ISSN 2239-978X Journal of Educational and Social Research Vol. 3 (2) May 2013 155 A Study of the Effects of Intertextuality Awareness on Reading Literary Texts: The Case of Short Stories 1 Moussa Ahmadian (Corresponding Author) Associate Professor, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Arak University, Arak, 38156-8-8349, PO Box: 879, Iran Tel: +988613135111, E-mail: M-ahmadian@araku.ac.ir; Moussa_ahmadian@yahoo.co.uk Hooshang Yazdani Assistant Professor, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Arak University, Arak, 38156-8349, PO Box: 879, Iran Tel: +989124262201, E-mail: H-yazdani@araku.ac.ir Doi:10.5901/jesr.2013.v3n2p155 Abstract Intertextuality can be generally defined as the influence and presence of previous texts in the construction of the present one; it shows the internal relations of a text with all other relating texts (Booker, 1996; Halliday, 2003). The consensus is that no text is a complete creation of its author; rather, it is constructed through the process of interconnections of textual elements of the relating texts and the author’s creativity. In literary texts, intertextuality plays crucial roles (Abrams, 1993: 185-6; Peck and Coyle, 2002: 143). The author, un/consciously appeals to intertextual elements, elaborates them in his artistic career and creativity to create the intended text— prose/poetry. Accordingly, in reading literature, being aware of intertextuality seems to be important in better understanding of the text. The present paper studies possible effects of intertextuality awareness on reading literary texts—short stories. To this end, a group of 25 homogeneous students of English literature at Arak University, Iran, were asked to take part in the study. Two short stories, as tasks of elicitation, were first given to them as pretest to read and answer the questions. Then, after 6 sessions of treatments relating to intertextuality, its features and examples, they were given the same stories, as posttest, to read and answer the questions. Their answers in both pre- and post tests were scored by two raters, and then compared. The results revealed strong effects of intertextuality awareness on reading the texts. Possible causes of the results along with the implications of the findings are discussed. Key Words: intertextuality, intertextuality awareness, intertextual elements, literary texts, short story, literary creativity 1. Introduction In Textology and Text Analysis, intertextuality is, generally, defined as the relating elements of the previous texts that influence and gather to construct (a part of) the present text. According to Kristeva (1980), no text is original and is made by itself isolated from those existing before it; such a text is influenced by the texts and textual elements relating to it. Bell (1993) and Halliday (2003) consider intertextuality as the history of a text, the cycles of the chain of texts which are connected to and have influences on the present particular text. It is also believed that no text is made without such intertextual elements, rather, all the (inter)textual elements of the relating texts inherently influence the intended text and are combined with the author’s creativity to produce the whole and final construction of that text. Even the author’s creativity in turn is (partly) because of his/her experiences of 1 - This research was financially supported by Dept. of Research of Arak University. The authors acknowledge and appreciate Arak University for the supports.