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Chapter 2. Immersion and emergence in children’s literature

  • Peter Stockwell
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Experiencing Fictional Worlds
This chapter is in the book Experiencing Fictional Worlds

Abstract

Immersion – the sense of attentional involvement and displacement in a fictional world – has been established as an experiential phenomenon in psychology and psycholinguistics, but little focus has been given to the understanding of the nature of the experience itself, especially in relation to literary texts. Most work on immersion as “cognitive flow” has been produced in relation to multimedia settings such as videogames. This chapter draws on naturalistic, non-experimental reader responses to explore the cognitive poetics of literary immersion. In particular, immersion is addressed as an aspect of the developmental literacy of readers, with reference to the different ways that child-readers and adult-readers cast their minds towards fictional characters and emerge emotionally from fictional worlds.

Abstract

Immersion – the sense of attentional involvement and displacement in a fictional world – has been established as an experiential phenomenon in psychology and psycholinguistics, but little focus has been given to the understanding of the nature of the experience itself, especially in relation to literary texts. Most work on immersion as “cognitive flow” has been produced in relation to multimedia settings such as videogames. This chapter draws on naturalistic, non-experimental reader responses to explore the cognitive poetics of literary immersion. In particular, immersion is addressed as an aspect of the developmental literacy of readers, with reference to the different ways that child-readers and adult-readers cast their minds towards fictional characters and emerge emotionally from fictional worlds.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface xi
  5. Acknowledgments xiii
  6. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  7. Part 1. Foundations of fictional worlds
  8. Chapter 2. Immersion and emergence in children’s literature 15
  9. Chapter 3. A predictive coding approach to Text World Theory 33
  10. Chapter 4. World-building as cognitive feedback loop 53
  11. Part 2. Forming fictional worlds
  12. Chapter 5. Experiencing horrible worlds 75
  13. Chapter 6. Framing the narrative 97
  14. Chapter 7. Constructing inferiority through comic characterisation 119
  15. Chapter 8. Cognitive grammar and reconstrual 135
  16. Part 3. Fictional worlds in context
  17. Chapter 9. Immersive reading and the unnatural text-worlds of “Dead Fish” 157
  18. Chapter 10. Experiencing literature in the poetry classroom 177
  19. Chapter 11. Sharing fiction 199
  20. Chapter 12. Afterword 219
  21. Subject index 225
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.32.02sto

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Preface xi
  5. Acknowledgments xiii
  6. Chapter 1. Introduction 1
  7. Part 1. Foundations of fictional worlds
  8. Chapter 2. Immersion and emergence in children’s literature 15
  9. Chapter 3. A predictive coding approach to Text World Theory 33
  10. Chapter 4. World-building as cognitive feedback loop 53
  11. Part 2. Forming fictional worlds
  12. Chapter 5. Experiencing horrible worlds 75
  13. Chapter 6. Framing the narrative 97
  14. Chapter 7. Constructing inferiority through comic characterisation 119
  15. Chapter 8. Cognitive grammar and reconstrual 135
  16. Part 3. Fictional worlds in context
  17. Chapter 9. Immersive reading and the unnatural text-worlds of “Dead Fish” 157
  18. Chapter 10. Experiencing literature in the poetry classroom 177
  19. Chapter 11. Sharing fiction 199
  20. Chapter 12. Afterword 219
  21. Subject index 225
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