Champman, Faculty Advisor, Wes

Fairgrieve, Amy

Digital Commons @ Illinois Wesleyan University

Illinois Wesleyan UniversityDigital Commons @ IWUJohn Wesley Powell Student ResearchConference 2012, 23rd Annual JWP ConferenceApr 14th, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PMA Schema-Theoretic Approach to Agreement andDisagreement in Literary InterpretationAmy FairgrieveIllinois Wesleyan UniversityWes Champman, Faculty AdvisorIllinois Wesleyan UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/jwprcThis Event is brought to you for free and open access by The Ames Library, the Andrew W. Mellon Center for Curricular and FacultyDevelopment, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the President. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Commons @ IWU bythe faculty at Illinois Wesleyan University. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@iwu.edu.©Copyright is owned by the author of this document.Amy Fairgrieve and Wes Champman, Faculty Advisor, "A Schema-Theoretic Approach to Agreement and Disagreement inLiterary Interpretation" (April 14, 2012). John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference. Paper 2.http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/jwprc/2012/oralpres13/2THE JOHN WESLEY POWELL STUDENT RESEARCH CONFERENCE – APRIL 2012    Oral Presentation O13.2   A SCHEMA-THEORETIC APPROACH TO AGREEMENT AND DISAGREEMENT IN LITERARY INTERPRETATION   Amy Fairgrieve and Wes Chapman* English Department, Illinois Wesleyan University    In this paper I undertake explain how we come to agree or disagree about interpretations of literary texts. The foundation for my argument is schema theory, a cognitive theory of memory structure, which I use to demonstrate how each of us develops an overall interpretation of a given story or poem.  I consider how schema content is formed through cultural and individual experiences, then suggest several patterns of schema usage that occur as we read and lead to a unique interpretation. Finally, I discuss how schematic learning experienced when we discuss literature with others affects whether we agree or disagree with them. In order to support this argument, I draw from my own empirical research, consisting of undergraduate English students reading and responding to a set poem. I also draw from important figures in cognitive theory such as David Rumelhart, Mark Turner, Gilles Fauconnier, and Patrick Colm Hogan.     

A Schema-Theoretic Approach to Agreement and Disagreement in Literary Interpretation

http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2841&context=jwprc

A Schema-Theoretic Approach to Agreement and Disagreement in Literary Interpretation

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