1. How literary text reading is influenced by narrative voice and focalization: evidence from eye movements.
- Author
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Chen, Lijuan, Xu, Xiaodong, and Lv, Hongling
- Subjects
- *
ORAL interpretation , *EYE movements , *STORY plots , *NARRATIVES , *NARRATION - Abstract
A fictional story is always narrated from a certain narrative voice and mode of focalization. These core narrative techniques have a major impact on how readers interpret the narrative plot and connect with the characters. This study used eye-tracking to investigate how classic narrative reading is affected by narrative voice and focalization. The results showed that the third-person narrative voice was read more slowly than the first-person narrative voice, especially when the narrative was presented with internal focalization. Importantly, the transition from a first-person to a third-person narrative voice generally resulted in longer reading times, whereas a switch from a third-person to a first-person narrative voice only yielded limited benefits in terms of reduced reading time. These findings provide direct evidence to support the assumption that there is a distinction between the first-person narration and the third-person narration and demonstrate the important role of narrative voice and focalization in understanding narrative texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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