FROM REPERTOIRE TO REFERENTIAL DIVERGENCE: A WOLFGANG ISER–INSPIRED APPROACH TO TEACHING EARLY TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY EAST ASIAN LITERATURE

Abstract

Early twenty-first-century East Asian literature often places familiar cultural elements, including family, community, memory, filial piety, and work, in new relations shaped by contemporary life. For Vietnamese upper-secondary students, such familiarity may support literary reading, but it may also prompt premature interpretations when familiar elements are treated as carrying fixed meanings. Using theoretical analysis and pedagogical illustrations, the article examines Wolfgang Iser’s concept of repertoire, focusing on how literary texts select and reorganize familiar cultural conventions. By relating the text’s repertoire to the cultural resources students bring to reading, the article defines referential divergence as a pedagogical construct: a discernible gap that arises when an initial interpretation no longer adequately accounts for the ways in which a familiar element is organized and made meaningful within the text. The article then proposes a five-step instructional sequence in which students formulate, test, and revise interpretations against textual evidence. The framework is designed to make interpretive testing and revision central to the teaching of East Asian literature rather than treating cultural background as a ready-made explanation.