Which approach emphasizes the reader's role, arguing meaning arises from the reader's experiences and biases?

Which approach emphasizes the reader's role, arguing meaning arises from the reader's experiences and biases?

• A. Reader-Response Criticism
• B. Marxist Criticism
• C. Appositive
• D. Farce

Answer: (A)

At the heart of this idea is how readers create meaning. Reader-Response Criticism holds that a text doesn’t have one fixed meaning set by the author; instead, readers actively bring their own experiences, beliefs, and biases to the reading process. Those personal factors shape how they interpret events, symbol, tone, and purpose, so different readers can legitimately arrive at different, valid understandings. The text serves as a prompt, but meaning emerges through the interaction between what’s on the page and what the reader brings to it. Marxist criticism, by contrast, analyzes how economics, class, and power structures influence a text, not how a reader’s personal perspective shapes interpretation. An appositive is a grammatical construction that renames or clarifies a noun within a sentence, not a theory about reading and meaning. Farce is a style or genre defined by exaggerated, humorous situations, not a framework for how readers derive meaning.

At the heart of this idea is how readers create meaning. Reader-Response Criticism holds that a text doesn’t have one fixed meaning set by the author; instead, readers actively bring their own experiences, beliefs, and biases to the reading process. Those personal factors shape how they interpret events, symbol, tone, and purpose, so different readers can legitimately arrive at different, valid understandings. The text serves as a prompt, but meaning emerges through the interaction between what’s on the page and what the reader brings to it.

Marxist criticism, by contrast, analyzes how economics, class, and power structures influence a text, not how a reader’s personal perspective shapes interpretation. An appositive is a grammatical construction that renames or clarifies a noun within a sentence, not a theory about reading and meaning. Farce is a style or genre defined by exaggerated, humorous situations, not a framework for how readers derive meaning.