Academic literature on the topic 'Text World Theory'

This thesis investigates the emotional experience of literary discourse from a cognitivepoetic perspective. In doing so, it combines detailed Text World Theory analysis with an examination of naturalistic reader response data in the form of book group discussions and internet postings. Three novels by contemporary author Kazuo Ishiguro form the analytical focus of this investigation: The Remains of the Dt!)' (1989), The Unconso/ed (1995) and Never Let Me Go (2005), chosen due to their thematic engagement with emotion and their ability to evoke emotion in readers. The central aims of this thesis are to develop cognitive-poetic understanding of the emotional experience of literature, and to advance cognitive-poetic and literary-critical understanding of the works of Ishiguro. As a result of the analytical investigations of the three novels, this thesis proposes several enhancements to the discourse-world level of the Text World Theory framework. In particular, this thesis argues for a more detailed and nuanced account of deictic projection and identification, proposes a means of including readers' hopes and preferences in text-world analyses, and reconceptualises processes of knowledge activation as inherently emotional. Detailed, cognitive-poetic analyses of Ishiguro's novels elucidate literary-critical observations regarding Ishiguro's shifting style, and present new insights into the cognitive and emotional aspects of the interaction between the texts and their readers. This thesis aims primarily to be a contribution to the fields of stylistics and cognitive poetics. It approaches this theoretically through the application and enhancement of cognitive poetic frameworks, analytically through the investigation of Ishiguro, and methodologically through the utilisation of reader response data in order to direct and support the investigations. However, incidental contributions are also made to cognitive and social emotion theories, and the discussion raises several suggestions for continued interdisciplinary research in the future.

This thesis offers a text-worlds-approach to the study of linguistic identity in discursive interaction. It focuses on how settled Chinese migrants in Sheffield, who migrated predominantly from Hong Kong and the New Territories, construct their identities linguistically. To this extent, linguistic interview data is analysed with the use of the conceptual framework Text World Theory (e.g. Gavins 2007a; Werth 1999). As such, this thesis has three central aims: to extend the use of Text World Theory by applying it to spoken discourse; to examine the ways in which people linguistically represent themselves and talk about their life experiences; and to provide insight into the narratives of Chinese migrants and their families in Sheffield in particular. The linguistic data used in this thesis has been collected through 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork at a Chinese complementary school in Sheffield, UK. Based on the outcome of the analytical investigations of linguistic interview data, I aim to offer several original contributions. Firstly, I hope to provide a better understanding of migrant lives, by investigating the narrated experiences of Chinese migrants and their families. Secondly, I offer Text World Theory as a suitable framework for the study of linguistic identity. I extend the framework to the relatively unexplored domain of spoken discourse, synthesising a discursive approach to identity (e.g. Bucholtz and Hall 2005) with a Text World Theory approach (e.g. Gavins 2007a; Werth 1999). I demonstrate that Text World Theory can explain the complex and multi-layered nature of identity through the scope it provides for tracing linguistic self-representation across multiple worlds. Finally, I show that the framework is particularly adept at synthesising macro-level analysis of discursive interaction with detailed micro-level analysis of linguistic choices and their conceptual consequences.

This thesis presents a unified and systematic Text World Theory, tested and refined under practical application. It draws on a variety of linguistic, psychological, critical theoretical and cognitive scientific models, principally the cognitive discourse grammar originally developed by Paul Werth. The thesis delineates the critical and philosophical inheritance out of which Text World Theory evolved, in order to evaluate and engage critically with the theoretical framework in the light of recent developments in literary linguistics and cognitive poetics. This inheritance includes the fields of possible worlds semantics and narratology, artificial intelligence research and cognitive psychology. Essential modifications, revisions and crucial adjustments are made to Werth's approach in order to produce a refined model of Text World Theory. The augmented framework is tested through several practical and inter-related analyses. These centre around Absurd prose fiction, selected in order to highlight the adaptability of the new Text World Theory especially in the context of literary environments that are often judged to be challenging on a cognitive dimension. Extensive analyses of Paul Auster's The Music of Chance, Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, Emmanuel Carrere's The Mustache, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and Donald Barthelme's Snow White are undertaken over the course of the thesis. Further adaptations to the model are proposed as a result of these applications. The thesis aims primarily to be a contribution to the field of cognitive discourse study. However, incidental contributions are also made to the areas of the critical study of Absurd prose fiction, pragmatics and semantics, cognitive poetics and literary critical theory in general.

