The lasting book: a semio-narrative approach to young adults’ reading memory
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Abstract
This contribution investigates how young adults recall the readings they consider foundational, examining the interplay between text typology, modes of discovery, reading context, and retrospective evaluation. A questionnaire administered to 117 university students explored these dimensions by collecting data on “essential” readings, on the age and place of first encounter, and on participants’ retrospective assessments. The responses were analysed through a narratological framework combining qualitative segmentation with tools drawn from Greimassian semiotics, reconstructing for each participant a four-phase narrative trajectory of reminiscence. The results highlight recurrent configurations, a mnemonic focal point located in late adolescence, and structural differences between texts aimed at children and adolescents and other forms of literature. Overall, the findings confirm the situated and processual nature of reading memory and outline theoretical and educational implications for understanding narrative self-reconfiguration in emerging adulthood.
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