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12N.P. Peshkova
«COUNTER-TEXT» METHOD AS AN INSRUMENT OF INVESTIGATING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES AND LANGUAGE CONSCIOUSNESS
Keywords: 'counter-text', 'internal text' method, text comprehension strategies, language consciousness, cultural values.
Abstract: The paper considers the advantages of the experimental 'counter-text' or 'internal text' method based on 'text psycholinguistics' principles. The method discussed was established by Professor A. Novikov and then developed by the author of the paper in collaboration with the Ufa team of young researchers. In the present article the advantages of the method in connection with modeling text comprehension and simultaneously studying language consciousness.
Ключевые слова: контр-текст, «встречный текст», стратегии понимания текста, языковое сознание, базовые культурные ценности.
Аннотация: В статье рассматриваются особенности и преимущества экспериментального метода «встречного текста» или «контр-текста», основанного на теоретических принципах «психолингвистики текста». Обсуждаемый метод, разработанный проф. А.И. Новиковым в Институте языкознания РАН (Москва), затем получил дальнейшее развитие в трудах автора статьи в сотрудничестве с уфимской группой молодых исследователей. В настоящей статье обсуждаются возможности данного метода в связи с проблемами моделирования понимания текста и изучения языкового сознания личности.
The purpose of the research presented in this article is to analyze the experimental psycho-linguistic data we have obtained by means of the 'counter-text' method from the viewpoints of modeling text comprehension and studying language consciousness.
It should be mentioned that psycholinguistic instruments of penetration into individual language consciousness, such as associative experiments and the 'counter-text' method, make it possible to investigate not only the surface structures but some deep layers of a person's co n-sciousness.
We should emphasize the fact that our primary task is to investigate the process of text comprehension with the purpose of building an interactive model of comprehension based on the ideas developed by Professor A. Novikov (Moscow Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences) and his followers within the paradigm called by its founder 'text psycholinguistics'. According to this theory information perception and text comprehension is an on-line process of generating internal text or 'counter-text' in a recipient's mind as a response to an original text that plays the role of stimulus.
Suggested by N. Zhinkin and developed by A. Novikov, the 'counter-text' or 'internal text' hypothesis is based on the idea of the active recipient. In the process of text comprehension a recipient's consciousness is not just a screen for content projection. An addressee is an active constructor generating some individual internal "counter-text" [7]. Recipients generate their associations, they express personal attitudes and opinions, evaluate the information emotionally and logically, etc. The approach known in the Russian linguistics as "text psycholinguistics" is associated with "the Novikov school" [11] to which a team of young researchers working in collaboration with the author of this paper belong. So it is worth dwelling on Professor Novikov's 'text and sense' theory and his ideas of written text comprehension. According to Novikov, in the process of comprehension the verbal form of the text is being decoded, it is acquiring its content and sense while interacting with the recipient's consciousness, and as a result of this interaction the text sense being formed is an is an intellectual (not verbal) phenomenon [6].
In the process of text comprehension an essential role is played by the factor known as anticipation; some possible situation based on the recipient's previous experience and knowledge is anticipated and forecasted [7]. Text recipients are directed by so-called encyclopaedic knowledge, the individual scheme of knowledge concerning the world, personal practical experience and besides by psychological and physiological peculiarities, by age, sex, etc. All these factors affect perception mechanisms, which could be considered, alternately, as comprehension strategies.
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While perceiving text information a recipient is actually carrying on an internal dialogue with the text, more exactly with its author, and is carrying on a dialogue with himself (herself) as well. In this process recipients turn to their previous knowledge and experience and simultaneously to the information just taken from the text, to the personal associations and associations typical of the social group they belong, then to individual memory. All these factors, accompanied by feelings, emotions and evaluations, form the grounds for the internal text, the essence of which is made up by the emotion and sense dominant. A. Novikov compared the latter with the physiological dominant introduced by A. Ukhtomsky [7].
