Cover not available
Article published In:
Pedagogical Linguistics
Vol. 3:1 (2022) ► pp.29–56

The linguistics of reading literature

A pragmatic account of ‘aesthetic reading’ of literary texts and its didactic implications

ORCID logo | University of Tübingen
In this paper, I attempt a bridge between linguistics, in particular text pragmatics, and school reading of literary texts. I propose a linguistic model of these peculiarities of the reading of literary texts, especially poetry, that have been called ‘aesthetic reading’, arguing that a linguistically founded basis is what is lacking for school engagement with (not only literary) texts. In the last years there has been extensive research on the linguistics-literature interface; however, what is surprisingly still missing, is a consistent linguistic model of literary reading. In this paper, I propose such a model and show that ‘aesthetic reading’ involves a distinct reading strategy that can be captured in terms of text-world-models and the differentiation between coherence and text sense displaying. Consciously reading poetry amounts, linguistically seen, to a close reading (i) especially focusing marked expressions, i.e., deviations from phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and textpragmatic routines, (ii) maintaining of unsolved ambiguities and thus (iii) generating an array of ‘authorized inferences’ that can be productively used for a principled plurality of interpretations. I specify this proposal and illustrate it with two cases of marked pronominal reference, arguing that my proposal has some important implications that make it particularly suitable for school context.
Keywords: coherence, reference, pronoun, inference, pragmatics, poetry
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminaries: Text understanding in general and literary reading
    • 2.1General assumptions on text understanding
    • 2.2General assumptions on literary reading
  • 3.Proposal: Two idealized overall reading strategies
    • 3.1Everyday strategy of reading
    • 3.2Strategy for aesthetic reading
  • 4.Literary reading and pronominal reference in lyrical texts
    • 4.1Referential coherence and cohesion: personal pronouns
    • 4.2Using the model: Two examples of meaningful departures from routine
      • 4.2.1Reference routine one: Avoid ambiguity
      • 4.2.2Reference routine two: Resolve personal pronouns to topics
  • 5.Looking ahead: Didactic implications of the model
    • First implication: Reading as TWM construal for all texts
    • Ad (1)
    • Ad (2)
    • Second implication: Revising the direction of the text analysis with literary texts
    • Third implication: Integrative grammar teaching is necessary and possible
    • Fourth implication: Avoiding ‘what the author wants to tell us’ or ‘nutcracker hermeneutics’
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 May 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.21009.ave
References (72)
References
Averintseva-Klisch, M. & Mühlherr, A. (2020). Spielräume des Verstehens, Spielräume der Performanz: Pragmatische Inferenzen in der Kürenberger-Strophe wîp unde vederspil . Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 2020/1, 39–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Averintseva-Klisch, M., Bryant, D. & Peschel, C. (2019). Referenzielle Kohärenz: Diskrepanz zwischen Theorie und Vermittlung. Eine kritische Analyse von Deutschlehrwerken der Sekundarstufe I. Linguistik Online, 100, 19–64. (retrieved from: [URL]).
Bade, N. & Beck, S. (2017). Lyrical texts as a data source for linguistics. Linguistische Berichte, 2511, 317–356.Google Scholar
Bader, M. & Portele, Y. (2019). The interpretation of German personal pronouns and d-pronouns. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baßler, M. (2000). Hermetik. In G. Braungart et al. (Eds.) Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft, Vol. 21 (pp. 33–35). Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bauer, M., S. Beck, S. Rieker, S. Brockmann, A. Zirker, N. Bade, C. Dörge & J. Braun. (2020). Linguistics meets literature. More on the grammar of Emily Dickinson. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beaugrande, R. de & Dressler, W. (1981). Einführung in die Textlinguistik. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bosch, P. & Umbach, C. (2007). Reference determination for demonstrative pronouns. ZAS Papers in Linguistics, 481, 39–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bücking, S. (2019). Erzählen ohne Erzählen aus linguistischer Perspektive. Presentation at the German Linguistics Colloquium, University of Tübingen, 29.5.2019.
