A Comparative Study of Symbolic Reading: Salt Peddler and Shinbone

Abstract

This article investigates the interplay of cultural knowledge, symbolic language, and interpretive reading comprehension, focusing on the role of culture in symbolic understanding of text. Eight graduate students from two different cultural communities read and discussed a Korean folktale. Data were collected in the form of initial written responses and discussion transcripts. Thematic interpretative qualitative analyses are reported on initial reading stances, symbolic understandings, and efforts to identify the moral of the tale. Overall the analyses show that Korean readers focused mostly on discerning the morality being communicated symbolically through the story, whereas the American readers focused on individual values and freedoms to make sense of the story. Our findings indicate that there will be diversity in symbolic reading comprehension both across cultural groups and within cultural groups. We propose that when readers from several cultures come together in classrooms to talk about symbolic texts it is important for them to reflect on how they use their own cultural reference points to form similar and dissimilar understandings and interpretations. Heightening this awareness of diversity within cultural knowledge provides exciting and beneficial experiences for readers in today's multicultural classrooms. (Reading Comprehension, Symbolic Reading, Multicultural, Literacy Research, Cross-Cultural Study)