Volume 55, Issue 1

The idea that some novels are more ‘difficult’ than others is invoked in many non-academic discussions of literature. However, linking readerly experiences of difficulty to specific textual features of prose fiction has proved challenging. This paper seeks to build a stylistic framework for exploring difficulty in prose fiction, building on Castiglione’s ‘Linguistic Aspects of Difficulty’ checklist developed for use with poetry. It applies this revised framework to excerpts from two texts – Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Toni Morrison’s Beloved – to demonstrate the utility of the revised list. It then draws on reviews from the Goodreads website to explore how the presence of linguistic markers of difficulty may be linked to reader responses.

It is commonly assumed that the subject of a sentence is the preferred antecedent for a subsequent pronominal or zero anaphor. However, in some contexts the antecedent is instead the object, which may lead to misinterpretation. This paper aims to identify factors that influence the interpretation of referring expressions other than subjecthood, as well as the conditions under which these factors operate. In Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 , the interpretation of referential forms appears to be influenced by projection , that is, the adoption of a character’s point of view. Projection is often signalled by linguistic cues such as a verb of perception in the preceding sentence, expressions of uncertainty or intentionality, a verb in the present tense, and the use of the durative aspect in the sentence itself. Even when the character being projected is not the subject of the preceding sentence, or the referent of a pronominal or zero anaphor is not the character onto whom the narrator projects, referent identification seems to be governed primarily by the point of view of a projected character who holds the status of a main character. The English translations indicate that while certain factors make ambiguous forms more likely to refer to the subject of the previous sentence, point of view also plays a role in referent identification in English.

Prior studies have extensively examined narrative empathy and negative empathy, which primarily concern the readers’ affective engagement with fictional characters. This study shifts the focus to discourse from reader response by conceptualising de-empathy as a strategic stance that resists full emotional alignment while maintaining social intelligibility within television literature. Drawing on the excerpts from six works of contemporary Chinese emotional television literature, this study examines how the internal factors drive de-empathy into external linguistic manifestations. Accordingly, three strategies of de-empathy (affective, behavioural, and cognitive) have been identified through the lens of linguistic analysis, which illuminate how emotion ( ganqing ), relational expectations ( renqing ), and moral evaluation ( deqing ) are discursively negotiated. By pinpointing the discursive patterns and the underlying affective and moral norms, the study offers insight into the modulation of emotional distance in television literature narratives. Moreover, the findings above also invite reflection on the applicability of the de-empathy framework to broader literary and media contexts, highlighting its potential for cross-cultural analysis of affect and interpersonal negotiation.