Text world theory and situation-model research: enhancing validity and tracking world-retrievals

GIBBONS, Alison (2023). Text world theory and situation-model research: enhancing validity and tracking world-retrievals. Journal of Literary Semantics, 52 (1).

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Abstract

When Paul Werth invented the concept of ‘text-worlds’ (1999), he drew on existing psychological accounts of how the mind processes stimuli, such as the idea of the ‘situation model’ (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983). Yet despite the important advancements to Werth’s approach that have been made in stylistics over the years, situation-model research is rarely, if ever, referenced in what is now called Text World Theory (Gavins 2007). In this article, I consult empirical research on situation models, consequently making two significant contributions: I show how empirical situation-model research bolsters the validity of Text World Theory; I propose a new concept for Text World Theory—‘world-retrieval’—to account for how readers trace the interconnections between text-worlds and attempt to resolve processing difficulties. An analysis of the opening to Ray Loriga’s (2003) novel Tokyo Doesn’t Love Us Anymore demonstrates the value of the ‘world-retrieval’ concept.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Humanities Research Centre; Text World Theory; Cognitive Stylistics; Situation Model; Languages & Linguistics; 2004 Linguistics
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2002
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Elements
Depositing User:	Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited:	07 Nov 2022 13:05
Last Modified:	11 Oct 2023 15:46
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/30975

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