We should emphasize the fact that the advantage of the 'internal text' method based on the principles suggested by Novikov and developed later by his followers is in making a comprehension process that is unobservable directly to some extent explicit due to the specific procedure technique used. While perceiving a written text our recipients register their personal reactions themselves in written form, thereby revealing to a certain extent the mechanisms and strategies of text comprehension. An experimenter gets an opportunity of studying deep mental processes generated in the recipient's mind by analyzing a set of verbal reactions. These reactions demonstrate how a recipient is reconstructing an initial hypothetical situation perceived by him after reading the first sentence into the final situation related to the text meaning and sense. In short the procedure technique of the 'counter-text' method is as follows. The participants of our experiments are usually given the task of reading a source-text sentence by sentence without running ahead and of writing 'everything that crosses their minds' in connection with this particular sentence. Thus they should register in a written form all the associations, emotions, evaluations, visual images, ideas, conclusions, recollections, etc., that are caused either by a sentence or a part of the sentence (a phrase, a word, etc.). To put it another way, a sentence plays the role of a stimulus to which a recipient gives a response without any restrictions.
By now twenty-one reaction types have been discovered and described. Professor A. Novikov revealed fifteen reactions studying literature and scientific technical texts as an object of comprehension [7]. The research into the comprehension of popular-science texts carried out by I. Kirsanova [4] and N. Peshkova [8] added two more forms to the list of original reaction types. Recent studies into the comprehension of biblical texts conducted by Ya. Davletova have also made a contribution to the development of the "internal text" method [3]. Three new reaction types are found in 'counter-texts' generated by readers of fashion journals in the experiments conducted by A. Moiseyeva [5]. The reaction types considered as components of the interactive comprehension model developed by us are defined as nuclear, peripheral and infrequent.
We should also mention that in accordance with the original 'counter text' method the whole field of the reactions obtained can be divided into two subfields. The rationale for the differentiation among reactions is provided by their reference to the content of the text or to its sense. The former includes the so-called 'content reactions' which are connected directly to the text content. The latter contains 'relative reactions' associated mostly with the sense of the text. Obviously the reactions of a 'content subfield' present various interpretations of the text's content; as for the 'sense subfield reactions', they demonstrate a recipient's attitude to the information interpreted and are expressed in such forms as evaluations, opinions, judgement, etc. It is this type of reaction that presents special interest to the present investigation. These are relative reactions that reveal the sense generation process itself running in recipients' consciousness. According to Novikov's idea, the relative reactions are mostly participating in the process of creation of the emotional axiological field of intentions, aims and tendencies [7].
Modern text psycholinguistics as developed by the Ufa branch of "the Novikov school" is an experimental approach based on the integrative method of studying specific features of the comprehension of various text-types. This method, known as the 'internal text' strategy, is a form of practical application of the theory mentioned above and an effective instrument of studying language consciousness.
We should emphasize the fact that the experimental data obtained at different stages of our research by means of the 'counter-text' method are of interest from the viewpoint of sociolinguis-tics and cultural studies. The experimental data provide us with some facts concerning regional characteristics of the language consciousness of young Russians and, in particular, the basic cultural values of Bashkortostan students.
To be precise, the experimental data demonstrate that verbal reactions forming the 'counter-text' registered by recipients themselves participating in our experiments reveal, on the one hand, text-comprehension mechanisms underlying more general laws of understanding and, on the other, give us information concerning the authors of the 'counter-texts', and, in particular, their social position, social-group membership, and national and cultural characteristics. Even the verbal form of the reactions can by itself be quite revealing. For example, some of the responses are marked by slang used either by young people and students or by some professional groups, which also signals information about the recipients' social group and position.
In our previous studies we made a comparative analysis of some psycholinguistic models describing the language consciousness of young residents from Siberian regions [1] and of some from the region of Bashkortostan, taking into account psychological theories and data obtained by sociological investigation [10]. If we are modeling language consciousness using the 'internal text' method as an instrument of investigation, on the one hand, and constructing material, on the other, we should be aware of the fact that the text-type chosen is one of the most significant factors that could provoke the demonstration of the specific national and cultural character of the recipients' language consciousness, as in the case of responding to biblical texts - or, on the contrary, it could neutralize similar demonstrations, as scientific texts do [9].
The reaction-type is another important factor to investigate in this respect. Some of the reactions are, so to say, quite evident information carriers. These reaction-types are direct manifestations of recipients' basic values, ideals and cultural priorities - among them 'opinion', 'evaluation', 'association' (of any kind) and 'inter-text' (that is citation of well-known literature, proverbs and sayings or reference to some popular films, etc.). In these reactions the participants in our experiments often address the Bible, the Koran, popular and classic literature, and Russian and Bashkir fairy tales. As for the reactions of 'generalization', 'interpretation', 'visualization', they can also contain some relevant information but usually implicitly compared with the reactions mentioned above [9].
