This enquiry into the principles and practice of reading literature brings together insights from cognitive studies, literary theory, empirical literature studies, learning and teaching research and higher education research. Reading is conceptualised as an active process of meaning-making that is determined by subjective as well as contextual factors and guided by a sense of purpose. This sense of purpose, part of a professional and conscious approach to reading, is the central element in the model of reading that this study proposes. As well as a conceptual aim, this model also has pedagogical power and serves as the basis for a number of critical and creative exercises geared towards developing literary reading strategies and strategic reading competences in general. These activities demonstrate how the main tenets of the study can be put into practice within the context of a particular institution of higher education.

This enquiry into the principles and practice of reading literature brings together insights from cognitive studies, literary theory, empirical literature studies, learning and teaching research and higher education research. Reading is conceptualised as an active process of meaning-making that is determined by subjective as well as contextual factors and guided by a sense of purpose. This sense of purpose, part of a professional and conscious approach to reading, is the central element in the model of reading that this study proposes. As well as a conceptual aim, this model also has pedagogical power and serves as the basis for a number of critical and creative exercises geared towards developing literary reading strategies and strategic reading competences in general. These activities demonstrate how the main tenets of the study can be put into practice within the context of a particular institution of higher education.

Scholars of early Christian literature acknowledge that oral traditions lie behind the New Testament gospels. While the concept of orality is widely accepted, it has not resulted in a corresponding effort to understand the reception of the gospels within their oral milieu. In this book, Kelly Iverson reconsiders the experiential context in which early Christian literature was received and interpreted. He argues that reading and performance are distinguishable media events, and, significantly, that they produce distinctive interpretive experiences for readers and audiences alike. Iverson marshals an array of methodological perspectives demonstrating how performance generates a unique experiential context that shapes and informs the interpretive process. Iverson's study explores the dynamic oral environment in which ancient audiences experienced the gospel stories. He shows why an understanding of oral performance has important implications for the study of the NT, as well as for several issues that are largely unquestioned by biblical scholars.

A pioneering text in its first edition, this revised publication of Cognitive Poetics offers a rigorous and principled approach to literary reading and analysis. The second edition of this seminal text features: • updated theory, frameworks, and examples throughout, including new explanations of literary meaning, the power of reading, literary force, and emotion; • extended examples of literary texts from Old English to contemporary literature, covering genres including religious, realist, romantic, science fictional, and surrealist texts, and encompassing poetry, prose, and drama; • new chapters on the mind-modelling of character, the building of text-worlds, the feeling of immersion and ambience, and the resonant power of emotion in literature; • fully updated and accessible accounts of Cognitive Grammar, deictic shifts, prototypicality, conceptual framing, and metaphor in literary reading. Encouraging the reader to adopt a fresh approach to understanding literature and literary analyses, each chapter introduces a different framework within cognitive poetics and relates it to a literary text. Accessibly written and reader-focused, the book invites further explorations either individually or within a classroom setting. This thoroughly revised edition of Cognitive Poetics includes an expanded further reading section and updated explorations and discussion points, making it essential reading for students on literary theory and stylistics courses, as well as a fundamental tool for those studying critical theory, linguistics, and literary studies.

This volume brings together articles written by experts in the thriving field of language teacher education from a variety of geographical and institutional contexts, with a particular focus on EFL.

This volume presents a multidisciplinary approach to narrative engagement within the paradigms of cognitive linguistics, cognitive narratology, and social-psychology. In their basic form, storyworld possible selves, or SPSs, are blends resulting from the conceptual integration of an intra- and an extra-diegetic perspectivizer. In written narratives, SPS blends function as hybrid referents for a variety of inclusive and ambiguous linguistic expressions, which are here explored from the standpoint of interactional cognitive linguistics, as instances of SPS objectification and subjectification. The model also draws on character construction and on the social-psychology notions of self-schemas and possible selves. This allows an exploration of emotional responses to narratives not just in terms of empathy or sympathy towards fictional entities, but also in terms of narrative ethics and of culturally determined and simultaneously idiosyncratic feelings of personal relevance and self-transformation.

In March 2015, the eleventh edition of The Child and the Book Conference was organized at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. The conference was related to the theme of fracture and disruption in children’s and young adult literature. This publication provides not only a synthesis of the main reflections, but also a starting point for understanding the issues of fracture and disruption within children’s and young adult literature. The volume gathers texts from consolidated figures within the field of research in Children’s Literature, as well as contributions from junior researchers, creating bridges and dialogue between both generations and critical and theoretical approaches. It includes chapters on violence, war, sexuality and politics, discussion around formal-stylistic perspectives, analysis of fringe works and hybrid literary forms as well as the issue of audience and the crossover universe. Special reference should be given to the inclusion of contributions from lesser-known countries and literatures such as Brazil, Italy, Norway, Poland, and Portugal. The volume will be of interest to children’s literature specialists, graduate and post-graduate students, librarians, and mediators of reading.