In this paper Elena Semino discusses a useful approach to studying text worlds in poetry. This is the schema theory approach derived from the theory of background knowledge and comprehension.

1. Presentation by Atula Ahuja
SCHEMA THEORY AND
THE ANALYSIS OF TEXT
WORLDS IN POETRY
Elena Semino

2. Nature of the study
• This is a study of text-world in poetry and is
based on the schema theory, known as the
cognitive theory of background knowledge and
comprehension.
• Seen from cognitive point of view, a reader’s
perception of the text depends on how well he
or she is able to apply the existing schema to
the interpretation of the text- whether schema
is challenged or confirmed, while interpreting
the text.

3. OBJECTIVE
 To show how schema theory can be used to
account for the way in which text worlds are
constructed and perceived in discourse processing,
specifically in reading poetry.
• show the possibility of combining linguistic
description and schema theory in the
analysis of texts.
• To demonstrate the usefulness of the notions of
schema reinforcement and schema refreshment in
accounting for the differences between the worlds
projected by different texts.

4. An Alternative
• Applying schema theory to the description of
fictional worlds could prove to be a useful
alternative to the possible-world models
which have traditionally been applied.

5. Possible world theory
Original theory- developed by Gottfried Leibniz, states
that our actual world is the best of all the possible
worlds that existed in the mind of God.
Modern theory argues that:
* there are an infinite number of possible alternatives to
the actual world, defined as abstract sets of states of
affairs where every proposition is either true or false.
* Possible world theorists claim that their approach is
equally relevant to the study of poetry.

6. Fictional World theory
Fictional world theories apply possible world theories to
literature. Fiction theorists study the relationships
between textual worlds and the world outside the text.
Possible world models describe fictional worlds as
complex modal structures made up of a central domain,
considered actual and a number of secondary domains
counting as non-actual.
wish
worlds
Non-actual text

7. Fictional world and outside world
• Scholars in the literary and artistic circles draw on the Possible
world theory to study the relationships between Textual worlds
and the world outside of them, to explain the relationship
between fiction and reality:
possible
world
• semantic
domain of
fictional world
actual
world
• gives
foundation
and roots to
fictional world
Impossible
world
• text world can
be perceived as
impossible
FICTIONAL
WORLD

8. Why Schema theory?
 Readers may perceive a text as impossible-
challenging, puzzling or improbable because it may
go against their set of expectations and assumptions
formed on the basis of their experience of the world.
 Texts may project many different worlds, but the
possible world theories do not account for this fact.
• In such cases, schema theory can provide a useful
alternative to possible-world theories.

9. Schemas Theory: Piaget, Frederic Bartlet,
 Schema theory- to explain how text worlds are
constructed in the interaction between readers and
texts. It provides a useful alternative to possible-world
models.
The term ‘schema’ was introduced by Piaget in 1926 who
defined schema the basic building block of intelligent
behaviour. Schemas as “units” of knowledge.
Schemas as a basic concept: was first used by Frederic
Bartlett in 1932 as a learning theory. He suggested that our
understanding, perceptions and memory are shaped on
the basis of prior knowledge and described ‘Schema‘ as
the basic unit in the organisation of prior knowledge.

10. Main Tenets of Schema Theory
Schema has 2 categories: 1. that of knowledge itself
2. process of obtaining that knowledge
1. Abstract concepts are understood well only after concrete
information has been acquired. In other words
comprehension crucially depends on the availability and
activation of relevant prior knowledge.
2. This knowledge establishes the framework into which new
knowledge can be assimilated. Or, we make sense of new texts
by relating the current input to existing mental representations
of entities and situations experienced in the past.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

11. Schema theory and literature
Since the 1980s, the Schema theory has been applied to the
analysis of literary texts and literary reading.
 It provides a flexible framework within which the
interplay between readers' prior knowledge and texts in
literary comprehension can be scrutinized.
 It is claimed that literary texts tend to challenge and
modify the readers' existing schemata, which means that
literary texts can disrupt the ordinary application of
schemata and have the potential to cause schema
change.

12. Interpretation of literary text
Comprehension depends on the ability of the reader to be
able to construct worlds encountered in the text.
“a text is interpretable to those who can build around that
text a scenario, a text world, a state of affairs, in which that
text makes sense.” (Enkvist 1989; 1991)
This implies that the interpretability of texts, especially
literary texts depends on the readers‘ ability to imagine
meaningful worlds (created by the writer) when they
interact with the language of texts.
X syntactic well-formedness
X explicit intersentential links

13. Literariness and Schema refreshment
According to Guy Cook (1990) literary theory has failed
to account satisfactorily for the nature of literature due
to exclusive concentration on linguistic and structural
features and neglect of extra-linguistic knowledge that
readers employ to achieve coherence in interpretation.
language &
text
structures
readers’
knowledge
SCHEMA
THEORY

14. Literariness and Schema refreshment
Literariness arises when deviations at the level of
language and text leads to schema disruption, and
result in schema refreshment. Such a change may
involve destruction of old schemata, the creation of
new ones and establishing of new connection between
existing schemata. (Cook 1990)

15. Schema theory and poetic text worlds
Schema theory perspective: A text world corresponds to
the configuration of schemata that are instantiated by a
reader during processing of the text.
The sum of the reader's existing schemata forms the
basis of that person's reality - or 'actual world’.
The totality of the existing schemata serves as a frame
of reference in constructing and evaluating text worlds.
A particular reader will perceive a particular text
depending on how her many schemata interact with
one another.

