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:
2009. The deeper game: Intuition, imagination and embodiment. In Acts of reading: Teachers, text and childhood. Eds. Morag Styles & Evelyn Arizpe. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Pp. 43-58.
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. (PDF
Available)
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)
