Cognitive principles, critical practice: Reading literature at university (PDF)

"Part III – Reading literature in a foreign language: Contexts and constraints (S. 149-150)

[S]omething has happened in the last decade to turn the attention of scholars in language and literature toward the institutional sites in which they work, including the classroom itself. This is a healthy sign. (Scholes 2003: n.p.)

This part of my study prepares the ground for an enquiry into how literature can be taught in the university classroom. To begin with, educational contexts as such will be scrutinised as to the consequences and constraints they exert on literary reading and understanding processes. As a specific educational context, the university will be explored in order to see how learning and teaching, and especially the learning subject, the student, can be conceptualised in the light of recent debates.

In order to be able to heed the contextual conditions of the specific context I am interested in, I will then introduce a discussion of reading in a foreign language as opposed to the first language, as a basis for an examination of reading in the context of a study course in English and American studies at the University of Vienna.

1. Exploring educational reading contexts

Reading context, for the purposes of this study, is a multi-dimensional concept, referring to a multitude of possible influences. Rand J. Spiro suggests that reading happens in a ”contextual web” (1980: 252), and such a web, for a university context, is made up of factors such as the socio-cultural environment, the national (or international, e. g. European) educational system, the university itself, the study course that a student has chosen, a particular module or class, and, finally, the conditions of one particular reading situation that is required for a class.

In more detail, the sociocultural setting, even though its influence on the reading situation is undoubtedly considerable, is difficult if not impossible

Susanne Reichl is professor of contemporary English literature at the Department of English and American Studies at the University of Vienna and head of the research platform #YouthMediaLife. Her research interests include time travel stories, children's and young adult literature and media, reading and the teaching of reading and literature, and the way that social media platforms create new book cultures and literary discourses.