Evaluation of literature by professional and layperson critics. A digital and literary sociological analysis of evaluative talk of literature through the prism of literary prizes (2007-2017)

This poster reports on the early stage and adresses the early findings of an ongoing research project, funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), that aims to study the evaluation of literature by professional and layperson critics comparatively, through both qualitative and quantitative research into the perceptions of readers and by implementing a digitally empowered method of literary sociology. It draws on a broad multilingual corpus of critical discourse generated by six literary prizes in three different linguistic communities (namely Germany, the Low Countries and the UK) in the period 2007-2017.