Reader Response Theory

What is the formula for Reader Response theory?

Author + text + reader = meaning

Is Reader Response theory a single school of thought or a set of theories?

set of theories

How is meaning created?

through interactions between the reader and the text

What is New Criticism

The idea that meaning is in the text itself and nowhere else, came before reader-response theory

Reader-Response Criticism

Meaning emerges through the act of reading

New criticism believes in what type of text?

autotelic text

What is autotelic text?

the idea that the text contains it’s own meaning, structure, and purpose.

New Critics look for what to understand the meaning of a text?

-Language

-Form

-Structure

-Imagery

-Symbolism

-Archetype

-Figurative Language

New Critics reject what?

personal feelings or context

Reader-Response theory developed as a ________ to New Criticism

Reaction

Reader Response Theory believes that the ____ matters

reader

The readers what matters?

Lived Experience

Memory

Cultural Background

Beliefs

Values

Knowledge

Different reader:

= different responses

Who is Louise Rosenblatt?

created the idea of transactional theory, which discusses the idea that a text has no meaning until a reader invited their own subjectivity

Text is not complete until a reader _____ with it

engages

What are the three major parts of meaning?

1. Author creates the text

2. The text provides the language cues and possibilities

3. The Reader provides meaning through reading the text

What is Efferent Reading?

reading to take something away . Such as instructions or textbooks

What is Aesthetic Reading

experiencing the text for it’s artistic state

What is are the main goals of efferent reading?

-learn

-remember

-follow a direction

-decide

-accomplish

Plot points in a novel represent _____ reading

efferent

The main goals of Aesthetic Reading are:

-emotions

-imagery

-sonic qualities

-atmosphere

-sensory experience

What is the problem with “anything goes?”

not every interpretation is valid

Whatever you feel ______ equal the truth

does not

Authors can’t tell us ______

everything

Text has _____

gaps

What else does text have:

-blanks

-ambiguities

-Omissions

-Jumps in time

-unanswered questions

-background information

Who fills the empty information

The reader

Every text written has an _____ reader

implied

What is an implied reader

a hypothetical reader a text is suited for

What is an actual reader

the real world person who actually encounters the text

What do you expect to happen?

What do you expect a text to mean?

What do you expect a character to do?

Horizons of Expectation

The reader _____, therefore the same text may not carry the same meaning

changes

What does Stanley Fish discuss in his ideas of text meaning

you don’t read alone, the communities you belong to shape our interpretations of a text

_____ with other groups of people can help create an agreed meaning towards a text

conversing