KEY ISSUES IN THIS CHAPTER

The dynamism of Text World Theory is already continuing beyond the pages of this book, with new applications to diverse discourses being readily undertaken by the next generation of text-world researchers. The version of Text World Theory which has been presented over the course of the preceding chapters is by no means conclusive or absolute. I have introduced the basic mechanics of the text-world framework and reported some of the results of my own journey of discovery so far, but that journey is in no way at an end. The directions in which the exploration of human mental representation will advance have yet to be determined; the final boundaries of Text World Theory have yet to be drawn. This chapter presents just some of the possibilities for the further refinement of the text-world approach. It raises a series of questions which have occurred to me during my own explorations of Text World Theory and offers suggestions for how these questions might be addressed in future work through the analysis of particular texts or types of text. Unlike those which have preceded it, this chapter does not contain separate Further investigation and Further reading sections. Instead, proposals for independent research are made throughout the coming sections and pointers to helpful texts are given as they become relevant.