Burdorf, D. (1997). Einführung in die Gedichtsanalyse. Stuttgart: Metzler. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Büring, D. (2011). Pronouns. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics. Vol. 21. (pp. 971–996). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cardinaletti, A. & Starke, M. (1999). The typology of structural deficiency: A case study of the three classes of pronouns. In H. van Riemsdijk (Ed.) Clitics in the languages of Europe (pp. 145–234). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cave, T. & Wilson, D. (Eds.) (2018). Reading Beyond the Code. Literature and Relevance Theory. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, H. (1977). Bridging. In P. Johnson-Laird & P. Wason (Eds.), Thinking. Reading in cognitive science (pp. 411–420). Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Consten, M. & Schwarz-Friesel, M. (2007). Anapher. In: L. Hoffmann (Ed.): Deutsche Wortarten (pp. 265–292). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Consten, M., Dambeck, E. & Steinäcker, F. (2017). Textlinguistik und Schule – Textlinguistik für die Schule? In M. Geipel & J. Koch (Eds.), Bedürfnisse und Ansprüche im Dialog: Perspektiven in der Deutschlehrerausbildung (pp. 86–99). Weinheim: Beltz Juventa.Google Scholar
Einecke, G. (2013). Integrativer Deutschunterricht. In B. Rothstein & C. Müller (Eds.): Kernbegriffe der Sprachdidaktik Deutsch (pp. 167–170). Ein Handbuch. Hohengehren: Schneider.Google Scholar
Fabb, N. (2010). Is literary language a development of ordinary language? Lingua, 1201, 1219–1232. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fuhrhop, N. & Schreiber, N. (2019). Hölderlin syntaktisch. Hölderlin-Jahrbuch, 411, 84–121.Google Scholar
Furlong, A. (1995). Relevance Theory and literary interpretation. (Ph.D. thesis). London: UCL.Google Scholar
(2007). A modest proposal: Linguistics and literary studies. Canadian Journal of applied linguistics, 10(3), 323–345.Google Scholar
Gallmann, P. (2015). Das topologische Modell: Basisartikel. In A. Wöllstein (Ed.), Das topo-logische Modell für die Schule (pp. 1–36). Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Givón, T. (1995). Coherence in text vs. coherence in mind. In M. A. Gernsbacher & T. Givón (Eds.), Coherence in spontaneous text (pp. 59–115). Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Granzow-Emden, M. (2019). Deutsche Grammatik verstehen und unterrichten. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Grice, H. P. (1968). Utterer’s Meaning, Sentence Meaning, and Word Meaning. Foundations of Language, 41, 117–137. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gundel, J. & Johnson, K. (2013). Children’s use of referring expressions in spontaneous discourse: Implications for theory of mind development. Journal of Pragmatics, 5661, 43–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gundel, J., Hedberg, N. & Zacharski, R. (1993). Cognitive status and the form of referring expressions in discourse. Language, 69(2), 274–307. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horn, L. (2004). Implicature. In L. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), The handbook of pragmatics (pp. 3–28). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jacobson, R. (1960). Linguistics and poetics. In T. A. Sebeok (Ed.), Style in Language (pp. 350–377). Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kelter, S. (2003). Mentale Modelle. In G. Rickheit et al. (Eds.), Psycholinguistik (pp. 505–517). Berlin/New York: de Gruyter (HSK 24). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kintsch, W. (1988). The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A construction-integration model. Psychological Review, 95(2), 163–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
KMK (2003): Bildungsstandards im Fach Deutsch für den mittleren Schulabschluss. Beschluss der Kultusministerkonferenz vom 4.12.2003, retrieved from: [URL]
Landgraf, T. (2020). Sprachbetrachtung im Literaturunterricht? Integration von sprach-lichem und literarischem Lernen in der Sekundarstufe II. Münster/NY: Waxmann.Google Scholar
Levinson, S. (2000). Presumptive meanings. Cambridge: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maier, E. (2017). Fictional names in psychologistic semantics. Theoretical Linguistics, 43(1–2), 1–45. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matuschek, S. (2013). Was heißt Literatur lesen lernen? In H. Feilke, J. Köster & M. Steinmetz (Eds.), Textkompetenzen in der Sekundarstufe II. Stuttgart: Klett. 63–74.Google Scholar
(n.d.). Wie die Frage „Was will der Autor uns sagen?“ das Literaturverständnis behindert. Ms. Univ. Jena (retrieved from: [URL]).
McKoon, G. & Ratcliff, R. (1992). Inference during reading. Psychological Review, 99(3), 440–466. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Molnár, V. (1991). Das Topik im Deutschen und im Ungarischen. Lunder Germanistische Forschungen 58. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell Internat.Google Scholar
Mottel, H. (1998). ‘Apoll envers terre’: Hölderlins mythopoetische Weltentwürfe. Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag.Google Scholar
