How Culture Shapes the Reading of Fairy Tales: A Cross-Cultural Approach

Abstract

A large body of research consistently found cultural differences in cognition between Westerners and East Asians. We undertook a study to explore whether culture-specific thinking models may influence how German and Chinese children understand fairy tales. By transferring the established theoretical framework of individualism versus collectivism from cultural psychology to literary studies, we hypothesize that readers in western Europe prefer an individualistic-oriented thinking model for character evaluation, adventurous attitude to plot development, as well as concrete time and spatial perception; by contrast, their counterparts in East Asia use social-oriented interpretation styles for character judgment, a self-restrained attitude towards plot development, and a symbolic time and spatial imagination. The method we used relies on questionnaires, item-based analysis and factor analysis to learn about the most salient dimensions for cross-cultural story comprehension. We found differences in all three dimensions of story comprehension, namely character evaluation, plot development, and time/space imagination. The results reveal how culture shapes the way we read and point to the important role of embedded schematic knowledge for story comprehension.

Processing of an Audiobook in the Human Brain Is Shaped by Cultural Family Background

“…The influence of cultural background on language processing is still largely unknown. Previous cross-cultural behavioral studies have provided evidence that cultural background can shape the understanding and interpretation of written narratives [24,25]. For example, studies have found that there are cross-cultural differences in narrative comprehension, character evaluation, plot development, and time/space imagination [24,25].…”

“…Previous cross-cultural behavioral studies have provided evidence that cultural background can shape the understanding and interpretation of written narratives [24,25]. For example, studies have found that there are cross-cultural differences in narrative comprehension, character evaluation, plot development, and time/space imagination [24,25]. It has also been shown that the N400 event-related potential response amplitude of fluent Welsh-English bilinguals was significantly stronger for sentences written in Welsh than for sentences written in English [26].…”

“…Here, we utilized ISC and word2vec to investigate the influence of cultural family background on interpretation and processing of an audiobook in the human brain. Based on previous studies that have found culture-specific experiences to shape perception and cognition [3,4,24,34], we hypothesized that word2vec reveals cultural family-backgroundspecific enhancements of similarity in how different parts of the story are interpreted. Further, we expected that similar interpretations of the narrative result in higher similarity of brain hemodynamic activity in brain areas known to be involved in the processing of natural speech.…”

Cross-Cultural Reader Response to Original and Translated Poetry: An Empirical Study in Four Languages

“…55 Using a framework current in cross-cultural psychology, they hypothesized that German children would prefer an individualistic-oriented thinking model when evaluating characters. They would also display a more adventurous attitude to plot development, and concrete time and spatial perception.…”

Kulturowe czytanie literatury. Społeczne parametry ewaluacji bohatera literackiego (przypadek Wokulskiego)

“…WSTĘP W niniejszym artykule podejmujemy próbę pokazania, jak ewentualne kulturowo specyficzne czynniki, dominujące w pewnej grupie społecznej, mogą wpływać na ewaluację bohatera literackiego: jego postaw, decyzji, cech charakteru, przekonań, którymi się kieruje. Podejmowanie takiego przedsięwzięcia wpisuje się w profil tych rozważań, w ramach których bada się, jak kulturowo określone myślenie może kształtować czytanie i rozumienie dzieł literackich (powieści, bajek) zarówno w aspekcie ewaluacji bohatera, jak i rozumienia fabuły czy percepcji czasu i przestrzeni implikowanych utworem literackim (CHESNOKOVA et al 2017;ZHANG i LAUER 2015). Strategia w tych analizach jest zwykle podobna i polega na skonstruowaniu pytań, które w swych założeniach zawierają ustalone różnice ukazywane w badaniach kulturowych typu: wysoka vs niska orientacja na innych; ja niezależne vs ja współzależne itd.…”