The application of text world theory to the reading of Hemingway's ‘In Our Time’

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to explain the cognitive process as to how the reader constructs a text world within their mental space. To understand and analyse such cognitive processing, Paul Werth’s (1999) framework, Text World Theory, along with other theorists who have expanded the framework such as Gavins (2007), will be applied to the chosen text In Our Time written by Ernest Hemingway (1930). This dissertation, therefore, will be applying Text World theory to answer such questions. Between text and reader, discourse is occurring in which every text has its own text world that is constructed due to world-building elements. Within the world, different spaces coexist to fill in the world on a cognitive level. This leads to how the findings of this dissertation will be a result of a detailed analysis by focusing on the elements operating in the text which are being represented in the reader’s mental space. The analysis will also be represented in a visual form to show how the function-advancing propositions construct the text.