Recruiting the reader in literary criticism
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Beverly A. Lewin is a retired instructor in scientific writing at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on discourse analysis, especially of scientific texts. Among her publications are the following books:Expository Discourse: A Genre-Based Approach to Social Science Research Texts (2001, with J. Fine & L. Young, London: Continuum);Writing Readable Research: A Guide for Students of Social Science (2010, London: Equinox); andCrossed Words: Criticism in the Academy (2011, co-edited with F. Salager-Meyer, Bern: Peter Lang). Address for correspondence: Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel 〈lewinb@post.tau.ac.il〉.
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Hadara Perpignan was an instructor in academic writing at Bar-Ilan University, also in Israel. Her research interests included writing pedagogy and genre analysis, and their integration. She is author most recently of “Ideas into words: Narrowing the gap in doctoral candidates' academic writing in EFL” (2011, in Tony Cimaso & Melissa Reichelt (eds.),Foreign Language Writing Instruction: Principles and Practices ) and with Beverly Lewin, “Mind the gap: Criticism in literary criticism” (2011, in Francoise Salager-Meyer & Beverly A. Lewin (eds.),Crossed Words: Criticism in the Academy ).With sadness we add that Dr. Perpignan died in December 2010.
Abstract
In this paper, we analyze an array of rhetorical strategies directly aimed at recruiting the reader to be an active collaborator in the construction of arguments in literary criticism. Many techniques for this purpose have been posited, mainly reporting the frequency of specific, discrete lexicogrammatical items. However, this approach does not capture techniques that are not necessarily realized by a discrete structure but can be interpreted in terms of function. Our approach brought to light some techniques not previously reported, which operate simultaneously in individual texts. In addition, a framework is needed to account for the saliency of the diverse strategies involved. We propose a typology of techniques that tap various aspects of the reader's experience – among them the social, affective, ideological, and the intellectual spheres.
Furthermore, analysis of recruitment strategies has been mainly restricted to scientific and other texts that validate their arguments by empirical research. Our study is based on texts in literary research, a field which is dependent on convincing the reader of the superiority of the critic's new reading and presumably entails a greater need for active collaboration of the reader.
About the authors
Beverly A. Lewin is a retired instructor in scientific writing at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on discourse analysis, especially of scientific texts. Among her publications are the following books: Expository Discourse: A Genre-Based Approach to Social Science Research Texts (2001, with J. Fine & L. Young, London: Continuum); Writing Readable Research: A Guide for Students of Social Science (2010, London: Equinox); and Crossed Words: Criticism in the Academy (2011, co-edited with F. Salager-Meyer, Bern: Peter Lang). Address for correspondence: Tel Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Israel 〈lewinb@post.tau.ac.il〉.
Hadara Perpignan was an instructor in academic writing at Bar-Ilan University, also in Israel. Her research interests included writing pedagogy and genre analysis, and their integration. She is author most recently of “Ideas into words: Narrowing the gap in doctoral candidates' academic writing in EFL” (2011, in Tony Cimaso & Melissa Reichelt (eds.), Foreign Language Writing Instruction: Principles and Practices) and with Beverly Lewin, “Mind the gap: Criticism in literary criticism” (2011, in Francoise Salager-Meyer & Beverly A. Lewin (eds.), Crossed Words: Criticism in the Academy).
With sadness we add that Dr. Perpignan died in December 2010.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Lay metalanguage on grammatical variation and neutrality in Wikipedia's entry for Che Guevara
- The role of metaphor in tennis reports and forums
- Directing and requesting: two interactive uses of the mental state terms want and need
- Recruiting the reader in literary criticism
- He's absolutely massive. It's a super day. Madonna, she is a wicked singer. Youth language and intensification: a corpus-based study
- Suprasegmentals in the definition of narrative and intonational patterns in Turkish oral narratives
