‘It actually painted a picture of the village and the sea and the bottom of the sea’: Reading groups, cultural legitimacy, and description in narrative (with particular reference to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl)

Allington, Daniel (2011). ‘It actually painted a picture of the village and the sea and the bottom of the sea’: Reading groups, cultural legitimacy, and description in narrative (with particular reference to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl). Language and Literature, 20(4), pp. 317–332.

Full text available as:

Due to copyright restrictions, this file is not available for public download Click here to request a copy from the OU Author.

DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Link:	http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1177/0963947011398558
Google Scholar:	Look up in Google Scholar

Abstract

This article proposes a form of research that integrates reader study with textual analysis. Its purpose is to investigate the social production of literary value, potentially providing cultural sociology with a systematic means by which to study the formal features of texts in relation to their social significance: a means arguably required by (but not necessarily supplied in) the work of Pierre Bourdieu. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of reading group (or ‘book club’) discussions reveals an association between descriptive writing, cultural legitimacy, and a focus on the form, rather than the content, of fictional texts. In order to understand this association, the analysis then turns to two paragraphs from John Steinbeck’s The Pearl (2000 [1946]), which had been read by most of the groups involved and which many group members had referred to as involving ‘description’. It is argued that a long-standing tradition of association between descriptive writing and visual art has served as a resource both for consumers and for producers in distinguishing literature from popular fiction.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Copyright Holders:	2011 Daniel Allington
ISSN:	0963-9470
Funders:	AHRC
Keywords:	book clubs, description, emic categories, legitimate culture, narratology, The Pearl, reading groups, reception, sociology of literature, Steinbeck
Academic Unit/Department:	Education and Language Studies > Centre for Language and Communication
Interdisciplinary Research Centre:	Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology (CREET)
Item ID:	30478
Depositing User:	Daniel Allington
Date Deposited:	03 Jan 2012 13:36
Last Modified:	26 Oct 2012 04:51
URI:	http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/30478

Actions (login may be required)

	View Item
RDF+XMLBibTeXRDF+N-TriplesJSONDublin CoreAtomOAI-ORE Resource Map (Atom Format)Simple MetadataReferMETSOAI-ORE Resource Map (RDF Format)HTML CitationASCII CitationMultiline CSVRefMan RIS Format (UTF-8)OpenURL ContextObjectEndNoteMODSOpenURL ContextObject in SpanMPEG-21 DIDLEP3 XMLRefMan RIS FormatRDF+N3Eprints Application Profile	Public: Report issue / request change