This study uses and develops text world theory to explore the use of desire and dream states in four poems by the nineteenth century poet John Keats. Text world theory as it currently stands has yet to be sufficiently developed to account for the representation and conceptualisation of desire and dream states. This study aims to provide a framework for accounting for these phenomena by proposing a continuum of mentation, classifying distinct desire and dream worlds by differences in speaker volition, distance to reality and the degrees of modal force. The study also proposes that the nightmare world, an extreme type of dream world characterised by negative colouring and inherent world-switching potential, offers a more developed way of accounting for the conceptualisation of nightmare experiences in text world theory. This model is then applied in detailed cognitive poetic analyses of four of Keats's poems. In each case, a reading of the poem is provided that explores the setting up of and interplay between different kinds of desire and dream states. Within these analyses, the study firstly demonstrates how Keats positions his reader into adopting particular vantage points from which conflicting types of love and desire are explored. Secondly, it provides evidence to show that nightmare worlds in Keats's poems emulate a nightmare experience both stylistically and in their intended impact. Thirdly, it accounts for the ways in which the nightmare world is functionally significant when considered in the context of the poems in their entirety. This study therefore aims to both augment current work in text world theory to allow for a systematic exploration of desire, dreams and nightmares and to provide focused and innovative readings of a major English poet. Since there has been little work on either dreams or Keats's poetry in the field of cognitive poetics, this study is a timely response to a gap in existing stylistic and literary critical research.

Syftet med studien har varit att introducera den kognitiva receptionsteorin om textvärldar (Text World Theory) samt undersöka utifrån vilka textvärldar barnen på en förskola i Mellansverige interagerar med upplästa texter. Studien har genomförts på avancerad nivå inom Högskolan Dalarnas lärarprogram där huvudområdet varit pedagogiskt arbete. Detta är en kvalitativ studie i vilken två observationer samt två samtal med barngrupp med åldersintervallen tre till sex år har dokumenterats och därefter analyserats i relation till ovan nämnda teori. Av analyser framkommer att öppna frågor i större utsträckning leder till ett byggande av föreställningsvärldar och även en mer avancerad dialog med den diskurs författaren utgår från, än då givna ingångar är utgångspunkten. Studien visar även på att barnen redan tidigt har en avancerad förmåga till textrörlighet samt att de är multimodala i sitt tolkande av texter beroende på vilka textvärldar de relaterar till.

Every day, individuals commit acts which are considered immoral, unethical, even criminal, often to gain material advantage. Many people consider cheating on taxes, cheating on tests, claiming false benefits, or avoiding transport fare to be wrong, but they do them anyway. While some of these acts may not be formally illegal, they are, at best, considered morally dubious and is labeled “everyday crime.” Anomie theory holds that individuals make decisions based on socialized values, which separately may be contradictory but together, balances each other out, producing behavior considered “normal” by society. When one holds an imbalanced set of values, decisions made on that set may produce deviant behavior, such as everyday crime. RD theory holds that individuals who perceive their own deprivation, relative to someone else, will feel frustration and injustice, and may attempt to ameliorate that feeling with deviant behavior. Data from the 2006 World Values Survey were analyzed using logistic regression, testing both constructs concurrently. An individual was 1.55 times more likely to justify everyday crime for each calculated unit of anomie; and 1.10 times more likely for each calculated unit of RD. It was concluded from this study that anomie and relative deprivation were both associated with the tendency towards everyday crime.

The rather novel phenomenon of cybergrooming, or the solicitation of minors for sex via the Internet, has yet to be fully explored. This is a problem because such predatory behavior can lead to psychological and/or physical abuse of minors. The present study seeks to fill this knowledge by performing a qualitative, grounded theory analysis of naturally-occurring cybergrooming discourse. Data were drawn from the website of the online watchdog group, Perverted Justice. The first 20 lines of talk transmitted by the adults in these chat conversations were sampled from 100 transcripts published by Perverted Justice.Multi-step coding, facilitated by the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti, revealed 11 themes of social action that discursively emerged in at least 25% of said transcripts: (1) conversational openings; (2) initial solicitation of age, sex and/or location; (3) specific questions regarding 'child's' life; (4) follow-up topicalization of 'child's' location; (5) seeking visual images of 'child;' (6) complimenting 'child's' appearance; (7) soliciting topic for discussion; (8) explicitly sexual statements; (9) soliciting 'child's' age preference for sex/romance; (10) arranging further contact; and (11) disclosing personal activities. These themes are then explored in their own context, in relation to each other, and as elements of the broad behavioral framework of cybergrooming.

This thesis is a work of creative practice-led research comprising two components. The first component is a speculative thriller novel, entitled Diamond Eyes. (Contracted for publication in 2009 by Harper Collins: Voyager as the first in a trilogy, under the name AA Bell.) The second component is an exegesis exploring the notion of re-visioning a novel. Re-visioning, not to be confused with revision, refers to advance editing strategies required when the original vision of a novel changes during development.