The Discourse of Reading Groups

本研究探讨了阅读小组（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。读书会是日常文学评判的重要来源。虽然我们对专业阅读和辩论——以发表的评论和文学批评的形式——了解得很多，但对普通读者如何与文学文本互动的关注却很少。然而，阅读在许多人的生活中扮演着重要的角色。阅读不仅仅是一件私人的事情：人们总是在讨论他们的阅读，当代阅读小组的流行为批判性文学辩论提供了新的场所。在英国和其他国家，阅读小组已经成为一种文化现象，影响着图书的销售和营销，以及个人的阅读选择。最近的一项估计显示，英国和美国的群组数量分别约为5万个和50万个，这还不包括越来越多的在线互动群组。小组可以讨论流行小说，但他们也会阅读公认的经典文学作品，更常见的是，阅读被视为高质量的当代小说（例如，入围文学奖的书，出版评论的主题，并被列入大学教学大纲）。然而，虽然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，阅读小组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：阅读可能因此成为“生活的工具”。正是这些日常文学判断的本质，它们是如何构建的，以及它们如何有助于读者身份的协商，形成了本研究的主题。读书会已经引起了媒体的强烈兴趣，它们本身也受到了媒体倡议的推动，比如奥普拉·温弗瑞的读书会（以“让美国人再次阅读”为口号发起），以及英国的理查德和朱迪读书会、《星期日邮报》的You杂志读书会、BBC广播4频道的读书会讨论节目和众多网站。然而，阅读群体在学术研究中相对被忽视，现有的研究往往基于调查、访谈和一些观察，而没有对阅读群体话语进行重点分析。拟议的研究解决了这个问题：它将提供一系列阅读小组讨论的分析，重点是当代小说和其他文学文本的各种解释和评估小组；这些解释是如何在参与者之间的讨论中构建的；参与者如何协商特定的读者身份；以及这些日常的批评判断与文学专业人士，如评论家和学者的判断相比如何。这项研究构成了最近对日常文学活动有影响力的研究的一部分，它旨在为考虑普通读者的文学理论做出贡献。在这种情况下，结合定性和定量分析的方法是创新的。这包括密切的定性互动分析，侧重于构建本地产生的意义，并由定性分析软件支持；以及定量语料库语言分析，这将使我们能够将阅读小组话语的各个方面与大量英语口语参考语料库进行比较。该研究将反映当代阅读群体的多样性，包括女性、男性和混合群体；面对面和在线小组；还有在人们家里聚会的团体；在书店或图书馆；在工作场所或学校等机构环境中。研究结果将传播给学术读者（在会议论文和期刊文章中）以及更受欢迎的读者（在报纸、杂志和阅读小组网站上）。

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).