Second-generation cognitive literary studies provides theoretical tools through which reading itself can be placed at the forefront of reflections on reading literary fiction. Namely, reading is no longer conceived as a translation of written symbols into abstract meanings, but as a technology that a) people must learn through a systematic learning process, and b) is comprised of a multitude of interconnected thought, emotional, motor, and other cognitive processes placed in a concrete reading situation. The large number, diversity, and non-synchronicity of physical, thought, emotional, memory, motor, and other processes included in reading imply a special openness of reading, which primarily comes to the fore in literary reading freed from the shackles of everyday reality and autobiographic memory. It turns out that several core findings can be established about the nature of literary reading and its social significance.
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