Mühlhäusler, P. (2001). Personal pronouns. In M. Haspelmath, E. König, W. Oesterreicher & W. Raible (Eds.), Language Typology and Language Universals, Vol. 11. (pp. 741–747). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Musan, R. & Noack, C. (2014). Pronominale Referenzmarkierungen in der Grundschule. In M. Averintseva-Klisch & C. Peschel (Eds.), Aspekte der Informationsstruktur für die Schule (pp. 110–128). Baltmannsweiler: Scheider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Musan, R. & Schneider, S. (2016). Literarische Analyse ohne Grammatik ist wie ein Storch auf einem Bein. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Nickel-Bacon, I., Groeben, N. & Schreier, M. (2000). Fiktionssignale pragmatisch. Ein medienübergreifendes Modell zur Unterscheidung von Fiktion(en) und Realität(en). Poetica, 3–41, 267–299. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peschel, C. (2006). Verweismittel, Anaphorik, thematische Fortführung – eine Frage für den Grammatikunterricht? In C. Spiegel, & R. Vogt (Eds.), Vom Nutzen der Textlinguistik für den Unterricht (pp. 171–186). Baltmannsweiler: Scheider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Pilkington, A. (2000). Poetic effects. A Relevance theory perspective. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potts, C. (2012). Conventional implicature and expressive content. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics: An International Handbook of Natural Language Meaning, Vol. 31. (pp. 2516–2536). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Prince, E. (1981). Towards a taxonomy of given/new information. In P. Cole (Ed.), Radical Pragmatics (pp. 223–254). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Roberts, C. (2011). Topics. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger & P. Portner (Eds.) Semantics, Vol. 21. (pp. 1908–1934). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Rosebrock, C. (2017). Sachtexte, literarische Texte: zwei Lesehaltungen. Der Deutschunterricht, 3/2017, 2–9.Google Scholar
(2019). Eine literarische Lesehaltung einnehmen, demonstrieren, entwickeln: Baustein der literaturdidaktischen Professionalisierung. Didaktik Deutsch, 461, 32–46.Google Scholar
Rosebrock, C. & Nix, D. (2017). Grundlagen der Lesedidaktik und der systematischen schulischen Leseförderung. Baltmannsweiler: Schneider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Rosenblatt, L. (1994). The reader, the text, the poem. The transactional theory of the literary work. Carbondale, IL: Sth. Illinois Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Rothenberg, J. & Joris, P. (1998). Poems for the Milennium, Vol. II. Oakland (CA): UC Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, S. J. (1975). Ist Fiktionalität eine linguistische oder eine texttheoretische Kategorie? (2nd ed.). In E. Gülich & W. Raible (Eds.), Textsorten. Differenzierungskriterien aus linguistischer Sicht (pp. 59–80). Wiesbaden: Athenaion.Google Scholar
Schnotz, W. (2000). Das Verstehen schriftlicher Texte als Prozeß. In K. Brinker, G. Antos, W. Heinemann & S. F. Sager (Eds.), Linguistics of Text and Conversation. An International Handbook of Contemporary Research (pp. 497–506). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Schwarz, M. (2000). Indirekte Anaphern in Texten. Studien zur domänengebundenen Referenz und Kohärenz im Deutschen. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001). Establishing coherence in text. Conceptual continuity and text-world models. Logos and Language, 111, 15–23.Google Scholar
Schwarz-Friesel, M. & Consten, M. (2014). Einführung in die Textlinguistik. Darmstadt: WBG.Google Scholar
Schwarz-Friesel, M. (2006). Kohärenz versus Textsinn: Didaktische Facetten einer linguistischen Theorie der textuellen Kontinuität. In M. Scherner & A. Ziegler (Eds.), Angewandte Textlinguistik. Perspektiven für den Deutsch- und Fremdsprachenunterricht (pp. 63–75). Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Searle, J. (1975). A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts. In K. Gunderson (Ed.), Language, Mind, and Knowledge (pp. 344–369). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Spooren, W. (2003). Texte Strukturieren: Textlinguistik. In R. Pörings & U. Schmitz (Eds.), Sprache und Sprachwissenschaft (pp. 191–214). Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Steinäcker, F. (2014). Kohärenz beim textbezogenen Schreiben. In M. Averintseva-Klisch & C. Peschel (Eds.), Aspekte der Informationsstruktur für die Schule (pp. 53–74). Baltmannsweiler: Scheider Verlag Hohengehren.Google Scholar
Thurmair, M. (2003). Referenzketten im Text. Pronominalisierungen, Nicht-Pronomi-nalisierungen und Renominalisierungen. In M. Thurmair & E.-M. Willkop (Eds.), Am Anfang war der Text. 10 Jahre “Textgrammatik der deutschen Sprache” (pp. 197–219). München: Iudicium.Google Scholar
Utikal, R. (n.d.). Leitfaden zur Korrektur im schriftl. Abitur. (retrieved from: [URL]).
Vermeulen, P. (2012). Autism as context blindness. Kansas: AAPC Publishing.Google Scholar
Wilson, D. (2018). Relevance Theory and Literary Interpretation. In T. Cave & D. Wilson (Eds.), Reading Beyond the Code. Literature and Relevance Theory (pp. 185–204). Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilson, D. & Sperber, D. (2004). Relevance theory. In L. R. Horn & G. Ward (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics (pp. 607–632). Oxford: BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Winkler, I. (2011). Aufgabenpräferenzen für den Literaturunterricht. Eine Erhebung unter Deutschlehrkräften. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wöllstein, A. & die Dudenredaktion (Eds.). (2016). Der Duden in 12 Bänden. Bd. 4: Die Grammatik. Berlin: Bibliographisches Institut.Google Scholar
Zifonun, G., Hoffmann, L. & B. Stecker (Eds.) (1997). Grammatik der deutschen Sprache. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
ZSL BW (2016): Bildungsstandards Deutsch Gymnasium Baden-Württemberg. Zentrum für Schulqualität und Lehrerbildung Stuttgart, retrieved from: [URL]