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Et tekstanalytisk mellemværende: En fænomenologisk funderet litterær metode

  • Anita Nell Albertsen*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: ThesisPh.D. thesis

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Abstract

In this thesis called – Between Text and Reader. A literary Method based on Phenomenology and Cognitive Theory – I have argued for the necessity of a phenomenology based reader-and reception-oriented method for text analysis. Considered experimental narrative forms – that leaves a room for the reader's creative activity – it has been necessary to redefine and reconceptualize text analysis as a discipline in terms of the reader's cognitive dispositions by drawing on 1) the methodological principles of phenomenology – i.e. the phenomenological reduction – as an analytical tool for redirecting the reader's attention in order to discuss consciousness as the constitutive dimension in the text's projection of a text world. The method is based on meticulous descriptions on whatever is already given to the consciousness and it thematizes the reader-text-correlation that constitutes the projection of the text world. This (imaginative) projection of a text world is described by 2) Roman Ingardens phenomenological investigation of the literary work of art and its layered structure – his theory of constitution. In addition, in order to develop this method for text analysis, Between Text and Reader draws on the findings of 3) Text World Theory in order to enable the systematic examination, not only of entire texts, but also the contexts surrounding, their production and interpretation. Such conditions are considered to have the advantage of being able to account for context alluding narratives such as literary readymades, autobiographical narratives etc. that is examined in Between Text and Reader. In other words the major purpose of this research is to establish a method for text analysis from phenomenological theory and by drawing on the conceptions of cognitive theory – for example the notion of mindreading, ToM, narrativization, Text World Theory etc. The spirit of this research is pragmatic and relies on a husserlian phenomenology primarily understood as a strictly method of exploring experience. 

Ingarden himself added very little to the development of interpretation techniques and avoided all discussion of this issue, the reason being that his works serves as the foundation of a treatment of general philosophical problems. The main assumption in this thesis is that phenomenology as well as cognitive poetics primarily provides us with complex and adequate explanatory tools, meaning a conceptual framework that at the same time captures the radical incompleteness of experimental narratives in resent Danish fiction, and the reader's interpretative interference in the meaning construction. However, some attempts have been made during the years in order to transform phenomenology into an interpretation practice. The Geneva School of Literary Criticism used phenomenology to analyze literary works of art as representations of deep structures of an author's consciousness. Although the Geneva critics focused on intrinsic matters, they emphasized the author and not the reader-text-correlation which is stressed in Between Text and Reader's development of a design for a phenomenological literary method. Considered as literary theory, phenomenology has both a formalistic and an emphatic focus on interpretation which makes it suitable for the literature of indeterminacy. A phenomenology based method should through its analytical tools focus on the interaction between reader and text in order to distinguish:

1) How do textual structures shape the reader's interpretation and building of a textworld?
2) How does the reader contribute to the meaning construction?

Therefore, the development of a design for a phenomenology based method is carried out with reference to an analytical study (chapter 4 and 5) of experimental narrative forms in recent Danish literature. In this study two main hypotheses has been investigated and confirmed in Between Text and Reader through, i.e.: 

1) The idea that even radical incomplete and experimental narratives guides the reader's interpretation to some extent due to certain cohesive patterns... and due to the fact...
2) ...that the reader tries to recuperate the textual inconsistencies by relating them not only to cultural models and stereotypes, but also (according to cognitive narratology) to natural parameters. 

The arguments supporting these claims are found in cognitive narratology.

Whereas the first part of the thesis (chapter 1-3) sets out to develop a rough design for a method, this method is tested and revised in a number of readings (mainly in chapter 3 and 5) of narratives using different strategies to violate the readers expectations to some extent, among others Jan Sonnergaards “Lotte” (1997), Simon Fruelunds minimalistic short story “Flod” (1997) and Merete Pryds Helles Men jorden står til evig tid (1996). Throughout it is discussed how the method of phenomenology relates to cognitive theory. 
Original languageDanish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Southern Denmark
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Hansen, Per Krogh, Supervisor
Place of PublicationOdense
Publisher
Publication statusPublished - 2010

Keywords

  • Text analysis
  • phenomenology
  • cognitive science
  • Methodology
  • Danish fiction
  • Text world analysis

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