Reader’s response to a poetic text in the original and translation: methodological background
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18372/2520-6818.32.9585Keywords:
empirical research methods, questionnaire development, semantic differential scale, quantitative method, data collection, poetryAbstract
The article aims to demonstrate application of quantitative approach,namely usage of semantic differential scale questionnaire, to the study ofreaders’ response to a poetical text. This methodology, unlike the hermeneuticapproach, ensures higher objectivity and validity of obtained results.The method has a number of advantages. Firstly, it is a reliable means ofcollecting data reflecting the reaction of participants to a poetical text.Secondly, it can be applied for a research involving a large number ofrespondents. Thirdly, the questionnaire is relatively simple for the participants,who only mark one of the given options.The research aims to study the response of Ukrainian and Brazilianreaders to E. A. Poe’s poem «The Lake». This article focuses on the structureand methodology of the research, which has several stages. The first step in thequestionnaire development is a pilot study when we collect the most recurrentadjectives respondents in both countries use to describe their feelings afterreading the poem. To this purpose, a questionnaire with a single open questionis employed in order to generate the variables to be used in the design of themain survey. Randomly chosen participants in both countries are asked to read«The Lake» either in original or in translation into their native language(Ukrainian, Russian or Portuguese) and list ten adjectives which would betterdescribe their reactions to the verse. After that, the unified list of adjectives inEnglish with regard to their frequency is created. This stage completed, theselection of antonyms takes place. Later the main questionnaire is designed,which includes the chosen contrasting pairs with a five-point semanticdifferential scale. The respondents are asked to read the poem and evaluatetheir emotional feedback by way of checking the adjectives and their intensitywhich corresponds best to their reaction. They also indicate their age, gender,nationality and university. Thus, the offered methodology enables us to check whether a same groupof respondents have different attitudes towards the poem in their mother tongueand in English as a foreign language and whether these attitudes differ whencompared to those of participants from another countryReferences
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