Reading versus hearing/seeing.
(**Somewhat "off-topic" but possibly relevant to your musing)...;-}>
gypsy,
A few years ago I conducted some informal research concerning the "way" in which people read. I was somewhat surprised to find that there is a wide variation in the way that people perceive the "narrative voice" of written words. On one end of the scale, there were people who claimed to read "words" in a purely "neutral voice". However, at the other end of the scale, there were people who (consciously or subconsciously) described how they created a "character" to "speak" the words as they read them.
In the example of a novel, one person might construct a very full "character" complete with a voice and appearance. This mental image would be referred to whenever it was required to appear or speak during the text. This type of reader often described reading as a form of creative process and enjoyed "savouring" a novel rather than trying to tear through it as fast as possible.
In contrast, the person who said that they did not bother to create narrative voices or images, described reading as a form of information gathering or as a diversion. It was not described as a creative process. These readers claimed to read quickly and to skip lines or paragraphs when the action seemed slow.
BTW, of the people who created "voices", most said that they did not bother to do this when reading technical texts, etc... where a "voice" would be inappropriate.
What I found rather interesting was how often the people who said that they create a mental image of a character also volunteered that they are often quite annoyed when they watch a TV or movie version of a book, only to find that the character is vastly different than the way that they had imagined it to be. In contrast, people who claimed to not create mental images of characters said that they rarely felt annoyance with the (sometimes obvious) conflicts between the portrayal of a character in a book when compared with the TV or movie version.
I don't think that there is anything unusual about the creation of a voice to accompany text. In all probability it is just a creative function which some people enjoy doing, while others ignore it. However, what I found most interesting about my small survey was that people who described their reading experience in a creative way, were also more likely to read aloud in a more interesting and imaginative way, especially when reading fictional "conversations" in novels. Conversely, the people who said that they don't bother to assign voices, were quite boring to listen to...perhaps because they are unaccustomed to the exercise of creating voices.
So, what has all of the above got to do with how we perceive posts on SI? Perhaps each of us reads posts in a very different way. Some people read posts as flat, almost-colourless strings of words, while others read posts in a way which assigns them "voices". For, in fact, posts are very much like bits of narrative "dialogue" in a novel. Perhaps some posts inspire the creation of pleasant and amiable narrative voices, while others seem to trigger an irritating or obnoxious "voice" to speak their message.
In any case, it is an interesting topic which I occasionally give some thought to when I settle down in my armchair to read a section of a "thread" as a narrative structure rather than as a series of disconnected "blurbs". Perhaps it will even inspire a paper someday... (-:
Croc...;-}> |
