Text world theory
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Text world theory is a cognitive model of language processing which aims to explain how people construct meaning from language. This theory figuratively describes a piece of language (such as a text, a speech or a conversation) as a "world" that the reader/hearer must "build" in their mind.[1] Text world theory was first developed by Paul Werth in the 1980s,[2] and has subsequently been used as in education to help pupils engage with literature in a more "authentic"[3] way.
Origin and development
Text world theory is a branch of cognitive linguistics that was first developed by Paul Werth in the 1980s and 1990s. Werth claimed to have created an approach that accounted for all aspects of human communication, but his monograph Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse was not completed by the time of his death in 1995. Mick Short completed and edited the text between 1995 and 1998, and it was published in 1999.
Since Werth's conception of text world theory, the theory has been incorporated into the study of linguistics, stylistics, cognitive poetics, narratology and literary theory. Whilst Werth's study was largely limited to short extracts, text world theory has been expanded and tested against many different discourse types, including personal ads, poetry, recipes and radio programmes.[2][4][5]
Text world theory is structured into three conceptual levels: the discourse-world, the text-worlds and world-switches.
The discourse world[1][2][4] is the immediate environment a person is in when they are communicating. Discourse worlds can either be shared or split. A shared discourse world would include a face-to-face conversation, whereas a split discourse world would include an author and reader, where the two participants do not share a common environment. An individual's discourse world influences how they interpret language due to their background knowledge, thoughts and feelings.[1][6][2] Rather than being an "objective set of physical surroundings",[6] the context of a discourse world is a mental process carried out as part of a negotiation between discourse-world participants.[7]
Within these discourse worlds, humans create "mental representations"[2] which allow the language they are encountering to be understood. These are text worlds: they take the linguistic stimuli of the text/speech and expand upon it using the background knowledge, perspectives and emotions of the reader/hearer.[1][2]
Finally, world-switches are evoked when there is a departure from the initial text world through a shift in space or time.[1]
Example
The first clause of Italo Calvino's short story 'The Man Who Shouted Teresa' is "I stepped off the pavement".[3] When this is read, a split discourse world occurs due to the separation between Calvino and the reader. The reader will locate their text world in the past due to the past tense verb "stepped", and will identify a character (presumably a protagonist) with whom the reader is expected to identify through the first person pronoun, "I." The word "pavement" makes the reader use their background knowledge in order to build a text world in which this action takes place, and this will differ between readers. Whilst many readers might construct an urban environment based on this word, each reader's text world would be informed by how their background knowledge and lived experience has influenced their understanding of the word "pavement".[3]
Use in education
Text world theory has been used in schools in order to encourage a personal engagement with texts from pupils and help teachers to understand the "nature of communicative interaction and literary transaction."[6] Louise Rosenblatt argues two types of reading are efferent reading (reading with an outcome in mind, such as reading a cookbook in order to make a meal) and aesthetic reading (reading whilst examining the emotional and intellectual experience of the reader). She argues that pupils are implicitly encouraged to read poetry in an efferent way. To show this, she gives an example of a third-grade textbook wherein a poem about a cow is followed by the question, "what facts does this poem teach you?". This literal-mindedness, she argues, had removed the agency of the pupil as a reader, which leads to a reduced engagement with literature.[8]
This aspect of Rosenblatt's writing, part of her work on reader response theory, has been linked to text world theory. Text world theory provides a model through which pupils can build an "authentic" text world, and monitor their cognitive experience whilst reading a text. It also models the "creative nature" inherent in the reading process as pupils construct their unique text worlds.[1]
In a classroom setting, discourse-worlds are complicated by the fact that there are multiple participants engaging with the discourse world, namely the other pupils and the educational staff. Moreover, in a classroom setting, there is often an unequal distribution of power.[9] Marcello Giovanelli argues that this unequal distribution of power can often lead to pupils believing that their interpretations of literature are less valuable than their teachers, which, in turn, leads to pupils failing to build an independent "text world".[6] One of the solutions that Giovanelli gives to this issue is the importance of pictorial representations of texts as related to the work in education through semiotics by Charles Suhor.[10][6]
Several researchers have observed the benefits of using approaches informed by text world theory in the classroom. They both give pupils an understanding of the importance of multiple interpretations of texts,[1][3][6] and give teachers a model for how pupils construct meaning during the reading process.[1][3][6]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Cushing, Ian (2018-01-02). "'Suddenly, I am part of the poem': texts as worlds, reader-response and grammar in teaching poetry". English in Education. 52 (1): 7–19. doi:10.1080/04250494.2018.1414398. ISSN 0425-0494. S2CID 149068617.
- ^ a b c d e f Gavins, Joanna (2007-03-07). Text World Theory An Introduction. Edinburgh University Press. doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9780748622993.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-7486-2299-3.
- ^ a b c d e Giovanelli, Marcello; Mason, Jessica (March 2015). "'Well I don't feel that': Schemas, worlds and authentic reading in the classroom". English in Education. 49 (1): 41–55. doi:10.1111/eie.12052. ISSN 0425-0494.
- ^ a b Werth, Paul (1999). Text Worlds: Representing Conceptual Space in Discourse. Longman. ISBN 978-0-582-22914-3.
- ^ "About Text World Theory". Text World Theory. 2015-02-10. Retrieved 2024-03-01.
- ^ a b c d e f g Giovanelli, Marcello (2016-08-16). "Readers building fictional worlds: visual representations, poetry and cognition". Literacy. 51 (1): 26–35. doi:10.1111/lit.12091. ISSN 1741-4350.
- ^ Edwards, Derek; Mercer, Neil (1987), "Communication and control", Common Knowledge (Routledge Revivals), Routledge, doi:10.4324/9780203095287-7, ISBN 978-0-203-09528-7, retrieved 2024-02-18
- ^ Rosenblatt, Louise Michelle (1998). The reader, the text, the poem: the transactional theory of the literary work ; with a new preface and epilogue (Paperback ed., [Nachdr.] ed.). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-8093-1805-6.
- ^ Fairclough, Norman (2001), "Language and power 2000", Language and Power (2 ed.), Routledge, pp. 215–230, doi:10.4324/9781315838250-15, ISBN 978-1-315-83825-0, retrieved 2024-02-18
- ^ Suhor, Charles (July 1984). "Towards a Semiotics-based Curriculum". Journal of Curriculum Studies. 16 (3): 247–257. doi:10.1080/0022027840160304. ISSN 0022-0272.