“What do you want me to tell?” The inferential texture of Alice Munro’s ‘Postcard’

Clark, Billy (2015) “What do you want me to tell?” The inferential texture of Alice Munro’s ‘Postcard’. Études de Stylistique Anglaise (8). pp. 99-120. ISSN 2116-1747

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Abstract

This paper considers some of the ways in which ideas from pragmatic stylistics (based here on relevance theory) can be applied in exploring aspects of the production and interpretation of Alice Munro’s story ‘Postcard’. It identifies some features of the story, considers the role of inferential processes in reading, writing and evaluating texts in general, and considers how focusing on inference can help in understanding specific effects of the story on readers. Finally, it considers how focusing on inference can help to account for what Stockwell (2009) terms the ‘texture’ of the story, i.e. what it feels like to engage with the story during and after reading it.

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