Scientific Study of Literature - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2016

The experience of deviation is often referred to as foregrounding and contrasted with the experience of feeling absorbed in a narrative. However, instead of simply assuming that foregrounding and absorption are mutually exclusive, they should also be considered as co-occurring: being absorbed as a result of a deviating aspect of a story. In the present paper we examine the co-occurrence of responses by means of a data-driven qualitative approach. The analysis of interviews about absorbed experiences with written and cinematic fictional narratives focused on occurrences of and responses to perceived deviation. We identified seven strategies in response to deviation that may be described through three underlying dimensions: absorption, agency, and valence. Findings suggest that perceived deviation, rather than obstructing absorption, is associated with intense and meaningful engagement with narratives.

In the current study, we explored the hypothesis that the level of language concreteness influences readers’ emotional involvement and, thus, fosters the evocation of suspense. To this end, 141 suspenseful texts with comparable content were assessed altogether by 1226 participants on items referring to emotional involvement and suspense. A concreteness score per text was calculated from the ratio between concrete and abstract verbs. Additionally, participants were asked to provide personal data, such as sex, age, or reading habits, and to answer items referring to their ability to feel empathy (trait empathy). Applying a stepwise multiple regression analysis we found that language concreteness is one significant predictor for emotional involvement and suspense (next to affinity for suspense and trait empathy). These results are discussed with respect to their implications on the nature of suspense and on the so-called paradox of suspense.

Previous research suggests that literary reading may involve critical thinking. This involvement may facilitate critical literary understanding (CLU), i.e. understanding the literary text in a reconstructive, de-automatized manner. However, little is known about the cognitive processes this involvement entails. This study aims: (1) to conceptualize CLU, by relating dual process theory to concepts from the domain of literary studies (foregrounding, defamiliarization); (2) to test CLU in an educational context. An instrument to measure CLU was designed. A prospective cohort study was conducted (N = 271, grades 10–12, pre-university education, ages 14–19) at a Dutch secondary school. CLU, critical thinking skills (CTS) and dispositions (CTD) were measured one month after the start of the academic year, CLU was measured again four months later. Results show that students improve in CLU. This improvement is mediated by CTD and moderated by CTS. These results suggest that critical thinking can be engaged in the literature classroom.

Previous work ( Whalen, Zunshine, & Holquist, 2012 ) has shown that perspective embedding ("she thought I left" embedding her perspective on "I left") affects reading times for short vignettes. With increasing levels of embedment 1–5, reading times rose almost linearly. Level 0 was as slow as 3–4. Embedment level was determined by the authors, but validation by others is desirable. In Experiment 1, we trained 12 literature students to make embedment judgments. Their judgments correlated highly with ours (.94 on average) and agreed exactly in the majority of cases (74.5%); almost all were within one (94.2%). In Experiment 2, judgments of the first three paragraphs of "To Kill a Mockingbird" ( Lee, 1960 ) yielded a lower level of agreement; literature uses subtle means for introducing perspective embedment, and individuals differ about including them. Assessment of perspective embedding, and exploration of sources of disagreements, provide new tools for analyzing literature.

This study tested the hypothesis that features of linguistically non-mandatory phonological recurrence (rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and consonance), parameters of word positioning (position within a line and line position) and dominant stress peaks are related to readers’ identification of distinctively joyful and sad words in poetry. To this end, forty-eight participants read eight German poems, completed an underlining task, and filled out a brief questionnaire. Results show that these target features are clearly of importance for readers’ perception of pronounced levels of joy and sadness. Words featuring alliteration, assonance or consonance were significantly more often underlined as distinctively joyful than were words that lack these features. Our study shows also that words that feature a dominant stress peak and are placed in more advanced positions within the poems were more likely to be identified as emotional (distinctively joyful and sad) when compared to words in earlier and unstressed positions.