BİR ROMAN İNCELEMESİNDE OKUYUCULARIN ÇEŞİTLİ BAKIŞ AÇILARININ OYNADIĞI ROL: OKUR MERKEZLİ ELEŞTİRİ VE KİŞİSEL KURGU TEORİSİ ÜZERİNE BİR ÇALIŞMA
Author :
Abstract
Bu çalışmanın temel hedefi, “Edebiyat Oturumları” olarak adlandırılan ve sekiz hafta boyunca düzenli olarak gerçekleştirilen oturumlar aracılığıyla, İngilizce öğrenen bir grup öğrencinin özerk okuyucu nitelikleri yardımıyla bir romanın detaylı analizine ilişkin bakış açılarını keşfedebilmektir. Çalışma, Kişisel Kurgu Teorisi ve Okur Merkezli Eleştiri yaklaşımlarının varsayımlarını asli yöntemler olarak bünyesinde bulunduran bir işlemin uygulanmasına dayanmaktadır. Atfedilen oturumlarda incelenen roman Jane Austen’ın Pride and Prejudice (Gurur ve Önyargı) adlı eseridir ve çalışmaya 2012- 2013 Eğitim-Öğretim yılında İstanbul Aydın Üniversitesi Hazırlık Okulunda öğrenim gören ve ileride eğitim alacakları bölümler İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı ile İngilizce Öğretmenliği olan 10 öğrenci katılmıştır. Bir romanın incelenmesi konusuna ilişkin katılımcıların çeşitli yaklaşımlarını ortaya çıkarmak hedefiyle kendilerine öncelikle bir anket uygulanmıştır. Bunu takiben, edebiyat oturumları düzenlenerek öğrencilerin bu oturumlarda tartışılan konulara değin fikirlerini içeren yorum metinleri toplanmış, öğrencilerin hemfikir olduğu ve de olmadığı noktalar tablolar aracılığıyla görsele aktarılmıştır. Oturumlardan önce uygulanan anketin sonuçlarının analizi, her oturumdan sonra toplanan yorum metinleri ve çalışma içerisinde aktarılan tablolar, katılımcıların özerk okuyucular olarak kendilerinde gördükleri değişimleri gözlemlemelerinde oldukça faydalı olmuştur. Bunların ışığında, bu çalışma, sonuçlarıyla birlikte, aynı konuya ilişkin daha fazla katılımcı ile gerçekleşen çalışmalar için öncü olabilme niteliğine sahiptir.
Keywords
Abstract
The primary goal of this study is to find out perspectives of a group of English language learners as autonomous readers upon a detailed examination of a novel throughout eight sessions named as “literature sessions” held on a weekly basis. The study is based on the implementation of a process incorporating the assumptions of Reader- Response Approach and Personal Construct Theory as the fundamental means in its essence. The novel examined during the sessions referred was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and the participants consisted of 10 prospective ELT and ELL Departments students attending sessions at Istanbul Aydın University English Preparatory School in 2012 -2013 Academic Year. A questionnaire administered that aimed to find out the attitudes of the participants to the act of reading a novel from many aspects was given at first. Following that, literature sessions were held and written responses of the learners about the topics discussed were collected and the points on which they agreed or disagreed were illustrated with the help of tables. The analysis of the results of the questionnaire given before the sessions, the response papers collected and the tables presented in the study were very serviceable in making an observation of the shift in their perspectives of themselves as independent readers. This being the case, this study with its results may be an initiative for other studies concerned with the same issue with more participants.
