The Discourse of Reading Groups

本研究探讨了阅读群体（包括读书俱乐部和读书小组）的话语：定期聚会讨论和评价文学文本的人。阅读群体是日常文学判断的重要来源。虽然我们对专业阅读和辩论--以出版评论和文学批评的形式--了解很多，但对普通读者如何参与文学文本的关注要少得多。然而，阅读在许多人的生活中起着重要的作用。阅读并不只是一件私事：人们总是讨论他们的阅读，而当代阅读团体的流行为批评性文学辩论提供了新的场所。阅读团体已经成为英国和其他国家的一种文化现象，影响着图书销售和营销，以及个人的阅读选择。最近的一项估计显示，在英国，大约有5万个团体，在美国有50万个团体，这还不包括越来越多的在线互动团体。小组可能会讨论流行小说，但他们也会阅读公认的经典文学作品，更常见的是被视为高质量的当代小说（例如入围文学奖的书籍，是出版评论的主题，并被列入大学教学大纲）。然而，尽管他们的阅读选择与文学质量的学术概念有关，但现有证据表明，阅读群体并不试图模仿学术讨论，而是将书籍与他们自己的生活和关注联系起来：阅读因此可能成为“生活的工具”。这类日常文学判断的性质、它们是如何构建的，以及它们如何有助于读者身份的协商，构成了本研究的主题。阅读团体引起了媒体的强烈兴趣，而它们本身也受到了媒体倡议的推动，如奥普拉·温弗瑞的读书俱乐部（发起时的口号是“让美国再次阅读”），在英国，理查德和朱迪读书俱乐部，《星期日邮报》的《你》杂志阅读小组，英国广播公司第四电台的读书俱乐部讨论节目和许多网站。然而，阅读群体在学术研究中相对被忽视，现有的研究往往是基于调查、访谈和一些观察，而没有关注对阅读群体语篇的分析。本研究旨在解决这一问题：它将分析一系列阅读群体的讨论，重点关注群体对当代小说和其他文学文本的解释和评价;参与者之间如何在讨论中构建这种解释;参与者如何协商特定的读者身份;以及这些日常批评判断与文学专业人士（如批评家和学者）的判断相比如何。本研究是近年来对日常文学活动有影响力的研究的一部分，旨在为考虑到普通读者的文学理论做出贡献。在这种背景下，定性和定量分析相结合的方法是创新的。这包括一个紧密的、定性的分析，侧重于构建本地产生的意义，并得到定性分析软件的支持;以及定量的语料库语言学分析，使我们能够将阅读群体的话语方面与大量的英语口语参考语料库进行比较。研究结果将向学术界（会议论文和期刊文章）以及更受欢迎的受众（报纸、杂志和阅读团体网站）传播。

This research explores the discourse of reading groups (including book clubs and book groups): people who meet regularly to discuss and evaluate literary texts. Reading groups are an important source of everyday judgements about literature. While we know a great deal about professional readings and debates - in the form of published reviews and literary criticism - much less attention is paid to how ordinary readers engage with literary texts. Yet reading plays an important part in many people's lives. And reading is not simply a private matter: people have always discussed their reading, and the contemporary surge in the popularity of reading groups has provided new sites for critical literary debate.Reading groups have become something of a cultural phenomenon in the UK and other countries, affecting book sales and marketing, and individuals' reading choices. A recent estimate puts the number of groups at around 50,000 in the UK and 500,000 in the US, not counting the increasing number of groups who interact online. Groups may discuss popular fiction, but they also read established canonical literature and, more usually, contemporary fiction seen as high quality (e.g. books that are shortlisted for literary prizes, that are the subject of published reviews and included in university syllabuses). However, while their reading choices relate to academic conceptions of literary quality, the available evidence suggests that reading groups do not try to emulate academic discussion, but rather relate books to their own lives and concerns: reading may thus become 'a tool for living'. It is the nature of such everyday literary judgements, how they are constructed, and how they contribute to the negotiation of reader identities that forms the subject of this research.Reading groups have aroused strong media interest, and have themselves received a boost from media initiatives such as Oprah Winfrey's book club (launched with the slogan that this would 'get America reading again') and, in the UK, the Richard and Judy book club, the Mail on Sunday's You magazine reading group, BBC Radio 4's Book Club discussion programme and numerous web sites. Reading groups have, however, been relatively neglected in academic research, and studies that exist tend to be based on surveys, interviews and some observation but without a focus on the analysis of reading group discourse. The proposed research addresses this issue: it will provide an analysis of discussion across a range of reading groups, focusing on the kinds of interpretations and evaluations groups produce of contemporary fiction and other literary texts; how such interpretations are constructed in discussion between participants; how participants negotiate particular reader identities; and how such everyday critical judgements compare with the judgements of literary professionals, such as critics and academics. The study forms part of a recent influential strand of research on everyday literary activity, and it is intended to contribute to literary theory that takes account of ordinary readers.The methodology is innovative in this context, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis. This includes a close, qualitative interactional analysis, focusing on the construction of locally-produced meanings, and supported by qualitative analysis software; and quantitative corpus linguistic analysis that will allow us to compare aspects of reading group discourse with a large reference corpus of spoken English.The study will reflect the diversity of contemporary reading groups, including female, male and mixed groups; face-to-face and online groups; and groups that meet in people's houses; in bookshops or libraries; in institutional contexts such as workplaces or schools.The results of the study will be disseminated to academic audiences (in conference papers and journal articles) as well as more popular audiences (in newspapers, magazines and reading group websites).