Students´ relational involvement in literary worlds: Levels of engagement when reading fiction in a first and second language

• The primary aim of this paper is to examine students´ relational engagement in a short story, as well as their use of mental state expressions in responding to it in three different writing assignments, one of which involved photo elicitation. A secondary aim is to examine and compare the relational engagement between students reading the story in Swedish (i.e., their L1) and English (i.e., their L2), respectively. The theoretical framework draws on research in relational engagement/transactional theory, the Appraisal system, Dual Code Theory (DCT), and the Linguistic Threshold Hypothesis. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. A total of 33 students participated in the study, half of whom read the story in Swedish, and half in English. The results show that the students used a wide range of mental state expressions, but also that these expressions changed in accordance with task formulation. The results also show that the photo-elicitation assignment yielded the strongest relational engagement. Furthermore, students reading the story in Swedish generally demonstrated a stronger relational engagement than students reading the story in English. © 2020 IJLS; Printed in the USA by Lulu Press Inc.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Didaktik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Didactics (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Appraisal Framework

Emotions

L1 and L2 Reading

Reading Engagement

Transactional Theory

Appraisal Framework

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)