Abstract：Literary studies in the 21st Century is characterized by critical reflections on symptomatic reading, advocacies of a post-critical turn, and emphases on textual agency on the one hand, and a continuous call for scientific, objective approaches to literary studies on the other. This pursuit of scientificity in literary studies is largely manifested in the introduction of scientific methods, especially those borrowed from linguistics, and narrative studies serve as a typical example of this phenomenon. Where do the scientific qualities of literary research reside? How do literary studies borrow from linguistics, its nearest neighbor, to enhance their scientific qualities? What lies behind this pursuit of scientificity, and where may it lead to? This article makes a tentative discussion on these issues.
Key words: the scientific study of literature; linguistic approach; narratology; poetics; interpretation