Keywords
- The presence of an abundance of researches along with many methods considered to beeffective in clarifying the issue of how to teach a novel and using the novel as a means tocreate independent learners make it fairly necessary to have a mental exercise upon theextent of the power of a learner rather than that of an instructor as the provider ofknowledge in this process. That being the case, the first striking element of the issue inquestion can be said to be the central place the novel occupies as a genre with itsrelatedness to theories of Reader- Response and Personal Construct in the overallanalysis of the present study. Taking into consideration the priority that the novel gives totackling with human experience, the significant nature of the novel as a complementarypart of literary studies seems to be certainly indisputable while the issue of defining whata novel is has remained remarkably contentious. However, in broader terms, it might bedepicted as a piece of work in prose with its components of meaning like its plot, theme orthe specific message inherent in it to be conveyed, whereas, figuratively, it might belikened to a building with many windows, each of which opens to another aspect ofhumanity to be known. As Crane (2007) puts it likewise “Defining the novel is easy: It is afictional prose narrative of substantial length. While one may question the distinctionbetween fact and fiction or the requirement the novel be written in prose, this simpledefinition seems generally apt, describing the books we commonly label as novels. ” (p. 1)A clarification upon the particulars of the novel as a genre in accordance with thepurpose of the present study makes it essential to lay a great deal of emphasis on ReaderResponse Theory that could be regarded as one of the most influential one thanks to thechange it brought with itself to the world of literary criticism starting from the earlyphases of 1940s and onward. Louise Rosenblatt, as the proponent of the theory, isdoubtlessly the critic who is worthy of being mentioned as a highly distinguished figuresince the change referred is actually a drastic change that led to the formation andadoption of new conceptions of teaching literature with her theory. Based on the premisethat the meaning of a literary text resides in a reader’s mind, the theory obviously seeksundiscovered reasons why readers of the same text respond quite differently to it. As it isclaimed by Rosenblatt (1995)“The reader, drawing on past linguistic and life experience,links the signs on the page with certain words, certain concepts, certain sensuousexperiences, certain images of things, people, actions, and scenes. The special meaningsand, more particularly, the submerged associations that these words and images have forthe individual reader will largely determine what the work communicates to him.” (p. 30)
- In the content of the present analysis, another pre-eminent figure “Wolfgang Iser”occupies a remarkable place under the title of a critique of Reader Response Criticismwith his special concentration on the study of the response of distinct readers to a literarywork. The first and most important fact to be indicated about him is Iser meets on acommon ground with Rosenblatt in terms of the way in which he believes how themeaning of a literary text should be studied on the part of any reader. Iser’s noticeworthyelement in his analyses of a reader’s role in literature is apparently the effort he puts intomaking it clear for all the readers from all walks of life that the particular ways throughwhich they interpret a work are certainly what make them who they are as readers. AsLategan (1991) mentions “According to Iser, the text contains certain deliberate “gaps” or“open spaces”. These structured blanks spur the reader to action and entice him or her tosupply the missing information in order to make sense of what is said. In this way thetext requires an input from the reader and makes the reader responsible for therealization of the text as meaningful discourse.” (p.150) Underlining the influence of one’sbackground or life experience just like Rosenblatt does, Iser aims to turn readers intomore conscious individuals of the power they have as autonomous meaning-makers. Heattaches a great deal of importance to having a better insight into the reading process andreader reception as Freund (1987) puts it likewise, “Iser’s name is associated with theschool Rezeptionsasthetik that has sprung up at the university of Konstanz in WestGermany, whose focal interest, as the name indicates, is the aesthetics of literaryreception. Within this framework, Iser’s special concern is the reading process without which the aesthetics of reception cannot be described.” (p.135)
