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Readers' Response in Reading: an Experimental Study
Author(s) -
Dollerup Cay,
Hansen Carsten Rosenberg
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1992.tb01176.x
Subject(s) - reading (process) , danish , set (abstract data type) , psychology , linguistics , computer science , philosophy , programming language
This is a discussion of a reader response study on 717 Danish 17‐to 19‐year‐old students' reports on a short story. The story is The Ram by the Danish author Cecil Bødker. The study used questionnaires and established numerous patterns in the readings of the story: to take the most obvious finding first, the text is the foremost determinant of the response, and even delicate manipulation of it (based on critical approaches) will have an effect. In addition, the study shows how readers change their views on the protagonist in the course of the reading. It goes without saying that it is easy to set up a ‘majority short story’ composed of aspects which readers tend to accept. There are, however, also decidedly individual readings. Furthermore, we established that some background factors, such as gender, had a significant effect on the reading. The most interesting findings concern ‘abstruse patterns’ where different groups of readers can be defined by their response to three (seemingly independent) factors.