The study of literary expertise as a research strategy

Abstract

This paper outlines a rationale for the psychological study of literary expertise as a research strategy for investigating some of the conventions and expectations of the literary system. By presenting a comparison with expert-novice research in cognitive science, it identifies some guidelines concerning what constitutes an appropriate expert sample and what constitutes an appropriate task in expertise research. Verbal protocol analysis in conjunction with semantic models of discourse analysis are discussed as a possible data source from which to infer expert performance. Selected results from research using this approach to investigate literary reading are presented.