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Complexity and Foregrounding: In the Eye of the Beholder?

Applied Linguistics, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro

Willie van Peer

Language and Literature, Ludwig Maximilian, Munich

Jèmeljan Hakemulder

Media and Culture Studies, Utrecht

This article approaches from an empirical perspective the interrelation between foregrounding and complexity in the evaluation of literary texts. For this purpose, a reading experiment is reported. Participants from three cultures (Brazil, Egypt, and the Netherlands) read three texts of different degrees of complexity and evaluated them on a number of variables. Subsequently, they re-read and evaluated the texts once more. The hypothesis was that complex texts would be rated higher on a second than on a first reading; the opposite was predicted for the text with the lowest complexity. Results confirmed this hypothesis for only one group of participants, which raises questions about the nature of a "reading culture."

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