Reading Groups, Interactional Interpretation and the Stylistics of Literary Texts

The discussions held within reading groups (or book clubs) typically involve participants sharing, comparing and co-creating responses to literary texts. While reading is often thought of as a solitary process, reading groups constitute a form of social reading. In this paper, Sara Whiteley (University of Sheffield) will consider the nature of the talk produced during a reading group in relation the stylistic features of the text under discussion, and will explore the ways in which the interpretative activity is produced and displayed in discourse and is contingent upon the interactional context.