PhD Student Profile

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Yu Zhu

PhD Student

School: School of Language Studies and Applied Linguistics

Campus: Canterbury


Project title

'Empathy and Point of View in Literature: A Stylistic Analysis of ‘Clash Moments’ in Americanah.'

Research outline

The aim of the project is to investigate how empathy is evoked by the linguistic features in texts in readers.Methodologically, I employ stylistic approaches and in particular, models of point of view taken from Uspensky(1973) and Fowler (1986/1996). The textual data I have chosen to use to illustrate the achievement of empathy is the novel ‘Americanah’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2014), in which some parts of the text are deviant and different to other parts, making them psychologically salient or striking for readers. I have called these parts ‘clash moments’. Therefore, the concept of ‘clash moment’ is taken as a device to be applied to the analysis, for the purpose of selecting the data, as well as helping readers gain a sense of various points of view, through which they are encouraged to achieve empathy and expand their experiential background.

Research Outputs

  • Zhu, Y (2015). Empathy and Point of View in Literature: A Stylistic Analysis of ‘Clash Moments’ in Americanah.Postgraduate Research Association Conference (PGRA), Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK. 13/5/2015. 
  • Zhu, Y (2016). Empathy and Point of View in Literature: A Stylistic Analysis of ‘Clash Moments’ in Americanah. Language and Intercultural Education seminar, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, UK. 20/6/2016. 
  • Zhu, Y (2016). Empathy and Point of View in Literature: A Stylistic Analysis of ‘Clash Moments’ in Americanah. 37th Annual Conference of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA): Interdisciplinary StylisticsWest Chester University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, USA, 19-22/7/2016. 
  • Zhu, Y (2017). Empathy and Point of View in Literature: A Stylistic Analysis of ‘Clash Moments’ in Americanah.38th Annual Conference of the Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA): Interdisciplinary StylisticsBirmingham University, Birmingham, UK, 23-28/7/2017.

Supervisory Team

  • Alexandra Polyzou (first supervisor)
  • Pamela Aboshiha (second supervisor)
  • Adrian Holliday (chair)
 

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Last edited: 13/12/2018 17:26:00