A text doesn't even exist, in a sense, until it
is read by some reader
Reception Theory is a version of Reader Response Literary
Theory
An important concept of RT is that media text – individual
movie or television program
Meaning is created as a result of interaction between the
reader/audience and the text/content.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it
make a sound?
a philosophical question
Unheard melodies are sweeter than the heard ones.
William wordsworth
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"Literary theory that focuses on the reader
and his or her experience of a literary work"
Describes what goes on in the reader’s mind
while reading/viewing
The construction of the text within the reader
Text is not the most important component;
the reader is
(the reader creates the text as much as the author does)
Based on rhetoric, the art of persuasion
◦ The role of the reader cannot be omitted
from our understanding of literature.
◦ Readers do not passively consume the
meaning presented to them by an objective
literary text; rather, they actively make the
meaning they find in literature.
Reader is necessary third party in the
relationship that constitutes the literary work.
READER + TEXT = MEANING
Reader
Text Author
…raises theoretical questions about
whether our responses to a text are the same as
its meanings,
whether a work can have as many meanings as
we have responses to it, and
whether some responses are more valid than,
or superior to, others.
Attention to reading process emerged during
1930s as a reaction against the growing
tendency to reject the reader’s role in creating
meaning
New Criticism focuses on the text, finding all meaning and
value in it.
◦ Stanley Fish
◦ Wayne Booth
◦ Louise Rosenblatt
◦ Wolfgang Iser
Formulated the Transactional Reader Response
Theory in 1978, although the groundwork was
laid much earlier.
According to this theory, there are 2 types of
responses that all readers have to text:
Efferent responses
Aesthetic responses
The teacher’s role
according to the
Transactional – Reader
Response Theory is to
create a path to facilitate
the students’
exploration of the
curriculum by
mentoring, guiding,
and adapting lessons.
The student’s role
according to the
Transactional – Reader
Response Theory is to
be an active participant
in making lessons
meaningful, and filling
in the missing pieces of
text with a variety of
responses.
Transactional-Reader Response Theory outlines the
importance of understanding the natural variability of
readers.
Every encounter with literature is different for every
person. The meaning, background, and responses to
the text are all drawn from individual experiences.
text Transaction reader
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Phenomenological: reader's experience at the
centre of interpretation
Indeterminacy of text: the “gaps” or the
"Blanks" filled by reader to get the meaning
Reader as a co-author
Affective Stylistics
"...meaning in a literary work in not something
to be extracted, as a dentist might pull a
tooth..."
Interpretation is a communal affair
(every reading results in a new interpretation)
That Judas perished by hanging himself,
That Judas perished by hanging himself,
That Judas perished by hanging himself,
That Judas perished by hanging himself, is
an example for us all.
That Judas perished by hanging himself,
shows how conscious he was of the
enormity of his sins.
That Judas perished by hanging himself,
should give us pause.
Psychological Reader-Response:
Focus on what readers’ interpretations reveal
about themselves rather than the text (Or
work of art)
Initial emotional response
Interpretive
Analysis
Questions
Summary
Arguing with author (believability of text)
Intertextuality
Rethinking one part of text after reading another.
Readers have expectations about how a character
will behave—expectations formed by cultures
which they live and work
Expectation of characters behaviour even though
they exist only in the literary transaction
Reader response reflect their cultural models
Text-reader and context inseparable;
Literary response as a construction of text
meaning and reader stances and identities
within larger social-cultural context
Applying CAGE-KTM
(cast, age gender, ethnicity, knowledge,
Timeframe, Mind or psychology)
Reader response takes place within Socio-
cultural framework
Corrective to literary dogmatism
freedom for everyone's interpretation of a
text
Based on time, place, culture, etc
i.e. al
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