Point of view and the teaching of reading: a pragmatic model for developing instructional approaches

Abstract

This study investigates the construction of point of view in written texts in the light of recent theory and models of analysis, and attempts to construct an accessible framework for developing critical reading skills for L1 and L2 students of an intermediate to advanced level of language proficiency. New requirements of the New Zealand Curriculum create a need for teaching methodologies and guidelines to help instructors introduce critical reading practices into classrooms and encourage students' personal response to texts. Point of view, which is an essential aspect of critical reading, presents considerable difficulty to students both in terms of identification and interpretation. The term "point of view" appears in narratology, stylistics, critical linguistics and discourse analysis. Depending on the area of study, it can signify a structural or rhetoric device of narrative composition, a component in the thematic structure of a text, or a way of representing attitudes and beliefs of the author. This thesis studies a range of approaches to point of view for the purpose of identifying its most important compositional, attitudinal and thematic functions in the construction of written discourses; and the most powerful linguistic tools used for their realization. The result of this study is a pragmatic linguistic framework for describing point of view, which can be used as a basis for pedagogical approaches to critical reading of literary and non-literary texts. The framework, informed by the findings of current theory and research into reading and reader response, aims to activate students' knowledge-driven and text-driven processing of texts, and thereby encourage a critical reading stance which might deepen and enrich the aesthetic reading of literary texts. The scope of the framework is first demonstrated by analysing point of view in a short story and a magazine article. Then, a teaching adaptation of the developed approach is provided to exemplify how the framework can be used for developing learners' critical reading skills in a classroom situation. The suggested approach to teaching critical reading through point of view aims to empower learner-readers, by developing their ability to critically evaluate written discourses, i.e. to identify authorial stance and implied sets of values and beliefs texts represent. In regard to literary texts, the framework equips students with new techniques for achieving higher levels of sophistication in their aesthetic transaction with the text. It is also hoped that the approach will contribute to students' reader autonomy.