16. A Pillowed Head' by Seamus Heaney
Text worlds are constructed in the interaction between
readers and the language of texts, hence it’s important
to consider the role of linguistic choices and patterns in
the activation and modification of schemata.
Pillow Head- Is the account of the birth of his second child the
dad. This birth is contrasted with that of the couple's first child.
First Child
Inexperience Second child
Experience

17. CHILDBIRTH SCHEMA- Pillowed Head
The schema is triggered by repeated references to the following elements:
the pangs (line 8), the trauma (line 10),
your cut-off white cotton gown (line13),
earth-mother (line 14),
the stirrup-rigged bed (line 15),
checked in (line 18),
the little slapped palpable girl (line 20).
The activation all the above schema together, enables
readers to make sense of the sequence of events
described in the text. This schema will be shared by
other readers who are familiar with pregnancy and
child birth.

18. CHILDBIRTH SCHEMA- Pillowed Head
These events don’t actually occur in the correct sequence
in the poem, but the reader is able to put them in logical
sequence due to the activation of schemata:
the onset of labour (lines 7-11), the trip to the hospital (lines 4-
5), the admission into hospital (line 18), the delivery room (lines
12-24) and the sight of the mother in her
hospital bed (lines 21-24 and title)
CHILDBIRTH schema enables readers to infer details such as the
identity of ‘I’ and ‘you’ and their relationship with the little girl.
In a nutshell, through CHILDBIRTH schema, readers easily
establish logical connections between the actions, people and
objects presented, thereby constructing a coherent text world.

19. Analysis- Pillowed Head
 Poem, unlikely to challenge the CHILDBIRTH schemata as
it presents a fairly conventional perspective of childbirth
and a fairly harmonious and conventional view of reality.
 The poem can be described as a 'possible' or 'potentially
actual' in possible-world terms because it presents this
conventional view and also because the text is
compatibility with the schemata that are required for its
interpretation.

20. 'The Applicant‘- Sylvia Plath
 This poem projects a more challenging view of reality.
 Poem is significant as it was composed a few days after
Plath's decision to divorce from Ted Hughes and exactly
four months before her suicide.
 It is a bitter satirical attack against the social practice of
marriage, presenting it as a arrangement of social
convenience and benefit.
 Text world projected by the poem is puzzling, challenging
and disturbing. It presents events that we are familiar
with and anecdotes that readers may find absurd,
extreme and deviant.

21. Possible worlds and 'The Applicant'
 The categories developed within possible-world
theories seem absurd and unreal:
1. (lines 3) rubber crotch- not part of implants normally
available in the actual world.
2. (line 5) rubber breasts- addressee perceived as female.
3. (rest of the poem)- hearer conceived as male- offered
woman in marriage
4. (stanza 5)- the suit- properties attributed to it, don’t
apply to real world suits.
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof

22. Schema theory applied to 'The Applicant'
The SALES PITCH schema:
Will you marry it? (lines 14, 22) (it- hand- line 10)
How about this suit- (line 20)
Well, what do you think of that? (line 29)
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it. (line 40)
Poet seems to be praise the qualities of the hand, the suit,
the living doll in order to get the addressee interested in
them.
• It is guaranteed to (lines 15-16)
• How about (line 20)
• I have the ticket for that (line 27) Invoke the ‘sales pitch’
schema.

23. Marriage Schema
First reference to marriage in the poem occurs in line 14
• Will you marry it?.
The pronoun it refers to ‘hand’ introduced in line 10.
The question Will you marry it? is reiterated again in
line 22.
Last line- marry it, marry it, marry it
The schema theory is triggered to activate readers‘
background knowledge about marriage, which is crucial
for the comprehension of the text as a coherent whole.

24. Schema conflict in “The Applicant”
• In all three cases the goal of the poet is to achieve some kind of
persuasion of the other. One of the objects included in the fictional
world, namely the suit, is relevant to all three schemata: as a standard
requirement of formal interviews, a necessary component of weddings
and a possible object for sale.
• On the other hand, some features of the evoked situation, such as the
nakedness of the addressee expectations induced by all three
schemata.

25. Conclusion
Hence we see that a schema-based approach to textual
analysis focuses on:
 how the reader's background knowledge interacts with
the language of texts,
 how the reader is challenged or reinforced in its
interaction with the text.
 Such an analysis describe the relationship between the
worlds projected by texts and the readers' own actual
worlds.
 Linguistic features of texts and background
knowledge/schemata in comprehension, should be
compatible.
 schema theory approach to the study text worlds
provides a useful alternative to the traditional possible-
world models.

27. Reference
Semino, Elena (1995) Schema theory and the analysis of text
worlds in poetry. Language and Literature, 4 (2). pp. 79-108.