Schemata

No abstract available

Foregrounding, burying and plot construction

No abstract available

The observing We in literary representations of neglect and social alienation: types of narrator involvement in Janice Galloway's 'Scenes from the Life No. 26: The Community and the Senior Citizen' and Jon McGregor's 'Even the Dogs'

This chapter examines the use of different types of we-narration in two literary stories that portray the theme of neglect and alienation in modern society, Janice Galloway’s ‘Scenes from the life no. 26: The community and the senior citizen’ and Jon McGregor’s Even the Dogs. Both texts have an observing we-narrator. Galloway’s short story presents a voyeuristic commentator, apparently watching a staged performance. This we becomes increasingly detached as the narrative progresses, possibly preventing readers from fully empathising. By contrast, McGregor’s we-narrator is highly involved, contributing personal knowledge and memories. The degree of involvement of these we-narrators is quite different, but both texts use their unusual perspectives to provide unsettling views of those who have fallen into a state of neglect and are marginalised by society

Interpreting antecedentless pronouns in narrative texts: knowledge types, world building and inference-making

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Reliability, unreliability, reader manipulation and plot reversals: strategies for constructing and challenging the credibility of characters in Agatha Christie's detective fiction

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Manipulation in Agatha Christie's detective stories: rhetorical control and cognitive misdirection in creating and solving crime puzzles

No abstract available

Reliability, unreliability, reader manipulation and plot reversals: strategies for constructing and challenging the credibility of characters in Agatha Christie's detective fiction

No abstract available

Schema theory in stylistics

This chapter outlines the background to schema theory in psychology and artificial intelligence and explains some of the key areas in which it has been used in stylistics and related disciplines, followed by a range of representative examples and an indication of directions for future research. It explores some of the core research applications of schema theory in these areas. A key use of schema theory in stylistics has been in studying mind style, which generally involves examining the style of the thought representations of characters who perceive the world differently from ordinary, modern-day adult humans. Schema theory has also been influential in second language teaching, where reading is viewed as the interaction between top-down socio-cultural schemata guiding reading and bottom-up signals from the text, and where varying schemata can explain misunderstandings by readers of different cultures

'Situated events' in fictional worlds: the reader's role in context construction

Focuses on textual strategies which become functionalized for narrative purposes when readers extrapolate contextual readings from them. Discussion on schema theory and the notion of gap-filling in context construction; Definition of text-derived knowledge; Implications for narrative theory