance with Frankenstein
Author(s): David Thomsonpp.: 4–27 (24)More LessShort AbstractThe commonplace that monster stories disguise collective anxiety is evaluated within the frame of nine Artificial Intelligence-themed films produced from 1979 and 2018. I conducted a machine learning classification task with the R open-source platform toward illustrating those films’ resonance with Shelley’s 1818 Frankenstein. This study concludes by calling for substitution of text sets in order to answer pressing questions in the digital humanities. In doing so I assert the cognitive mapping potential revealed in computer-aided reading.
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Swirling currents
Author(s): Christine R. Junker, Mark S. Cubberley and Stephen J. Jacqueminpp.: 28–48 (21)More LessAbstractUnderstanding how humans relate to and think about nonhuman nature has never been more important. To begin exploring that question, our study compares literature (nature-writing) that explicitly addresses this relationship with literature of the same genre that does not address nonhuman nature (creative nonfiction) using the tools of digital humanities and ecological analysis. We used Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) and Meaning Extraction Method (MEM) to examine 228 texts. Resulting scores were then examined for gradients, patterns, and trends across texts using principal components analysis (PCA). Overall, we found that nature writing texts scored higher in analytical and authenticity scores; were associated with psychological processes such as perception, cognition, politics, and power; and were typified by individual word choice clouds associated with clusters of text such as tree/human/see/time/form/place than non-nature creative nonfiction. This analysis serves as a foundation for understanding the genre of nature-writing and the ways that humans think about nonhuman nature.
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Style of creative nonfiction
Author(s): Marianna Grachevapp.: 49–82 (34)More LessAbstractThe study examines author style within underlying patterns of variation in nonfiction essays. The study employs corpus linguistic methodology, building on research on style in fiction (Biber & Finegan, 1994; Biber, 2008b; Egbert, 2012), applies a multidimensional analysis to a corpus of nonfiction essays written by modern authors, a previously unexplored domain, and identifies four unique but interrelated dimensions of variation based on linguistic co-occurrence: Interactive vs. Informational Style, Abstract Expository vs. Concrete Descriptive Style, Immediate vs. Removed Style, and Hypothetical Style. Authors’ works are then plotted along these dimensions, revealing stylistic tendencies with relation to the observed patterns of variation. The study also observes that considerable within-author variation along a given dimension results from differences in situational characteristics of individual texts rather than simply idiosyncratic preferences for certain language. The study contributes to the field of corpus stylistics and has practical implications for creative writing, literary analysis, and translation.
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Readers during the Covid-19 pandemic
Author(s): Karin Kukkonen and Ylva Østbypp.: 83–102 (20)More LessAbstractThis study investigates reading literature during the Covid-19 pandemic in Norway. In three surveys conducted across 2020 (combined N = 489), readers were asked about their reading habits, motivations for reading and emotional states after reading. Our results showed that Norwegian readers read more during the pandemic. However, only a minority reported changing their reasons for reading and their reading habits because of the pandemic. For these readers, a feeling of safety and distraction from the ongoing pandemic seemed to be of higher importance. Readers overall experienced that reading allows them to achieve the emotional state they desire, indicating the role reading plays in emotion regulation during the pandemic. We compare these results across gender and age differences. We conclude that reading appears to work as a cultural strategy that helps coping with the pandemic situation.
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An intricate dance of intersubjectivity
Author(s): Anna W Gustafsson, Per Johnsson, Kajsa Järvholm, Katarina Bernhardsson, Torbjörn Forslid and Anders Ohlssonpp.: 103–132 (30)More LessAbstractThis article deepens the understanding of characteristic features of Shared Reading (SR) that can shed light on health benefits of this literary practice suggested by previous research. We provide a detailed analysis of language, interaction, reading strategies and collaborative meaning-making in an online SR group in which participants read and discussed a modernist poem. We triangulate our analysis with results from a focus group with the participants. Our study is informed by psychological theories about joint attention and its effects on social cohesion, mentalisation and perspective-taking. The analysis shows how the SR format provides a space in which ingroupness, intersubjectivity, and perspective-taking are created and realised in language use and interaction. Furthermore, our study suggests that many characteristic features of SR identified in earlier research can still be observed in an online SR group. The study lays the ground for more conclusive research of the benefits of this reading practice.
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Preaching to the Choir and Beyond
Author(s): Ruoyan Zeng and Ellen Winnerpp.: 133–163 (31)More LessAbstractDo narratives about suffering enhance empathy? Readers experience empathy for story characters, but does that empathy spill over into the “real” world? We investigated whether a narrative in the form of a memoir by an undocumented immigrant in the United States (compared to an expository account about undocumented immigrants) softens attitudes towards this group. Across three studies, the narrative yielded greater attitude change in the direction of empathy than did the expository reading, with this effect in some cases still visible one month later. We conclude that, compared to an expository account, a narrative about the suffering of an individual in a marginalized group renders attitudes towards members of this group more positive for those already sympathetic (Study 1) and for those initially unsympathetic (Studies 2 and 3). Study 3 demonstrated that this effect generalized to attitudes about Black Americans despite no mention of race relations in the narrative.
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Review of van Peer & Chesnokova (2023): Experiencing Poetry: A Guidebook to Psychopoetics
Author(s): Norbert Francispp.: 164–167 (4)More LessThis article reviews Experiencing Poetry: A Guidebook to Psychopoetics
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Review of Nicholes (2022): Creative writing across the curriculum: Meaningful literacy for college writers across disciplines, languages, and identities
Author(s): Atsushi Iidapp.: 168–173 (6)More LessThis article reviews Creative writing across the curriculum: Meaningful literacy for college writers across disciplines, languages, and identities
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