How literary text reading is influenced by narrative voice and focalization: evidence from eye movements

Abstract

ABSTRACT A fictional story is always narrated from a certain narrative voice and mode of focalization. These core narrative techniques have a major impact on how readers interpret the narrative plot and connect with the characters. This study used eye-tracking to investigate how classic narrative reading is affected by narrative voice and focalization. The results showed that the third-person narrative voice was read more slowly than the first-person narrative voice, especially when the narrative was presented with internal focalization. Importantly, the transition from a first-person to a third-person narrative voice generally resulted in longer reading times, whereas a switch from a third-person to a first-person narrative voice only yielded limited benefits in terms of reduced reading time. These findings provide direct evidence to support the assumption that there is a distinction between the first-person narration and the third-person narration and demonstrate the important role of narrative voice and focalization in understanding narrative texts.