By Novikov's definition, an 'opinion' as a reaction reflects a recipient's personal attitude concerning some data presented in the text perceived. As for 'evaluation', it is typically connected either with emotional evaluation of some information or with logical, rational appraisal of some ideas, situations, etc. We should say there are many complicated reactions in recipients' 'counter texts' combining 'opinion' and 'evaluation' or 'generalization' and 'evaluation', etc. 'Generalization', according to Novikov, is transferring a sentence's content to a more general statement or judgement; 'interpretation' means summarizing a sentence's content, expressing it in a shorter way using different language means, usually of a more general character; 'visualization' is, in its turn, verbalization of some definite visual images associated directly or indirectly with a sentence's content [7].
Some examples of similar reactions from our experimental data revealing characteristics of language consciousness and reflecting basic cultural values will be given below translated into the English language. First a sentence from a source text used as an object of comprehension is given followed then by a recipient's response. The examples are taken from the experiments co n-ducted by N. Peshkova [10] and Ya. Davletova [3].
In the research carried out by one of our research team members, Ya. Davletova, and in our research the participants read and interpreted passages from the Bible: "Adam and Eve" (Davletova) and "The Fall" (Peshkova). The texts were taken from the 'Bible for family and school'
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edited by archpriest Seraphim Slobodskoy (1987), as one of the most popular editions adapted to the younger generation.
One hundred and forty students, from the age group 18 to 20 years old, studying at the physical, mathematical and chemical departments of the Bashkir State University, took part in the experiments as recipients of the texts named above. In respect of the parameter 'a language bearer' the audience can be described as mixed. Besides, half of the participants are characterized as bilingual. They can speak both languages of our region fluently, Russian and Bashkir; in some cases Russian and Tatar. For Bashkir and Tatar young people, as they admit, Russian is their second native language. As for Russian students, it should be mentioned that they are mostly mono-lingual.
We follow the original 'counter-text' method procedure, which means that all the sentences of the source-texts are enumerated; the recipients register their reactions themselves in written form; a recipient's answer number corresponds to the number of the sentence from the source-text. As a result of all the stages of the experiments the investigators have gathered and analyzed 23,660 reactions.
We can state that every 'internal text' generated by the recipients of the biblical text contains reactions which express directly or indirectly their opinions, evaluations, judgments concerning Good and Evil, Love, Family values, Man and Woman relations, etc. We should also note that while some sentences from the source-text actually provoke such reactions because they mention the names of Adam and Eve or include such words as 'man', 'husband', 'woman', others cause similar reactions implicitly.
We can consider some reactions demonstrating the recipients' attitude to family, bonds of love, etc.
The man said, 'This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man. That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh'.
R. 1. The first people, the LORD God created them, a man and a woman: she was made of his rib, not of his leg, lest she should be humiliated (humbled), not of his head, lest she should be superior, but of his rib, to be side by side with him, to be protected by him, and of left rib, I think, close to his heart, to be loved by him.
R. 2. Good people, they lived as a good family, without troubles and problems, without poverty. But as our proverb says 'When you are with your darling a poor hut seems to be the Eden to you!'
R. 3. It is love between a man and a woman that makes you heavenly happy. But you can always find somebody who will envy your happiness.
In these reactions some associations can be seen to be positive in character, connected with happy life in the family and with love.
It should be mentioned that whereas some responses are rather expanded (R. 1, for example), others are quite brief. The reactions vary in form from one word to several sentences and mini-texts, depending, as we can guess, on recipients' individual mental strategies of perceiving a text and their verbal strategies of expressing themselves conditioned by their psychological characteristics. As for the reactions to content, we can observe that most of these demonstrate directly the value of love and family for the participants of the experiments.
We cannot but admit the fact that in evaluating family and woman/man relations most of our respondents demonstrate an inclination towards patriarchal views, revealing a tendency towards traditional gender notions about strong (and clever) men and weak women. We can give some
examples to support the above statement concerning the patriarchal mood of this part of our experimental audience.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
R. 1. And what about her husband?! And our old wisdom - a wife follows her husband like a thread follows a needle!
R. 2. And he was keeping silence? He should have objected!
R. 3. He should be wiser and more reserved, he is her defender! He must prevent her from getting into trouble and making wrong decisions. He should tell her 'No!'
