An investigation of the most Flow Inducing Genres

Abstract

The present study aims at examining the extent to which three discourse genres of descriptive, expository, and narrative would be flow inducing. In other words, it attempts to testify the role of the text in promoting optimal experience on the one hand, and to identify which discourse genre would be the most flow inducing, on the other hand. To this end, a community sample of 60 participants comprising of 16 males and 44 females from various English language institutes in Mashhad, volunteered to take part in the study by reading three texts of TOEFL containing the expository, narrative, and descriptive genres. After each reading the respondents were asked to reflect on their flow experience through filling in the Flow Perception Questionnaire (Egbert, 2003). The researchers investigated flow differences across genres by employing repeated measures ANOVA. The results revealed that flow occurred during the reading of descriptive, narrative, and expository genres; however, there were significant differences in terms of the flow scores engendered by the variations across these genres. The results of the data analysis reported the descriptive genre as the most flow inducing discourse genre.

An Investigation into the Optimal Experience in Reading Journalistic Texts in Light of Instructing Fairclough’s and Van Dijk’s Model

“…Moreover, the results confirmed findings of Mirlohi, Egbert and Ghonsooly (2011) in the field of translation along with Ghonsooly and Hamedi (2014) in the EFL context in that the descriptive mode revealed to be the most and the narrative as the least flow inducing genres. More importantly, the ultimate issue that may make a substantial contribution to the higher productivity of instructional materials is that the study corroborates McQuillan and Conde's (1996) assertion that the students' selected texts are far likelier to produce flow than the assigned texts.…”

“…A few studies which have applied flow theory in language learning have confirmed the relationship between flow and classroom language learning (Egbert, 2003;Ghonsooly & Hamedi, 2014;McQuillan & Conde, 1996;Schmidt & Savage, 1992). As noted, among the classroom activities, reading is reported as a flow inducing task in that the recreation of the writer's intended meaning can be accomplished only when the reader integrates the textual information with his background knowledge (Haji Maibodi, 2008).…”

“…The participants' characterized concentration on the task, interest, attention, immersion, and the loss of self sense as the major determinants of the flow experience (McQuillan & Conde, 1996). Moreover, with regard to the modes of writing Ghonsooly and Hamedi (2014) found the descriptive genre as the most contributing cause of incidence of optimal experience in reading. Likewise, Mirlohi, Egbert, and Ghonsooly (2011) discovered the descriptive genre as the most flow inducing one in the realm of translation.…”

“…Initailly, Terevino and Webster (1992) held a view that flow experience can be noted in native language reading, however, subsequent International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences,6(3) 235 studies (e.g., Ghonsooly & Hamedi, 2014;McQuillan & Conde, 1996) notified a number of non-native English speakers who reported flow while reading English texts. The participants' characterized concentration on the task, interest, attention, immersion, and the loss of self sense as the major determinants of the flow experience (McQuillan & Conde, 1996).…”

“…In other words, it is an intense engagement or complete absorption in the task as the mind is in its optimal state in which the individual feels deeply involved, highly motivated, and cognitively efficient (Csikeszentmihalyi, 1990). Indeed, from the time Csikeszentmihalyi pioneered studying flow in the mid-sixties, several flow studies have been conducted in various contexts and across a variety of cultures to develop a robust and empirically well confirmed universal theory of flow (Asakawa, 2004;Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1988;Ghonsooly & Hamedi, 2014;Inghilleri, 1999;McQuillan & Conde, 1996;Massimini & DelleFave, 2000;Mirlohi, Egbert & Ghonsooly, 2011;.…”