Speaker: Jason Moss
Affiliation: RWTH Aachen University
Title: What Makes a Fairy Tale? An Interpretative Analysis of Generic Features
Abstract (long version below): Through a small-scale group comparison with twelve participants exposed to either a typical or an untypical fairy tale, we found that recognizing both genre confirming and incongruent information is crucial for classifying the latter. The results indicate that certain textual features are more crucial than others for identifying a fairy tale. Additionally, the activation of genre schemata through macro-level features, e.g., “once upon a time,” induced readers to engage with the text in a top-down processing.
Long abstract
Given their wide popularity even in modern society and their large share in an approved hegemonic canon, fairy tales are likely to account for a vast amount of genre expectations (Woods 2006). However, considering that genres are “fuzzy-edged sets” (Schneider and Hartner 2014: 388), there is no fixed set of rules applying to all fairy tales. Aiming at getting empirical insight into how actual readers achieve particular genre assignments, cognitive genre theory draws attention to actual readers’ contributions to the identification of genres (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983). Therefore, this study aims at exploring relevant generic features signaling genre-membership by comparing a prototypical and an untypical fairy tale.
For identifying a fairy tale, some textual features, as we assume, are more crucial than others. Thus, we hypothesize that the categorization of the untypical fairy tale strongly depends on readers’ recognition of both genre-confirming as well as genre-incongruent information. Thereof, we sought to answer the following research questions: A) Which textual cues are relevant for identifying a prototypical fairy tale? B) Which of those cues are crucial for identifying a non-prototypical fairy tale?
To understand which textual features are actually relevant for activating genre schemata and, thus, induce the reader to classify a given text as a fairy tale, we decided on a pragmatic approach to qualitative inquiry, implementing an interpretative analysis based on a small-scale group comparison. We conducted semi-structured interviews with twelve participants divided into two groups, each having six participants. Group A read a typical fairy tale, while Group B read an untypical one. As our stimulus material, we chose the prototypical fairy tale “Tattercoats” (1894), collected by Joseph Jacobs, and the untypical fairy tale “The Red Shoes” (1845) by Hans Christian Andersen. We decided to use the respective fairytales in our study, as both contain the basic structure of a fairy tale. However, “The Red Shoes” employs numerous deviations we considered likely to evoke irritation among the participants.
The participants were selected based on purposive sampling and retrieved from the direct social environment. The participants read the given fairy tales prior to the interview. We only provided them with shortened versions of the fairy tales, each missing the ending. This allowed us to analyze initial expectations regarding the ending of the given text. Moreover, the participants were not aware of the topic of our research to ensure an unbiased perspective. During the interviews, they were asked to describe and reflect on their interpretation along with their expectations concerning the ending. Furthermore, we asked them about their feelings, attitudes, and beliefs regarding the text. Afterwards, they read the respective endings of the fairy tales. Then, they were asked to express their interpretation, this time with regard to their initial expectations. Finally, we asked them about their general reading experience, including their interaction with fairy tales in their childhood.
The results of the study show that generic features commonly associated with fairy tales (see Thompson 1946, Jones, 1995 and Zipes, 2000) are indeed decisive for identifying a fairy tale as prototypical. Nonetheless, by exposing half of our participants to an untypical fairy tale, we could see that generic features that are generally associated with fairy tales, e.g., a happy end, must not necessarily be employed by a fairy tale to be still classified as one. As far as The Red Shoes is concerned, it became apparent that the participants drew on another, apparently more relevant feature: poetic justice. This proved that some textual features are more crucial than others for categorizing a text as a fairy tale. Considering our hypothesis, we infer that the participants categorized the untypical fairy tale based on their recognition of both genre confirming as well as genre incongruent information. Moreover, the categorization of the fairy tale was affected by the readers´ first encounter with the macro-level feature once upon a time, which activated our participant’s genre schemata right at the beginning of the reading process. Therefrom, they engaged with the text in form of top-down processing, adapting and modifying prior expectations to assimilate newly added and unexpected information. Following research should therefore be conducted to further explore this notable impact. For instance, additional light could be shed on the potential effect of erasing this macro-level feature to show whether the participants would still classify The Red Shoes as a fairy tale, even if the text would not begin in this prototypical manner.
References
Andersen, Hans Christian. 1845. New Fairy Tales. First Volume. Third Collection. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel.
Jacobs, Joseph. 1984. More English Fairy Tales. London: Strand.
Jones, Steven Swann. 1995. The Fairy Tale: The Magic Mirror of Imagination. New York: Twayne Publishers.
Schneider, Ralf, and Marcus Hartner. 2014. “The Cognitive Theory of Literary Genres Revisited: Cues from Construction Grammar and Conceptual Integration”. In: Linguistics and Literary Studies: Interfaces, Encounters, Transfers, ed. by Monika Fludernik and Daniel Jacob. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 385-405.
Thompson, Stith. 1946. The Folktale. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
van Dijk, Teun A. und Walter Kintsch. 1983. Strategies of Discourse Comprehension. New York: Academic Press.
Wood, Juliette. 2006. “Filming Fairies: Popular Fil, Audience Response and Meaning in Contemporary Fairy Lore”. Folklore, 117, no. 3, pp. 279-296.
Zipes, Jack. 2000. “Introduction: Towards a Definition of the Literary Fairy Tale”. The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes. Oxford: Oxford UP, pp. 16-32.