Den talande bokens poetik - Doria

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2. What patterns of understanding in interpretative reading can be
identified in different listeners?
3. Which thoughts do the listeners have about what the talking book
should sound like?
4. What affordances for young adults with the function disability of
mild mental retardation can be made visible through guided
literature conversations?
The project was carried out in two steps. The first phase was to produce the
audio books with two variations of reading practice of three short stories with an
existential theme in each text. The second step comprised the interviewing of 32
young adults. Half of the group, 16 young adults - eight women and eight men -
formed the investigation group in focus. It was called a special group since the
informants had a function disability that resulted in a reading handicap. The
concept reading handicap is an international concept (TPB 1998, 29) that came
into use in the 1980s for a handicap that refers to persons who, because of a
function disability, are incapable of reading printed text: usually visually
impaired or blind persons, dyslectic persons or persons with various chronic
diseases. The other 16 informants, also eight women and eight men, had no
reading handicap and formed a reference group. The interviews formed as
literature conversation were carried out three times during one year.
Since there is hardly any research about the reception of fiction among young
adults with mild mental retardation, the researcher found it necessary to include
a reference group in this study. To be able to find her way in unexplored terrain
she needed at least two coordinates to be able to say something about the
reception of fiction among the informants. The reference group formed a
background against which the voices of the special group could stand in relief
and form the foreground of the study. The literature conversation explored the
informants’ reception of what Louise Rosenblatt (2002 in Swedish, first printed
in English 1938) calls efferent reading (research question 1) or aesthetic reading
(research question 2). The informants could also express their opinions about the
version of the talking book that they had listened to (research question 3). The
fourth research question was answered in all the three other research questions.
The concept affordance was first introduced by James Jerome Gibson (1979,
127–143). Gibson refers to objects in the physical surroundings and claims that
objects have qualities that invite the individual to perform different acts. A brook
is, for instance, an object that invites the individual to swim in or drink water
from or to throw stones into, and so on. Gibson’s concept of affordance has
influenced the thinking within pedagogy and is used in many educational
contexts to refer to learning in more general terms. The mutual relationship
between the individual and the context in which he or she lives offers
opportunities or affordances to learn in many ways (for examples see, for
instance, van Lier 2000 or Slotte-Lüttge 2005).