Regula Lüscher-Mathis
Regula Lüscher-Mathis
Dissertation project
The aesthetic understanding of 12/13-year-old pupils using the example of the representation of characters in narrative texts.
This project deals with the understanding of literary characters in narrative literature. It asks how pupils perceive the aesthetic representation of characters and what ideas they form about these characters.
12/13-year-olds know that narrative texts are about fictional characters and are therefore able to identify with literary figures and at the same time distance themselves from them. The connection to their world is made easier by choosing a work that describes familiar relationships, situations and experiences.
The focus on the aesthetic aspect requires a definition of "understanding" that takes into account the use of descriptions through particular aesthetic means. Literary characters cannot be described comprehensively by the author, but can only "give an idea of the whole of the subject through detail and apt choice of words" (Zabka, 1995, p. 136). Therefore, the reader is required to form an idea of these characters, which he or she feeds on the one hand from the text specifications and on the other hand enriches with his or her own (experiential) knowledge. "Understanding" is therefore understood as the cognitive construction of an object by a person on the basis of their knowledge (Reusser, 1994). Furthermore, constructs such as mental representations, i.e. "psychologically realised concepts of meaning of what the text makes a statement about" (Kintsch, 1994, p. 41) are helpful.
The students' ideas are to be surveyed using a questionnaire. The questions relate to literary categories such as the appearance of a character, their relationship to other characters, their previous history, etc. By varying the perspective on the text, a grasp of the mental representations can be ensured.
The students are asked to work on the questions in stages during the course of the reading and to write short answer texts for each. A distinction is made between compulsory and optional questions in order to take account of reading speed, interest and ability. The selection of optional questions already allows initial conclusions to be drawn about the types of readers expected in this work.
When evaluating the written survey, it is interesting to see how and what text information was taken into account, how concrete the ideas of the characters are, whether changes in the literary characters were recognised, etc.
Subsequent guided interviews are intended to thematise the author's aesthetic style of representation. The reasons that are responsible for certain impressions and ideas are of interest here. On a meta-level, the linguistic means (textual guidelines) and the author's own ideas and expectations (experiential knowledge) should be discussed and compared.
Different perceptions of the characters are to be expected as a result. These differences will presumably arise on the one hand from the different prior knowledge, but on the other hand also from the different quality of understanding itself. The empirical data will be analysed using qualitative content analysis according to Mayring.
The results should have consequences for the didactics of literature and thus for teaching. The aim of the work could be to describe the different abilities of pupils in understanding characters, as well as the dependence of these abilities on the literary model. As a result, it would be conceivable to formulate the possibilities with regard to text selection, methods and teaching objectives.
Publications
Lüscher, Regula: Gedächtniskunst im "Wälschen Gast". Memory techniques in text and image in the "Wälschen Gast" by Thomasin von Zerklaere using the example of the Heidelberg manuscript A (Cpg.389), unpublished licentiate thesis, University of Fribourg/CH, 2004.