Empirical Stylistics in an EFL Teaching Context: Comparing Virtual and Face-to-Face Reading Responses

This chapter examines how Ukrainian EFL students respond to a canonical piece of poetry – in a conventional academic setting or online. Five groups (135 participants) read Dickinson’s “A slash of Blue” (1961, p. 95) and reported their response to the verse. Groups 1–3 read the poem during their classes, whereas Group 4 did it as a Facebook survey. Group 5 listened to the text on YouTube. Results reveal differences between the responses of the groups. The findings point out that readers’ responses to poetry do depend on how and where learners are exposed to the text, and this offers empirical evidence for some of the technological and contextual implications involved in literary reading