Article published In: Journal of Narrative and Life History
Vol. 2:2 (1992) ► pp.151–161
Roots of Response
Published online: 4 August 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.2.2.04roo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jnlh.2.2.04roo
Abstract
Response to literature involves a transaction between reader and author where meaning is constructed by the reader, using the blueprints, or signs, provided by the author. According to Fish (1980a), readers and authors implicitly know the conventions of response by virtue of being members of the same interpretive community. This socially acquired knowledge enables readers and authors to conjointly create, identify, and respond to literature. Currently, increased re-search into the teaching and learning of literature has led to a renewed examina-tion of classroom techniques directed toward "teaching" response. This article presents data which suggests that many young children begin formal schooling with a predisposition, or readiness, for literary response. Evidence for this comes from a study of preliterate kindergarten children who were asked to "pretend to read" to a pretend child (doll) from a wordless picture book (Purcell-Gates, 1988). Cast in the authorial role, these children used language which proved to enhance and constrain imaging for reader response. This communicative compe-tence is interpreted through Fish's notion of an interpretive community within which literary conventions are implicitly learned. Knowledge of both the product and process of acquisition of this knowledge held by entering school children should inform discussions of instructional methodology regarding reader re-sponse. (Literacy Education)
References (16)
Chafe, W. (1982). Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Advances in discourse processes: Vol. 10. Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy (pp. 35–53). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Chafe, W., & Danielewicz, J. (1986). Properties of spoken and written language. In R. Horowitz & S. J. Samuels (Eds.), Comprehending oral and written language (pp. 83–113). New York: Academic.
Fish, S. (1980a). Is there a text in this class? The authority of interpretive communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
(1980b). Literature in the reader: Affective stylistics. In J. P. Tompkins (Ed.), Reader-response criticism (pp. 70–100). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.
Iser, W. (1978). The act of reading: A theory of aesthetic response. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Labov, W. (1972). The transformation of experience in narrative syntax. In Labov (Ed.), Sociolinguistic patterns (pp. 354–396). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Langer, J. (1989). The process of understanding literature (Report Series 2.1). Albany: Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature, University of Albany, State University of New York.
(1990). The process of understanding: Reading for literary and informative purposes. Research in the Teaching of English, 241, 119–160.
Purcell-Gates, V. (1988). Lexical and syntactic knowledge of written narrative held by well-read-to kindergartners and second graders. Research in the Teaching of English, 221, 128–160.
Purcell-Gates, V., & Dahl, K. (1991). Low-SES children's success and failure at early literacy learning in skills-based classrooms. JRB: A Journal of Literacy, 231, 1–34.
Rader, M. (1982). Context in written language: The case of imaginative fiction. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy (pp. 185–198). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Uchikoshi, Yuuko
Gauvain, Mary, Susan Savage & Deanne McCollum
Benton, Stephen L.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.