Representation of reading related elements in compiled and translated adult fictions from 2011 to 2016

The purpose of this paper is to determine the quality of the reading related elements' representation in fictions published in Iran between 2011 and 2016.

Descriptive content analysis carried out for thirty-four of the highest print run titles, both original or translated into Persian. These books have selected among Persian and translated fictions to encoding reading elements such as: reading, studying, book, bookcase, library, librarian etc. To get the quality of the reading-related elements presented in works, some questions were answered while reading the fictions:1) What reading elements are in the story?2) Which books had deep references to reading elements? And does the mentioned element play an effective role in shaping the story? 3) Do characters such as librarians, booksellers, etc. have a positive or negative aspect? Reliability approved by two literature professor and faculty members of Knowledge and Information science. To achieve stability the agreement between coders were calculated.

Among the 18 Persian books only in 12 we can see the reading elements and in the other 6, there are no references to those elements. Quantitatively, 791 codes were identified in 35 fictions. The most frequent code in both groups of works is the concept ‘book (object)’. The lowest frequency in the Persian fictions is ‘bookseller’ and in the group of translated works is ‘library (object)’. The diversity of the main characters of the fictions in the translated titles is significant but limited in Persian fictions. The character of the librarian or the person associated with reading element in Persian works is neutral and has a positive characteristic in the translated works. The influence of reading-related elements on translated works is greater than on Persian fictions. Although the presence of the elements related to reading and studying in both groups of works is weak but, the authors of the translated stories have tried more to use these elements in their works.

While the focus of previous studies is on quantitative side, this study tries to determine the quality of the reading related elements. The presence of the reading elements in both groups of works is not acceptable. According to the current state of representation of reading-related concepts in the reviewed works, it is not expected from the highest print run titles to encourage reading, especially in the group of Persian works. Publishers are advised to publish works that contains reading-related concepts and indirectly improve the reading habits.