A Qualitative Study of the Reception of the Literary Arts and Its Implications for Public Funding in the Midlands and Beyond

My primary areas of research include Literary Reception and Discourse Analysis. More specifically, for my master's thesis, I am investigating the language of the novel The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes using Text-World Theory as well as the evaluative language used by real-world readers, in online communities, to engage with the novel. In order to do so, I am using, at an analytical level, the Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL: Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004) which provides me with resources to explore the interpersonal relationship between the reviewers and the novel reviewed. Subsequently, it allows me to consider the interpersonal relationship between the review itself and potential, invisible readers, who may rely on it to make a purchase decision. As such, my research endeavours to address the three-way interaction between (a) literary work, (b) book reviews and (c) evaluation of the book reviews.

This analysis is particularly significant as previous research on literary reception focuses on the two-way interaction between the literary work and the person carrying out the appraisal, and thus fails to account for the role of social influence in the evaluation process. In the context of the research project, this approach might help me consider the following issues:
(a) The three-way interaction between the literary work produced, (b) the critical evaluation of public funding bodies, realised by their willingness to fund similar works and (c) the subsequent evaluation of their decisions by WWM, the BCU academic department and writers within both these institutions. - The extent to which the evaluations carried out by public funding bodies impact the production of new writing, insofar as new writers are dependent on public funding.

As illustrated above, because my master's thesis is directly concerned with the critical of contemporary British Literature, the CDA position is very appealing to me. I am excited about the prospect of working with Dr. Gregory Leadbetter, writers within both BCU and WWM and funding stakeholders. Indeed, not only would it allow me to focus on the reception of other literary works in the Midlands, it would also allow me to address the questions of production and distribution of these works.

I have had a variety of employments throughout my academic studies and I believe that, as the project seeks to establish and develop contacts with relevant national and international organisations, my strong interpersonal skills will be key to effective cooperation.