ISSN 2039-2117 (online)
ISSN 2039-9340 (print)
Mediterranean Journal of
Social Sciences
Vol 9 No 2
March 2018
73
Research Article
© 2018 Ermir Xhindi and Erjona Xhindi.
This is an open access article licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/).
The Possible Reader - How Can He Be ‘Possible’?
Dr. Ermir Xhindi
Department of Albanian Language and Literature
University of Vlora ‘Ismail Qemali’, Vlorë, Abania
Erjona Xhindi
Teacher of English
Non - Public School ‘Aulona’, Vlorë, Albania
Doi: 10.2478/mjss-2018-0027
Abstract
How can it be possible that the value of a critical instrument as a theoretical category is proved as
valuable in practice? In reading cases, especially during the interpretation of fictional texts, this would be
an attractive ideal, at least as a methodological premise. In this work, we represent some theses on the
equivalence of the Possible Reader as a theoretical instrument, with the Empirical (real) Reader of
fictional texts. We are focused on presenting a hybrid Eco (Umberto) - Fish (Stanley) Model (EFM), the
relevant structure and its function, its validity in implementation. The Structuralist Model of Eco
(Umberto) is seen in function of text constructing, while the Phenomenological Model of Fish (Stanley) is
seen as an alternative to meaning issues, as a complementary entity with Eco’s model. What can be
said, for now, is that not only in the ethical level, but also with concrete results, this method justifies
itself. The meaning produced by the Possible Reader as a theoretical category appears almost in the
same parameters with the meaning produced by a community of empirical readers. We should specify,
at the end, that the model is in its experimental phase, as it will need more exhaustive theorizing in the
future.
Keywords: Possible reader, meaning matrix, reader response, ethic of method, Albanian literature
Introduction 1.
In one of our recent works we came upon an unexpected conclusion that required a further
explanation. After elaborating data from a survey on the construction of meaning by a number of
students, as empirical readers, on a random chosen novel (Kadare, 2008) and comparing them with
the results on the construction of meaning by a Possible Reader (Eco, 2006) as a theoretical
category on a few texts by Kongoli, F., (Xhindi, 2010), an eminent author in today’s Albanian
literature, we conclude that the meaning produced by the students on Kadare’s work was
essentially the same as that produced by the Possible Reader as a theoretical category on the texts
of Kongoli “the construction of the same initial state of religion, existence in a world outside of any
system of values, guided by nothing but the basic needs of existence” (Xhindi, 2015, p.136).
The survey, as synthetic formula derived from a theoretic version (Eco, 2006, p.72), contained
a number of sections where data were collected on a) Reader competence; b) Perceived referential
network; c) Isotopies at the discourse level; d) Isotopies at the narrative level; e) The actantial and
ideological structure.
The model we used to collect data from the students (Xhindi, 2015) practically interpreted, this
time, a theoretically previously used instrument. Precisely, trying to give an answer to the question