Bio-Cognitive Constraints in the Reception of Short Story Cycles

Müller-Wood, Anja

doi:10.4324/9781315145617-3

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“…However, although Müller-Wood (2018: 34) has advocated for the use of actual reading behaviour as the starting point for reader-oriented SSC-theory, SSC scholarship has abstained from testing its findings using flesh-and-blood readers. Consequently, the description of the reading process remains largely speculative and appears to lack empirical insights in the reading and interpretation mechanisms of actual flesh-and-blood readers (see Alber and Strasen, 2020: 7–9).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading and analysing short story collections: An empirical study of readers' interpretation process of Benni's Il bar sotto il mare

Vooght

Nemegeer

2021

Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics

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This article confronts the theoretical tenets of reader-oriented short story collection theory and its implications for a literary analysis of Benni’s Il bar sotto il mare (1987) with the results of an empirical study of 12 readers. Through free recall tasks and open questions, we collected their recall of stories, specific passages, recurring topics and general interpretation to assess the processes of reticulation (i.e. searching for recurring elements in stories) and modification (i.e. modifying initial hypotheses based on the identification of new elements) advanced by Audet (2014). This confrontation revealed noticeably disagreeing results. Our findings suggest that flesh-and-blood readers adopt a more straightforward and intuitive approach when reading and interpreting collections as they are subject to a strong primacy effect, privilege personal appreciation of specific stories and passages, and rely on a disinclination to alter initial interpretative hypotheses. The findings pave the way for further investigation into the readers of SSCs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%