Sean McCarron
I am a DPhil student at ReadOxford. I'm interested in print exposure (how much you read), bilingual proficiency, reading comprehension, and vocabulary knowledge—in particular, the language of books. Reading for pleasure is one of the best ways to improve your language skills, but we all wish we could read more than we do—which is why it's hard to simply ask someone how much they read and get a straight answer. Common tests of print exposure thus test on knowledge related to reading instead (e.g. author recognition tests), but they tend to be validated using native English-speaking university students, which ignore much of the variation in linguistic and educational backgrounds. I would like to develop a test which remedies this.
As a child, I was consumed by a desire to read in a way that bordered on the pathological. Like many other young boys, this was primarily through comics and fantasy novels, which appealed to a sense of adventure, mystery, and humour. This led to an interest in writing and art, and I have worked for many years as a contract illustrator, as well as self-publishing a graphic novel series.
"BONE" is © Jeff Smith
Becoming bilingual as a young adult was an important catalyst for where I am today. Though I took years of French in school, I never got the hang of it. This irritated me—surely it was hidden in there somewhere, taking up precious mental real estate! It also seemed like a civic duty as a good Canadian who wanted to get to know the wonderful people of Québec. I decided to take it up on my own. I tried everything—flash cards, verb drills, movies, and games. But the most effective tool was always reading, specifically immersing myself in fiction. This transformation to thinking in another language was so unusual I became preoccupied with how the mind acquires and processes language, specifically second or additional languages. This led to completing a B.A. and an MSc. in Cognitive Science of Language at McMaster University, and a minor in French. And now, here I am! If you want to learn more, have a look at my personal site.
I love the word "palimpsest". This means a page of a manuscript which has been scrubbed off and reused for new writing, but which still bears some evidence of the previous work. It can also mean a document which has been heavily edited, but the original can still be recovered in some form. For example, researchers have used corpus linguistics and stylistics methods to compare different surviving copies of medieval manuscripts to determine what the original may have looked like—these would be kinds of palimpsests. I like how this word can invoke how everything we do builds on other work, whether it's scientific research or creative inspiration. Nothing is wasted.
The Handmaid's Tale is © Margaret Atwood
It can also be used more poetically. One of my favourite writers, Margaret Atwood, uses it to great effect early on in The Handmaid's Tale, imagining a school dance once held in a gymnasium which has now been repurposed for nefarious means:
"Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light."
"BONE" is © Jeff Smith
My favourite childhood book is probably a graphic novel—the incredible 1,300-page tome that is BONE by Jeff Smith! It has everything—dragons, adventure, humour, monsters, romance, the works! The creator is a former animator, and it comes through in this book. When I re-read it, I'm still amazed that this is a book that animates off the page as my eyes pass over it. But the best part is the characters. They all seem to have a unique voice, with non-standard dialect features, and words spelled as they sound. For a kid interested in animation and language variation, this was a feast.
The Hobbit is © the Tolkien Estate
My choice for a novel, however, would be The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Like many others, this book came along at exactly the right time, as I started to become interested in fantasy and adventure. My mind became so enrapt with thoughts of magic and rings, ancient maps and languages, dreary mountains, lush forests and dark caves, canny wizards, and avaricious dragons. I became so invested in this world, which seemed utterly real to me. I still love to go back.
