uinimmiiitumiimanmu - Universidad Complutense de Madrid

formal feacures Sm a ÉeXL,
such as parallelism. In WerÉh
etatistical, concerninq Ube nornis of language and ita varieties;
psychological. concerning Uhe response of readera of different leveis
of sephistication to, perbapa, differerxt paraphrases of Ube sanie content
2 (iii) sernantic, concerning Ube Ubematie and implicatioflal content
of Ube given piece.
Structural analysis needs Lo be graunded on statistical,
psychological and semantio informaLion; it can be said LhaL aL
presenÉ Lhis kind of information is available in rnost areas of
research, especially by means of Lbs recenL inLeresL in corpus
linguisties? Van Peer (1986) was Lbs firat Lo provide
empirical evidence bar the connections between foregrounding
and reader response, by means of a series ob tests which
checked reader reactions according Lo variables Lhat could be
used as pararneters of foregrounding in literary LextE
(memorability, strikingness, importance and discussion value>
The results reveal Lhat strikingness, importance and discussion
value support Lhe theory of foregrounding, though memorability
does not. In this way, an important redebinitiOn of
foregrounding is introduced, whereby it is described by the
author (op. oit.: 20) in the following terms:
Foregrounding, then, ½ to be understood aB a pragnatio concept,
referring Lo Ube dynamic interaction between autbor. (literary) text and
reader. On Ube one hadnd, tbe material presence of certain foregroundinq
devices will quide Uhe reader in bis interpretation and evaluation of
ube text; on Ube otber hand, Ube reader “¿iii look for sucb devices in
order to satisfy bis acatbetie needa in readinq a literary text.
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