Shared empathetic feelings in a literature club

Authors

• Liisa Voutilainen University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23997/pk.119694

Keywords:

conversation analysis, empathy, literature club, social interaction

Abstract

Reading fiction has been linked to increase in the reader’s capacity for empathy. In this paper I
ask how empathetic feelings linked to reading are realized in the social reception of literature.
The data of the study are video recordings of the meetings (4) of a reading group organized in
a housing community, and the method of the study is conversation analysis. I describe three
interactional patterns through which empathetic feelings are shared in the group: group
members’ assessments, reading group host’s candidate understandings and topical moves to the
outside world. The study suggests that similar to individual subject’s feelings, also empathetic
feelings can be expressed and shared collectively. The results of the study support the picture of
the literature clubs drawn in earlier research in terms of movement between analytical talk on
the book on the one hand and talk of the reader’s experience and outer world on the other hand.