Abstract
This article introduces the special issue by outlining the current state of research into the role of textual-linguistic features in eliciting narrative empathy. Firstly, we address the complexities around defining the term ‘narrative empathy’ and provide some definitional criteria. We then review the ways in which the role of language in narrative empathy has been studied to date in narratology, literary studies, empirical study of literature and stylistics. Based on this review, we argue that stylistic approaches allow for the much-needed exploration of specific linguistic techniques that may contribute to narrative empathy, while also taking into account other contextual factors to address the local nature of reading effects. Finally, we summarise how the contributions to this special issue showcase the affordances of stylistic analysis for the study of narrative empathy and offer new insights into the ways narrative empathy is elicited during the reading process.
Funding source: Spanish Ministry of Universities and the European Union (Next Generation EU)
-
Research funding: Carolina Fernandez-Quintanilla thanks the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the European Union (Next Generation EU) for her María Zambrano Postdoctoral Research Fellowship.
References
Adamson, Sylvia. 1994a. Subjectivity in narration: Empathy and echo. In Marina Yaguello (ed.), Subjecthood and subjectivity: The status of the subject in linguistic theory, 193–208. London: Ophrys.Search in Google Scholar
Adamson, Sylvia. 1994b. From empathetic deixis to empathetic narrative: Stylisation and (de-)subjectivisation as processes of language change. Transactions of the Philological Society 92(1). 55–88. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-968x.1994.tb00428.x.Search in Google Scholar
Batson, Charles Daniel. 2009. These things called empathy: Eight related but distinct phenomena. In Jean Decety & William Ickes (eds.), The social neuroscience of empathy, 3–15. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.10.7551/mitpress/9780262012973.003.0002Search in Google Scholar
Bousfield, Derek & Dan McIntyre. 2011. Emotion and empathy in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas: A case study of the “funny guy” scene. In Roberta Piazza, Monika Bednarek & Fabio Rossi (eds.), Telecinematic discourse: Approaches to the language of films and television series (Pragmatics and beyond new series 211), 105–123. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/pbns.211.08bouSearch in Google Scholar
Burke, Michael, Anežka Kuzmičová, Anne Mangen & Theresa Schilhab. 2016. Empathy at the confluence of neuroscience and empirical literary studies. Scientific Study of Literature 6(1). 6–41. https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.6.1.03bur.Search in Google Scholar
Caracciolo, Marco. 2014. The experientiality of narrative: An enactivist approach. Berlin: De Gruyter.10.1515/9783110365658Search in Google Scholar
Coplan, Amy. 2004. Empathetic engagement with narrative fictions. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62(2). 141–152. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-594x.2004.00147.x.Search in Google Scholar
Coplan, Amy. 2011a. Understanding empathy: Its features and effects. In Coplan Amy & Peter Goldie (eds.), Empathy: Philosophical and psychological perspectives, 3–18. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Coplan, Amy. 2011b. Will the real empathy please stand up? A case for a narrow conceptualisation. The Southern Journal of Philosophy 49(1). 40–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-6962.2011.00056.x.Search in Google Scholar
Cuff, Benjamin M. P., Sarah J. Laura, Taylor Brown & Douglas J. Howat. 2016. Empathy: A review of the concept. Emotion Review 8(2). 144–153. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073914558466.Search in Google Scholar
Cupchik, Gerald C., Oatley Keith & Peter Vorderer. 1998. Emotional effects of reading excerpts from short stories by James Joyce. Poetics 25(6). 363–377. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0304-422x(98)90007-9.Search in Google Scholar
Eisenberg, Nancy. 2000. Empathy and sympathy. In Michael Lewis, Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones (eds.), Handbook of emotions, 677–691. New York: Guilford Press.Search in Google Scholar
Engelen, Eva-Maria & Birgitt Röttger-Rössler. 2012. Current disciplinary and interdisciplinary debates on empathy. Emotion Review 4(1). 3–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911422287.Search in Google Scholar
Ercolino, Stefano & Massimo Fusillo. 2022. Empatia negativa. Il punto di vista del male. Milano: Bompiani.Search in Google Scholar
Fernandez-Quintanilla, Carolina. 2018. Language and narrative empathy: An empirical stylistic approach to readers’ engagement with characters. Lancaster, UK: Lancaster University PhD thesis.Search in Google Scholar
Fernandez-Quintanilla, Carolina. 2020. Textual and reader factors in narrative empathy: An empirical reader response study using focus groups. Language and Literature 29(2). 124–146. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947020927134.Search in Google Scholar
Fina, Anna de & Alexandra Georgakopoulou. 2015. The handbook of narrative analysis. Oxford: John Wiley & Sons.Search in Google Scholar
Gallagher, Shaun. 2012. Empathy, simulation, and narrative. Science in Context 25(3). 355–381. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0269889712000117.Search in Google Scholar
Gavins, Joanna. 2007. Text world theory: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.1515/9780748629909Search in Google Scholar
Gibbons, Alison & Andrea Macrae (eds.). 2018 Pronouns in literature: Positions and perspectives in language. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Search in Google Scholar