R. 4. It means that all the time Eve was with her husband?! I wonder what he was looking at all the time?!!
R. 5. A weak and silly woman she is.
R. 6. So, a silly girl believed the serpent.
R. 7. A good husband makes a good wife - as the proverb says.
Thus, most of these recipients' responses are in line with the following statement made by one of our participants: 'It is a husband who is responsible for everything in family relations. A wife must follow her man'. And it should be said that this opinion reflects some eternal traditional gender relations of the three ethnic groups - Bashkir, Tatar and Russian - to which most of our experiment participants belong.
There is one important factor of influence we'd like to emphasize in connection with our recipients' language consciousness characteristics. The joint and cooperative life of the above three ethnic groups within one and the same territory over a long period of time makes for the process of interference and interpenetration of a number of national and cultural characteristics of language consciousness from one group into another. Under the conditions of sharing life space for several centuries the interference process contributes (in a positive sense) to forming some characteristics common to the verbal consciousness of the young representatives of these three ethnic groups despite all the national and cultural differences.
Some examples given below illustrate the respondents' attitudes towards Good and Evil, their tolerance and sympathy to those at fault or even to breakers of the Law. We can observe responses demonstrating obedience to the Law and the wish to observe God's Commandments:
And the LORD God said, 'The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.' So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
R. 1. So, sin is disobedience, it is evil. They have broken the LORD God's Law.
R. 2. People disobeyed the LORD God, they made the first sin.
R. 3. All people are sinners. There's no ideal human.
R. 4. There is no such a tree and there are no its fruit in our life. But there are some moral principles. There are the Bible Commandments - we cannot kill, steal, tell a lie and commit adultery.
R. 5. I think a sin is something bad. To sin means to steal, to kill, to betray. The Koran also condemns it.
R. 6. They disobeyed like silly babies. I'm sorry for them!
R. 7. Poor people! I think they didn't mean any harm.
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We should also note here that for Moslems obedience is positively associated with respect for the elder generation and it is reflected much more in modern Bashkir and Tatar cultural traditions compared with Russian ones.
In the recipients' responses we can see some references not only to the Bible but to the Koran too, though in the latter, as we know, there is no idea of sin as it is formulated in the Christian culture. Some of our respondents try to compare the moral principles of modern life with the Bible's commandments and the Koran's content, associating them with Good and opposing them to Evil.
Finally, we would like to give some reactions evaluating Eve's action and not condemning her but, on the contrary, showing sympathy for her weakness and tolerance to her fault:
Then the LORD God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate'.
R. 1. Eve is not to blame. She is just curious, it is so typical to a woman!
R. 2. Poor dear Eve! Perhaps she wished she made it better! She didn't mean any harm.
R. 3. I'm so sorry for Eve! There's such a burden over her!
R. 4. It was not only Eve who couldn't resist the temptation. I don't condemn her.
R. 5. It is so easy to judge now! But would you do if you were in her place?!
R. 6. Poor, weak Eve! It is such a sad story. There was nobody to support her, to help her, to give a piece of good advice! What would I do if I were Eve?!
R. 7. I will never condemn her.
Thus, summing up we come to the following conclusions. First of all, the 'counter-text' or 'internal text' method has proved to be a good instrument to reveal the peculiarities and characteri s-tics of language consciousness from the viewpoints of both psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. The method has provided us with information obtained implicitly, which could be considered as more reliable because data in the form of answers to direct questions would result in some deviations in reflecting personal values due to definite verbal taboos and cultural barriers.
Then, the verbal responses forming the 'counter-text' generated by the young recipients of the biblical texts, that is by the students of Bashkir State University, residents of a poly-ethnic region, have shown that in the process of reading and interpreting the information presented to them our young respondents are turning both to their own personal experience and to the traditional cultural values of the ethnic group to which they belong as reflected in literature and different forms of national proverbs and sayings, thereby demonstrating some stability in the general values that form the basis of the archetypal values of the national mentality.
And at last, we should like to argue that, as far as we can judge by our research compared to a number of sociological investigations, such as [12] and [2], the young generation of our poly-ethnic region can be characterized as less aggressive, as more tolerant and political correct with regard to the 'different' and to the 'alien', compared to the young in mono-ethnic regions, residents of the central Russia. The experimental data obtained enable us to state that most of the representatives of the young generation belonging to the poly-ethnic region of Bashkortostan share such values as family, love, tolerance and sympathy for the weak. In our opinion, this is the so-called 'collective portrait' of a young person born and living all his life in a poly-ethnic environment.
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