Speaker: Zhang, Yehong
Affiliation: Tsinghua University of Beijing
Title: Cross-cultural Reading and Essence of Literary Comprehension
Abstract (long version below): Amidst the growing influence of globalization, people can enjoy literary works from different cultures. Research on literary comprehension should take cross-cultural aspects into account. In general, there is little systematic research on cross-cultural literary reading. Evidently, cross-cultural dimension increases the difficulty of empirical literary study. Under an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, the research on cross-cultural literary comprehension should be conducted to investigate whether readers from diverse cultural contexts differ in their reading response and to explore the common ground of cross-cultural literary interpretation. Empirical findings on cross-cultural literary comprehension can indicate the essential elements of literary imagination.
Long abstract
Amidst the growing influence of globalization, people all over the world have more options to enjoy the same cultural products and read the same literary works. Why is it that world literature can be appreciated by people from different cultural backgrounds? Do readers from diverse cultural settings differ in the understanding of topics, characters, and plots, or does culture shape the reading in certain narratological dimensions? These questions with regards to cross-cultural reading of literary works against the backdrop of globalization require more thorough investigation.
Literary texts stimulate the reader’s imagination by means of a structure of “indeterminacy”. Readers use their world knowledge and cultural conceptualization to fill in the blank points in the story world and interpret the connotative meaning. The generation of meaning in literary comprehension is determined by the intentionality of the readers, and the formation of intentional meaning is based on the knowledge and experiences of the “Lebenswelt” of readers.
Culture is a powerful dynamic that enables people to develop their respective perceptions of the world. The current global turn in humanities – the fields of world literature and translation studies - analyzes transcultural circulations and intercultural comparison to overcome the cultural limitations of studying literature. Empirical studies on literary comprehension should take cross-cultural aspects into account. In general, there is little systematic research on cross-cultural literary comprehension. The role of culture-specific and culture-general readers’ knowledge is under-researched. To date, there has been little empirical research conducted into cross-cultural literary reading. Evidently, cross-cultural dimension increases the difficulty of empirical literary study. A lack of both methodological and theoretical support exists.
Under an interdisciplinary theoretical framework with literary theories, linguistic models and cultural-psychological assumptions, the research on cross-cultural literary comprehension should be conducted to investigate whether readers from diverse cultural contexts differ in their reading response and to explore the common ground of cross-cultural literary interpretation. Empirical findings on cross-cultural literary comprehension can indicate the essential elements of literary reading which cognitively and emotionally engage readers.
The paper further provides insights on the core issues with regards to cross-cultural reading of literary works against the backdrop of globalization, comprising of perspectives as follows: Differences and similarities in cross-cultural story interpretation; common ground for cross-cultural aesthetic appreciation of poetry. The empirical findings suggest to what extent readers’ response can transcend cultural boundaries and diverse cultural knowledge can activate different intercultural implications. Empirical study on cross-cultural literary comprehension can open new perspectives for theoretical construction in literary imagination.