Hakemulder, Frank. 2000. The moral laboratory. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/upal.34Search in Google Scholar
Hakemulder, Frank. 2020. Finding meaning through literature. Anglistik 31(1). 91–110. https://doi.org/10.33675/angl/2020/1/8.Search in Google Scholar
Hammond, Meghan Marie & Sue J. Kim (eds.). 2014. Rethinking empathy through literature. New York: Routledge.10.4324/9781315818603Search in Google Scholar
Harrison, Mary-Catherine. 2008. The paradox of fiction and the ethics of empathy: Reconceiving Dickens’s realism. Narrative 16(3). 256–278. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.0.0007.Search in Google Scholar
Harrison, Chloe, Louise Nuttall, Peter Stockwell & Wenjuan Yuan (eds.). 2014. Cognitive grammar in literature. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/lal.17Search in Google Scholar
Hogan, Patrick Colm. 2022. Literature and moral feeling: A cognitive poetics of ethics, narrative, and empathy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781009169509Search in Google Scholar
Hollan, Douglas. 2012. The definition and morality of empathy. Emotion Review 4(1). 83. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073911421396.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Dan R. 2012. Transportation into a story increases empathy, prosocial behavior, and perceptual bias toward fearful expressions. Personality and Individual Differences 52(2). 150–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2011.10.005.Search in Google Scholar
Johnson, Dan R. 2013. Transportation into literary fiction reduces prejudice against and increases empathy for Arab-Muslims. Scientific Study of Literature 3(1). 77–92. https://doi.org/10.1075/ssol.3.1.08joh.Search in Google Scholar
Jonge, Julia de, Serena Demichelis, Simone Rebora & Massimo Salgaro. 2022. Operationalizing perpetrator studies. Focusing readers’ reactions to The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell. Journal of Literary Semantics 51(2). 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2022-2057.Search in Google Scholar
Keen, Suzanne. 2006. A theory of narrative empathy. Narrative 14(3). 207–236. https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2006.0015.Search in Google Scholar
Keen, Suzanne. 2007. Empathy and the novel. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195175769.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Keen, Suzanne. 2013. Narrative empathy. In Hühn Peter, John Pier, Wolf Schmid & Jörg Schönert (eds.), The living handbook of narratology. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/lhn/node/42.html (accessed 15 January 2023).Search in Google Scholar
Kidd, David Comer & Emanuele Castano. 2013. Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind. Science 342(6156). 377–380. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918.Search in Google Scholar
Koopman, Emy & Frank Hakemulder. 2015. Effects of literature on empathy and self-reflection: A theoretical-empirical framework. Journal of Literary Theory 9(1). 79–111.10.1515/jlt-2015-0005Search in Google Scholar
Kuzmičová, Anežka, Anne Mangen, Hildegunn Støle & Anne C. Begnum. 2017. Literature and readers’ empathy: A qualitative text manipulation study. Language and Literature 26(2). 137–152. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947017704729.Search in Google Scholar
Laffer, Alexander. 2016. A poetics of empathy: Discussion of migrants in and around a work of fiction. Miton Keynes, UK: The Open University PhD thesis.Search in Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald. 2008. Cognitive grammar: A basic introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331967.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
László, János & Ildiko Somogyvári. 2008. Narrative empathy and inter-group relations. In Sonia Zyngier, Marisa Bortolussi, Anna Chesnokova & Jan Auracher (eds.), Directions in empirical literary studies: In honor of Willie van Peer, 113–125. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.10.1075/lal.5.11lasSearch in Google Scholar
Lissa, Caspar J. van, Marco Caracciolo, Thom van Duuren & Bram van Leuveren. 2016. Difficult empathy: The effect of narrative perspective on readers’ engagement with a first-person narrator. Diegesis 5(1). 43–62.Search in Google Scholar
Lyon, John. 1977. Semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mansworth, Megan. 2023. The restricted possible worlds of depression: A stylistic analysis of Janice Galloway’s The Trick is to Keep Breathing using a possible worlds framework. Language and Literature 32(1). 28–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470221106882.Search in Google Scholar
Mar, Raymond A., Oatley Keith, Hirsh Jacob & Jennifer dela Paz & Jordan B. Peterson. 2006. Bookworms versus nerds: Exposure to fiction versus non-fiction, divergent associations with social ability, and the simulation of fictional social worlds. Journal of Research in Personality 40(5). 694–712. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.002.Search in Google Scholar
Mar, Raymond A., Oatley Keith & Jordan B. Peterson. 2009. Exploring the link between reading fiction and empathy: Ruling out individual differences and examining outcomes. Communications: European Journal of Communication 34(4). 407–428. https://doi.org/10.1515/comm.2009.025.Search in Google Scholar
Miall, David S. & Don Kuiken. 1994. Foregrounding, defamiliarization, and affect: Response to literary stories. Poetics 22(5). 389–407. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422x(94)00011-5.Search in Google Scholar