- Under the guidance of Reader Response Theory, the study of the novel as a genre with aview to defining the role of a productive reader who is assumed to produce the meaning ina work with his/her own means requires to elaborate on the illumination provided by“George Kelly” with the cores of his “Personal Construct Theory” to a serious extent.Personal Construct Theory, as the name carries with itself the word “construct”, is relatedto the notion of constructivism that bases the origin of all the things in the world onpeople’s ability of constructing in their minds how everything should operate togetherwith their expectation of substantiating what they believe to be true as regards theirworldviews. From Kelly’s perspective, everyone in the world is like scientists who havetheir own constructs on every single thing or event they experienced or are likely toexperience in the future. As Midgley clarifies (2000) “The other important aspect of Kelly’sphilosophy is his claim that an individual works to construct his or her reality primarilyin terms of activities. Thus, what is of primary importance in the construction of a realityis the alternative paths for action that the individual has taken, or could take in thefuture. It is the things that are perceived as impacting on decision-making for actionsthat become part of a reality.” (p. 26) Therefore, it is right to claim that what Kellyachieves through the theory which functions like an explanatory part of understandinghow people can define themselves as independent decision-makers in their lives and asproducers of meaning of a novel or any other work in the field of literature, too. AsFransella (1995) points out, “Kelly tried to encompass all aspects of human experiencingwithin his single theory of personal constructs. We are forms of motion. We areexperiencing, living beings. We are our feelings, our thoughts, and our unconsciousprocesses. He tried to build into his theory descriptions of everything we talk about as relating to being human-learning, motivation, emotions and perceptions.” (p. 51)
- The parallelism between Personal Construct Theory’s main messages and those of ReaderResponse Theory along with its relevance to defining the leading role readers play instudying a novel becomes also much easier to understand when Kelly’s corollaries arestudied. His corollaries that are made up of eleven ones in total are highly important forthe present analysis in that an examination of them definitely helps the hidden reasonsbehind individuals’ different perspectives in literary interpretations to come to the fore.Among the corollaries, “Fundamental Postulate” stands out as the most essential one tobe introduced in regard to its elaboration on the psychological processes of people. ForKelly, going deeper into these processes facilitates the task of grasping what constitutesthe anticipation differences among people as Monte and Sollod (2003)stress in theiranalyses of Kelly and his corollaries, “ A key word in Kelly’s fundamental postulate isanticipate because it is the need for prediction that Kelly sees as fundamental.” (p. 537)By processes, Kelly actually means a person’s experiences, thoughts, feelings which allcome together to enable people to have varying anticipations about the world.Furthermore, what is more to-the-point about Kelly’s corollaries, especially about thepostulate, is its applicability to the field of literature since what is proposed through it byKelly renders it possible for a researcher to see why readers do not think in the same way while interpreting the message of a work.
- The participants of this study consisted of 10 students of prep classes of ELL and ELTDepartment of Istanbul Aydın University in 2012-2013 academic year. All theparticipants took part in the study voluntarily and their ages ranged from 18 to 25 withthe average of 20. The group consisted of 10 female students who participated in theliterature sessions held regularly throughout eight weeks. In the process of datacollection, they had 28 hours language courses in a week and they studied English inintermediate or upper-intermediate level. They also had at least 4 hours of reading lessonin their own prep class schedule. Their literary background and engagement withliterature differed from one another; however, what they shared in common was that theywere quite fond of literature as the individuals having spent much of their free time reading English novels independently.
- Crane, G. (2007).The Cambridge introduction to the nineteenth century American novel. New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Fransella, F. (1995). George Kelly. London: Sage Publications.
- Freund, E. (1987). The return of the reader/reader-response criticism. New York: Methuen.Frye, N. (2000). From anatomy of criticism: Four essays. In McKeon, Michael, A CriticalAnthology Theory of the Novel A Historical Approach. Baltimore, Md: The John Hopkins University Press.
- Iser, W. (1980). The Reading Process: A phenomenological approach. In Tompkins, JaneP., Reader-Response Criticism from Formalism to Post Structuralism Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
- Lategan, B.C. (1991). Reception: Theory and practice in reading romans 13. In Hartin, P.Jand Petzer, J.H., Text &Interpretation New Approaches in the Criticism of the NewTestament. The Netherlands: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data.
- Midgley, G. (2000). Systemic Intervention: Philosophy, methodology, and practice. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
- Monte, C. F. and Robert N. S. (2003). Beneath the mask an introduction to theories of personality. USA: 7th Edition, Wiley.
- Robert, M. (2000). From origins of the novel. In McKeon, Michael, A Critical AnthologyTheory of the Novel A Historical Approach. Baltimore, Md: The John Hopkins University Press.
- Rosenblatt, L. M. (1995). Literature as exploration. New York: 5th Ed. The Modern Language Association of America.
