READING AND REREADING: INSIGHTS INTO LITERARY EVALUATION

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.125730

Keywords:

literary reading, rereading, ART test, literary evaluation, external reasons, internal reasons, reading habits, empirical research

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that the long-term evaluation of literary texts rather privileges their formal and structural aspects, but to a lesser degree the content. As external and internal reasons for literary evaluation are distinguished, the latter are privileged while the former will only last as the themes and the external reasons remain, which means they are transient and do not lead to long-term evaluation of literary products. At the same time, it is the second type of internal reasons – the form and structure of a literary work – that plays a role and contributes to canon formation. Hence we present the results of some experiments in which two different groups of participants (university students and older people in a convenience sample) in two cultural settings read three texts (one popular fiction and two canonical ones) several times and answered the three questions derived from the “rereading paradigm” by Bortolussi & Dixon (2003). As an additional measure to check the participants reading habits, in Study 1 the ART test from Stanovich et al. (1995), adapted for a Ukrainian audience, was employed. The results, which did not corroborate the predictions, are discussed and confronted with some insights into the theory of literary evaluation.

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Author Biographies

Willie van Peer, Ludwig Maximilian University

Willie van Peer is Professor of Intercultural Hermeneutics at Ludwig Maximilian University, Germany. He is the author of several books and many articles on poetics and the epistemological foundations of literary studies, vice-president of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics (1996 – 1998), president of the international Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA, 2000 – 2003), president of the International Society for Empirical Study of Literature and media (IGEL, 2004 –2006), co-founder of the international REDES project (2001 – 2009), co-editor of book series Linguistic Approaches to Literature (LAL, John Benjamins, 2000 – 2010), executive editor of the Scientific Study of Literature journal series (SSOL, John Benjamins).

 

Willie van Peer has been Visiting Scholar in the Departments of Comparative Literature at Stanford and at Princeton University, and in the Department of (Cognitive) Psychology at the University of Memphis. He is also a Fellow of Clare Hall of Cambridge University.

Anna Chesnokova, Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University

Anna Chesnokova holds an MA in English and French Philology (Kyiv National Linguistic University, 1991) and a PhD in Comparative Literary Studies (Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, 1999). She is Professor of English Philology at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University, Ukraine. She has published on Stylistics and Empirical Studies of Literature. Her publications include Acting & Connecting. Cultural Approaches to Language and Literature (co-edited with S. Zyngier and V. Viana, LIT Verlag, 2007), Directions in Empirical Literary Studies (co-edited with S. Zyngier, M. Bortolussi, and J. Auracher, John Benjamins, 2008), chapters for The International Reception of Emily Dickinson (Continuum Press, 2009), Cases on Distance Delivery and Learning Outcomes: Emerging Trends and Programs (with V. Viana, S. Zyngier and W. van Peer, IGI Global, 2009), Teaching Stylistics (with W. van Peer and S. Zyngier, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and Scientific Approaches to Literature in Learning Environments (John Benjamins, 2016).

References

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Published

2018-06-29

How to Cite

van Peer, W., & Chesnokova, A. (2018). READING AND REREADING: INSIGHTS INTO LITERARY EVALUATION. Advanced Education, 5, 39–46. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.125730

Issue

2018: Issue 9

Section

Education

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Copyright (c) 2018 Willie van Peer, Anna Chesnokova

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