| dc.description.abstract | The preamble to this research was of a practical nature, arising from a
need in a teaching situation and leading to the questions: Do suitable
prose texts exist in Afrikaans which could be read with adults learning
Afrikaans who are not students of literature? Will reading these texts
contribute to language learning? What is the reader's role in the
realization of a prose text? These questions necessitated the
identification of the role and preference of the reader as regards a
prose text - from a literary theoretical and a psycholinguistic point
of view.
The primary aim is to investigate the reader as a typological criterion
for the selection of popular prose texts of good quality for non-Afrikaans
speakers. To make the study viable it needs to rest on two
pillars: theory and practice. It is hoped that a contribution will
be made to the development of a workable model for the description,
selection and evaluation of Afrikaans prose texts to be applied in a
specific teaching situation.
Chapter one describes the objectives and the research plan. The
theoretical component comprises the following: Chapter two, which is a
discussion of the school of thought among literary theorists known as
reception theory and its contribution to the reader's role. Chapter
three considers the contribution which reading, and particularly the
part played by the reader, makes toward language learning. Chapter
four examines the reader's theoretical criteria for popular prose of
good quality. Furthermore it identifies certain texts - novels and
short stories - selected from a total of one hundred and twenty prose
texts published after 1975 which meet these criteria. Chapter five
describes the texts of the four popular works which were selected for
the empirical research into reader response . This is based upon Eco's
model for access to text interpretation which serves as a control for
the actual reader response of the respondents.
The practical component comprises the following: Chapter six describes
the method for the compilation of questionnaires and the experimental
procedure. Chapter seven discusses the results of the responses of
respondents at an intermediate and an advanced level respectively, to
the Afrikaans short story. Chapter eight describes the procedure which
was followed in the reception study undertaken to determine the
reader's desire to continue reading the novels on the basis of the
first chapters. Chapter nine discusses these reader responses in
advanced readers of Afrikaans.
In Chapter ten the following central conclusions are reached:
Although the implied reader remains the model, the real reader
determines the reception of a text as well as its applicability
in certain teaching situations. Eco's model appears to be
useful for text description and for an analysis of text access.
Reading prose texts for understanding
meaningful contribution to language
extensive language input it provides.
and relaxation makes a
acquisition due to the
Due to certain distinguishing characteristics of popular prose
of good quality, it is considered appropriate to read such prose
with non-Afrikaans speakers.
The empirical research provided systematic data concerning
reception and evaluation of texts which give rise to teaching
implications and reveal facts about reading as such, reader's
preferences and aspects of text selection.
On the whole, the research clearly indicates that the reader is the
single most meaningful
identifies the reader
prose texts.
element in the whole reading process and it
as the determining factor in the selection of prose texts. | en_US |
