English language and literature
Within the study of English
language and literature in English departments, attention rarely goes
to the integration of spoken language with the production or reception
of literature-a focus of Heath's research. This integration and what it
means for literate identity, the history of literacy, and changing patterns
of reading bear direct relationship to cultural patterns in the uses of
time, space, and valuing of material objects, such as books. In particular,
Heath has directed attention to particular genres or kinds of occasions
for oral language uses, such as conversations. She links these occasions
with the reading and writing of particular genres, such as essays and
children's literature at certain points in British and American history.
Of particular interest to many students of English literature is a long-term study that Heath carried out during the 1980s and early 1990s of readers and writers of major American literary works. This work is reported by novelist and essayist Jonathan Franzen in a 1986 article in Harper's (April 1986) and in his 2003 volume of essays, How to be alone. See also Franzen's Perchance to Dream: In the age of images, a reason to write novels. Harper's (April 1996). (PDF Available)
Some of Heath's publications on English language and literature are noted below:
1997. The essay in English:
Readers and writers in dialogue. In Dialogue and critical discourse:
Language, culture, critical theory. M. Macovski, ed. New York: Oxford
University Press. Pp. 195-214. (PDF
Available)
1993. Rethinking the sense of the past. The essay as legacy of the epigram.
In Theory and practice in the teaching of writing: Rethinking the discipline.
L. Odell, ed. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Pp. 105-131.
(PDF Available)
1990. Women in conversation: Covert models in American language ideology.
In Language, society, and thought: Essays in honor of Joshua A. Fishman's
65th birthday. R. Cooper & B. Spolsky, eds. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter & Co., Pp. 202-222.
2006. (with Evelyn Arizpe and
Morag Styles) Child's Play for Private and Public Life. In Reading
lessons from the eighteenth century: Mothers, children, and texts.
Shenstone, Lichfield, Staffordshire: Pied Piper Press. Pp. 179-207.
1997. Child's play or finding
the ephemera of home. In Opening the nursery door: Reading, writing
and childhood 1600-1900. M. Hilton, M. Styles, & V. Watson. London:
Routledge Press. Pp. 17-31. (PDF
Available)
