Author/s:
Ghonsooly, Behzad
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran (ghonsooly@yahoo.com)
Hamedi, Seyyedeh Mina*
Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran (sm3_hamedi@yahoo.com)
Abstract:
The present study aims at examining the extent to which three discourse genres of descriptive, expository, and narrative would be flow inducing. In other words, it attempts to testify the role of the text in promoting optimal experience on the one hand, and to identify which discourse genre would be the most flow inducing, on the other hand. To this end, a community sample of 60 participants comprising of 16 males and 44 females from various English language institutes in Mashhad, volunteered to take part in the study by reading three texts of TOEFL containing the expository, narrative, and descriptive genres. After each reading the respondents were asked to reflect on their flow experience through filling in the Flow Perception Questionnaire (Egbert, 2003). The researchers investigated flow differences across genres by employing repeated measures ANOVA. The results revealed that flow occurred during the reading of descriptive, narrative, and expository genres; however, there were significant differences in terms of the flow scores engendered by the variations across these genres. The results of the data analysis reported the descriptive genre as the most flow inducing discourse genre.
Keywords: discourse genres; flow; reading; optimal experience; ANOVA
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrse.2014.783
*Corresponding Author