Miall, David S. & Don Kuiken. 1999. What is literariness? Three components of literary reading. Discourse Processes 28. 121–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/01638539909545076.Search in Google Scholar
Miall, David S. & Don Kuiken. 2002. A feeling for fiction: Becoming what we behold. Poetics 30(4). 221–241. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0304-422x(02)00011-6.Search in Google Scholar
Neary, Clara. 2011. ‘Living after the flesh and the spirit’: Language and identity in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi’s the Story of My Experiments with Truth (1940). Belfast, UK: Queen's University Belfast PhD thesis.Search in Google Scholar
Nuttall, Louise. 2015. Attributing minds to vampires in Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend. Language and Literature 24(1). 23–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947014561834.Search in Google Scholar
Pager-McClymont, Kimberley. 2022. Linking emotions to surroundings: A stylistic model of pathetic fallacy. Language and Literature 31(3). 428–454. https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470221106021.Search in Google Scholar
Peer, Willie van & Hendrik L. W. Pander Maat. 1996. Perspectivation and sympathy: Effects of narrative point of view. In Roger J. Kreuz & Mary Sue MacNealy (eds.), Empirical approaches to literature and aesthetics, 143–154. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Search in Google Scholar
Ryan, Marie. 1980. Fiction, non-factuals, and the principle of minimal departure. Poetics 9(4). 403–422. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-422x(80)90030-3.-Laure.Search in Google Scholar
Salgaro, Massimo, Valentin Wagner & Winfried Menninghaus. 2021. A good, a bad, and an evil character: Who renders a novel most enjoyable? Poetics 87. 101550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2021.101550.Search in Google Scholar
Singer, Tania & Claus Lamm. 2009. The social neuroscience of empathy. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 11561. 81–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04418.x.Search in Google Scholar
Sorlin, Sandrine. 2020. Introduction: Manipulation in fiction. In Sandrine Sorlin (ed.), Stylistic manipulation of the reader in contemporary fiction. London & New York: Bloomsbury Academic.10.5040/9781350062993.0005Search in Google Scholar
Stockwell, Peter. 2005. Texture and identification. European Journal of English Studies 9(2). 143–154. https://doi.org/10.1080/13825570500171937.Search in Google Scholar
Stockwell, Peter. 2009. Texture: A cognitive aesthetics of reading. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.10.1515/9780748631209Search in Google Scholar
Stockwell, Peter. 2020. Cognitive poetics: A new introduction, 2nd edn. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.10.4324/9780367854546Search in Google Scholar
Stradling, Fransina. 2019. Linguistic construal and narrative empathy in Kate Chopin’s The Story of Hour (1894). In Online Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA). https://www.pala.ac.uk/uploads/2/5/1/0/25105678/2019stradling.pdf (accessed 30 March 2023).Search in Google Scholar
Toolan, Michael. 2009. Textual signalling of immersion and emotion in the reading of stories: Can reader responses and corpus methods converge? Paper presented at the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), University of Middelburg.Search in Google Scholar
Vignemont, Frédérique de & Pierre Jacob. 2012. What is it like to feel another’s pain? Philosophy of Science 79(2). 295–316. https://doi.org/10.1086/664742.Search in Google Scholar
Waal, Frans de. 1996. Good natured: The origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
West, David. 2016. Cognitive stylistics. In Violeta Sotirova (ed.), The bloomsbury companion to stylistics, 109–121. London: Bloomsbury Academic.Search in Google Scholar
Whiteley, Sara. 2011. Text world theory, real readers and emotional responses to The Remains of the Day. Language and Literature 20(1). 23–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947010377950.Search in Google Scholar
Whiteley, Sara & Patricia Canning. 2017. Reader response research in stylistics. Language and Literature 26(2). 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963947017704724.Search in Google Scholar
© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction: stylistic approaches to narrative empathy
- The role of pathetic fallacy in shaping narrative empathy
- From witness to accomplice: the manipulation of readers’ empathy through consciousness representation in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley
- Exploring the potential of sentiment analysis for the study of negative empathy
- “The unlikeliest twins”: the role of intertextual foregrounding and defamiliarisation in creating empathy in Meursault, contre-enquête
- I fucking love you! Emotional address in Fleabag, or how viewers’ empathy becomes voyeurism
- Connecting with the world: poetic synaesthesia, sensory metaphors and empathy
- Afterword
- Refreshed hypotheses
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Articles
- Introduction: stylistic approaches to narrative empathy
- The role of pathetic fallacy in shaping narrative empathy
- From witness to accomplice: the manipulation of readers’ empathy through consciousness representation in Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley
- Exploring the potential of sentiment analysis for the study of negative empathy
- “The unlikeliest twins”: the role of intertextual foregrounding and defamiliarisation in creating empathy in Meursault, contre-enquête
- I fucking love you! Emotional address in Fleabag, or how viewers’ empathy becomes voyeurism
- Connecting with the world: poetic synaesthesia, sensory metaphors and empathy
- Afterword
- Refreshed hypotheses