Abstract
The present paper is a critique of quantitative studies of literature. It is argued that such studies are involved in an act of reification, in which, moreover, fundamental ingredients of the texts, e.g. their (highly important) range of figurative meanings, are eliminated from the analysis. Instead a concentration on lower levels of linguistic organization, such as grammar and lexis, may be observed, in spite of the fact that these are often the least relevant aspects of the text. In doing so, quantitative studies of literature significantly reduce not only the cultural value of texts, but also the generalizability of its own findings. What is needed, therefore, is an awareness and readiness to relate to matters of textuality as an organizing principle underlying the cultural functioning of literary works of art.
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Willie van Peer is Associate Professor of Literary Theory at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands), author of Stylistics and Psychology: Investigations of Foregrounding (Croom Helm, 1986) and editor ofThe Taming of the Text: Explorations in Language, Literature and Culture (Routledge, 1988). His major research interests lie in theory formation and its epistemological problems, and in the interrelationship between literary form and function.
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van Peer, W. Quantitative studies of literature. A critique and an outlook. Comput Hum 23, 301–307 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02176635
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02176635