Transactional Reading
Theory
Louise Rosenblatt is
one of theorist of reader response criticism like Stanley Fish, Wolfgang Iser,
and so on. She has theory about reader response criticism. Her theory is called
Transactional Reading Theory. Frankly, Transactional Theory is dvided two.
First is for reading and second is for writing. But here we are going to discuss
about Transactional Reading Theory. Louise Rosenblatt had written two books
regarding Transactional Theory. Those are Literature
as Exploration (1938) and The Reader
The text The Poem (1978). Virtually, Transactional Reading Theory is a
“mutual shaping” exchange between reader and text. Both are changed in the
reading. It proposes that the relationship between reader and text is much like
that between the river and its banks, each working its effects upon the other ,
each contributing to the shape of the poem. In Transactional Reading theory,
every readers bring her or his own attitudes and ideas to any text which then
have an impact on the reader’s interpretation of that text. Louise Rosenblatt
explains that readers approach the work in ways that can be viewed as efferent
and aesthetic.
A.
Efferent Reading Approach
Rosenblatt
states, “the reader’s attention is primarily focused on what will remain as a
residue after the reading and the
information to be acquired, the logical solution to a problem, the actions to
be carried out.” An example would be a deep sea fishing guide to decide where
to go fishing, or a textbook to learn about the economic causes of the Great
Depression. Moreover reading is to “take away” particular bits of information.
Here, the reader is not interested in the rhythms of the language or prose
style but is focused on obtaining a piece of information. For instance reading
newspaper, article, and so on.
B.
Aesthetic Reading Approach
In
the Aesthetic Reading Approach, Reading is to explore the work and onself. Here
readers are engaged in the experience of reading itself. Louise Rosenblatt
states, “the reader’s attention is centered directly on what he is living
through during his relationship with that particular text.” An example would be
reading Hemingways’s Old Man and The Sea to live through a deep sea fishing
adventure or The Grapes of Wrath to plumb the emotional depths of living
through the Great Depression. One would not read the Old Man and The Sea to
learn how to deep sea fish nor The Grapes of Wrath to examine the economic
factors that caused the Great Depression.
Aesthetic
Reading Approach states that :
1. Reader is absorbed,
2. Drawing past experience when reading,
3. Reader participates in story,
4. Reader is important,
5. Text is blueprint,
6. Reader constructs literary meaning.
Louise
Rosenblatt states, “only a reader in aesthetic transaction with the text can
synthesize the parts into a “whole” or structure which is a work of art. The
readers draw on his own reservoir or past life experience; he has notions of
what to expect of a novel or poem or satire. But he has to use whatever he
brings to the text and build out of his responses to the patterned verbal cues
a unifying principle. The structure of the work of art corresponds ultimately
to what he perceives as the relationship that he has woven among the various
elements or parts of his lived-through experience. Instead of thinking of the
structure of the work of art as something statically inherent in the text, we
need to recognize the dynamic situation in which the reader, in the
give-and-take with the text, senses or organizes a relationship among the
various parts of his lived-through experience.”
C.
Conclusion
The
core of Efferent Reading Approach is reading to get information. Whereas the
core of Aesthetic reading Approach is reading to get pleasure or enjoyment. So,
Reading must be aesthetic rather than efferent.
Post a Comment