Chapter published in:
Narrative Absorption
Edited by Frank Hakemulder, Moniek M. Kuijpers, Ed S. Tan, Katalin Bálint and Miruna M. Doicaru
[Linguistic Approaches to Literature 27] 2017
► pp. 199–215

Elaboration, emotion, and transportation

Implications for conceptual analysis and textual features

| University of Alberta
| University of Alberta
A central component of absorption is the compelling metaphor of “transportation into the story world.” Here, we considered four variables related to transportation and absorption more generally: evoked realism, emotional response, and personal memories as well as transportation. We collected data on these variables from a large crowd-sourced survey of readers’ reactions to their most recently read novel. To provide insight into the causal relations among these variables, we identified the best-fitting structural equation model for these data. The model indicated that transportation was a function of emotional responses, and emotional responses were a function of both evoked realism and personal memories. This analysis was interpreted in terms of the cognitive process of story world elaboration.
Keywords: emotion, elaboration, transportation, structural equation modeling, memory, crowd-sourced survey
Published online: 09 November 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.27.11dix
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