capturing reader perceptions of writer character (was: self-promotionn in wri

[Barbara Johnstone]

Three concepts that might be useful here are the ideas of literary persona,
rhetorical ethos, and the "linguistic individual".  From different but
overlapping disciplinary perspectives, these ideas provide ways of thinking
about how the writer's character or projected character enters into
interpretation.  Sources that might be useful are:

Booth, W. (1961). The rhetoric of fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

Cherry, R. D. (1998 [1988]). Ethos versus persona: Self-representation in
written discourse. Written Composition, 15, 384-410.

Johnstone, B. (1996).  The linguistic individual: Self-expression in
language and linguistics.  Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Johnstone, B. (2000).  The individual voice in language.  Annual Review of
Anthropology 29:405-24.

Barbara








--On Sunday, May 06, 2001 6:23 PM -0400 "Dorothy e. Smith"
<dsmith at OISE.UTORONTO.CA> wrote:

> I have to wonder whether the notion of the reader's perception of the
> writer's character isn't purely a methodological construction.  If you ask
> people about their perceptions of a writer's character, they will come up
> with an answer.  They can perform, if you like, an impromptu analysis of
> the text to generate a response to the question.  But is it a procedure
> that readers use without being asked to?  I can't say that as a reader
> I've ever wondered about a writer's character though I can imagine that
> there might be some situations in which that method of reading would be
> appropriate.  I'd suggest that the question about reader's perception of a
> writer's character needs to be situated.  Perhaps some of the difficulties
> in gauging it come from the fact that it mostly isn't there.
> At 09:50 AM 5/6/2001 -0400, you wrote:
>> Dear Jennifer and other Discourse members,
>> I agree that a reader's perception of a writer's character is indeed
>> difficult to gauge. I once examined twenty speakers' use of
>> "I" or "we" in their speech in a radio program. I found that they use
>> the pronouns differently, so diferently that it might be a kind of
>> idiolect.
>> Through a questionaire I found that audience
>> have different perceptions of the speakers' character or personality.
>> In this study I tried to see some relationship between the use of pronoun
>> and the display of the users' character. I would be happy to  know other
>> studies that deal with this topic.
>>
>> TIAN, Hailong
>>
>>
>> Jennifer Hrazdil wrote:
>>
>> >> Dear Dr. Maalej and Discourse members,
>> >>
>> >> I am very interested to read your paper and would appreciate a
>> > hard-copy.
>> >> How to gauge a reader's perception of a writer's character is indeed a
>> >> difficult task.
>> >>
>> >> I have come across quite a few studies measuring reader/listener
>> > perceptions
>> >> in the Impression Management literature of social psychology. From
>> >> what
>> > I
>> >> can gather, these studies tend to involve administering empirically
>> > valid
>> >> and reliable questionnaires to research participants in an effort to
>> > gauge
>> >> their perceptions of the writer's character. The texts on which the
>> >> perceptions of the writer are based are specially designed for the
>> >> experiment, and variation between texts tends to be restricted to
>> > isolated
>> >> variables. (For example, in studies on reader impressions of resumes,
>> >> a
>> > base
>> >> resume might be created with one variable, in say Educational
>> > Background,
>> >> manipulated from resume to resume while everything else remains the
>> > same.)
>> >>
>> >> I am interested to know whether any Discourse members are familiar
>> > with, or
>> >> interested in, research gauging the reader's perceptions of the
>> >> writer's character in longer texts that have not been
>> >> 'experimentally-modified' (i.e., on authentic texts from multiple
>> >> writers - where many, many
>> > variables
>> >> differ from text to text)?
>> >>
>> >> Thank you,
>> >> Jennifer
>> >>
>> >> ----- Original Message -----
>> >> From: Zouhair Maalej <zmaalej at GNET.TN>
>> >> To: <DISCOURS at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
>> >> Sent: Friday, May 04, 2001 01:15
>> >> Subject: Re: self-promotionn in written discourse
>> >>
>> >> > Dear all,
>> >> > I have published a paper on self-promotional written discourse, with
>> >> special
>> >> > reference to dating ads or lonely heart ads:
>> >> >
>> >> > Maalej, Zouhair (1999). "Interpersonal Perception in
>> >> > Self-Promotional Discourse." The Tunisian Review of
>> >> > Modern Languages 9, 155-174.
>> >> >
>> >> > I was more interested in perception of males by females and vice
>> > versa. If
>> >> > you are interested, I can send you a hard copy by snail-mail.
>> >> >
>> >> > I hope this will help you.
>> >> > Kind regards
>> >> > **********************
>> >> > Dr Zouhair Maalej,
>> >> > Department of English, Chair,
>> >> > Faculty of Letters,
>> >> > University of Manouba,
>> >> > Tunis-Manouba, 2010, Tunis, Tunisia.
>> >> > *********************************************
>> >> > Office phone: (+216) 1 600 700  Ext. 174
>> >> > Office Fax: (+216) 1 600 910
>> >> > Home Telefax: (+216) 1 362 871
>> >> > E-mail: zmaalej at gnet.tn
>> >> > URL: http//: simsim.rug.ac.be/ZMaalej
>> >> > **********************************************
>> >> > CURIOSITY BRINGS JOY
>> >> > JOY BRINGS HEALTH
>> >> > HEALTH BRINGS LUCIDITY
>> >> > LUCIDITY BRINGS CURIOSITY
>> >> > ****************************************



_________________________________
Barbara Johnstone
Professor, Department of English
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh PA  15213-3890