LINGUIST List 6.742

Mon 29 May 1995

Sum: INVOLVEMENT

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1. Gregory Watson, SUMMARY: INVOLVEMENT

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Dear fellow Linguists (Linguisticians!?),

The following offers a summary of those replies I received regarding my
recent enquiry (see below) regarding the measurement of INVOLVMENT in prose
literature. Unfortunately, there was not an over abundance of replies. Thank
you to those who did offer the following sources. In my original posting I
foolishly forgot to mention the work of Biber (1988) of whose work I was
aware and that of Wallace Chafe (1982).

Any further advice would be gladly received,

Yours sincerely,

Greg Watson

SUGGESTED READING:

Biber, D. 1986. Spoken and written textual dimensions in English.
Language 62.

Biber,D. 1988. Variation Across Speech and Writing.

Biber D. & Finegan E. 1989 (?). Drift and evolution in the English style.
Language.

Chafe, W. 1982. Integration and involvement in speaking writing and oral
literature. In: Tannen, D. Spoken and written language: Exploring orality
and literacy. Norwood, New Jersey. Ablex.

Chafe, W. & Danielewicz, J. 1987. Properties of spoken and written
language. In. Horowitz, R. & Samuels, S.J. Comprehending oral and written
language. San Diego: Academic Press.

Duchan, J., G. Bruder, & L. Hewitt (Eds.) (1995). Deixis in narrative: A
cognitive science perspective. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Lindstr|m, J. 1992. Engagemang i talad och skriven svenska. Historic-
philologic library, University of Helsinki.

A compressed version of the above has been published as follows:

Lindstr|m, J. 1994. Om engagemang i tal och skrift. In: Folkm}lsstudier 35.

ORIGINAL POSTING:

)Hello,
)I'm a PhD student interested in measuring aspects of INVOLVEMENT in prose
literature. But what exactly is involvement? What does it entail? How does a
reader feel more or less involved with a text, and why? I'm intereseted in
trying to quantify this phenomena.
)
)I'm aware of the work of Deborah Tannen, in particular those linguistic
strategies which she labels Involvement Strategies. Halliday and Hasan's
work (1976: 1986) and Hasan's (1989) work on grammatical cohesion should
also be taken into consideration. I would also like to consider aspects of
lexical cohesion and lexical stylistics.
)
)Other than these ideas I'm rather at a loss. I'd appreciate any information
that you may be able to offer on other avenues of invesitgation, or sources.
)
)Naturally I'll prepare a summary of your responses,
)
)Best regards,
)
)Greg Watson
)