Subject: role of the reader<sic>
the writer, having first produced a text, is thereby in a position to
'bestow' this work upon his or her audience, who must take up the
interpretations offered, or, presumably, be cast out of the garden?
such an underlying assumption might conceivably be traced to the concept of
sequentiality, where the producer is equated with the creator of any work,
with special claims over its further use. The receiver, the consumer, of
any such product in this type of scenario then, is constrained by the fact
of his coming to the work after its conception.
but the writer's original intention, his or her encoded 'meanings' or
senses within a text notwithstanding -- by this i mean to say that such
senses are not to be discounted -- must however be ultimately discounted at
every new reading, due, firstly, to the non-retrievable nature of such
original intent.
if, for example, it were possible to go to the source and ask the horse so
to speak, for an explication, a dissertation on his/her text's 'original
meaning', this would entail the production of yet another text, and this
revelatory text itself would depend upon the writer himself in this case
being able to retrieve his own intentions at the time of inscription.
secondly, and more saliently, the decoder brings his or her ways of
apprehending the world to bear on the interpretation of any text, at any
one point in time. people do claim after all that a certain text has taken
on a wholly different patina -- taste, smell, texture -- when reread at one
remove in 'time'.
this is because any previous reading/decoding of any text in fact does not
exist - and if it does, it exists only as a memory of such a reading in the
decoder's mind.
it therefore seems impossible for me, at this point, to conceive of any
encoder 'imposition' of a certain decoding of a text. <but i may change my
mind>
to be sure, the encoding of specific readings or directions to decoding is
signposted, sometimes loudly, in any work, and these may be discovered and
described, interpreted even in the light of some social context in which an
abstracted audience, and thus, such posited decodings, are likely to occur,
but always with the proviso that such an analysis occurs within such and
such a context, and may or may not be _valid_ at each instance. (1)
----
taking mailing list interaction as an instance, in the broad sense, of a
context, and referring further to instances occurring within particular
mailing lists of our own experience, it may be possible to go some way
towards a 'genre of discourse' (as Lyotard (The Differend) is pleased to
term it) as a validating process for issues of reader hobblement or no:
can we posit a 'group', or community of readers within which responses can
be seen as evidence of particular instances of this or that type of
behaviour, such as encoder control over decoding processes, dependent in
turn upon some type of shared awareness of group norms or feelings?
because it is _this _ medium, and participants (or 'subjects' if you
prefer) are sometimes motivated to make written contributions, while other
Read Only Members look on in silence, the 'value' of reader responses
continues to lead me into speculation.
(this last sentence may indeed contain one of those loud 'signposts'
mentioned earlier. in effect i have given a type of 'directive' to the
reader to consider what i have written/will wriet as 'speculation', and if
anyone should respond saying, you have that wrong, buddy, then i have the
device of this safety belt in place so that i may stamp my foot and make
petulant gestures at this 'command function' which i have embedded
alongside the 'report'.)
since i have mentioned an assumed existance of a group, even a community of
readers who in this _instance_ do not merely consitute an audience by
virtue of their ability to respond or write-into any text appearing onlist,
it seems pertinent to distinguish the means through which such an assumed
group may be said to come into an agreed shared 'existence'.
firstly, the concept of temporality again seems a requirement for
perception - humans tending to use change in relationships between 'self'
and any 'external' objects to effect such perception:
-----
it is here that i want to refer to Lyotard's concept of the the phrase
'silence' as a negative response type, in place of what might have
otherwise become part of a dialogue. and in this context, introduce again
the usually vexed question as to why the silent majority (ROMs) are
textually unresponsive. apart from wholly practical considerations such as
hectic schedules which prevent complete attention to message flow, those
who do not actively participate in list dialogue may occasionally raise
their hands and say that they are 'learning', 'enjoying the performance'
and other admissions of passive one-way reception of encoded messages (in
some cases this may take the opposite extreme -- i think of Post Only
Members, who use lists as billboards for forwarded material or works in
progress, but do not enter into any exchange with other participants, or
who may not even read exchanges that occur onlist). their interpretations
of discussions and the formation of group self awareness may be wholly
their own, and not at all _imposed_ by the writers of texts onlist, but
because these 'differences', this multivocality, is not available as part
of the ongoing discourse, such interpretations are not part of a 'mutual
awareness', thus cannot be considered as contributing to group norms. in
effect, such listmembers do not exist until they post.
so for those who would participate, and yet do not post, do not respond
onlist, what motivates such negative phrases in response?
paragraph 25 of The Differend outlines what Lyotard considered the four
essential attributes of a 'phrase' in his sense of the term:
it has a 'topic', or referent; what is signified about this referent - the
'sense'; an 'adressee(s)'; and an 'addressor' _through_ which the
signification is made.
to link these types instances with listmember silence as response to
various posts, might be valid in particular cases, where participants
actually deny that they have the _competence_ to reply to an issue raised.
however, the silent phrase makes such linkage mere speculation again. we
are left with an unmarked 'signal'.
of course, as i have put forward elsewhere, most silences may be those in
response to a _lack of difference_ in opinion a la kress' observation
above, and may result from a prevalent net norm that one should refrain
from wasting bandwidth with the mere comment of 'me too', or 'i agree'. in
such cases, one may assume that one's readers are in total agreement with
one's position as outlined in any particular text.
with a nod in his direction, i now want to draw attention to alan's posts
and (at least) the cybermind norm that they are generally not responded to
onlist (whether or not private one to one communication occurs in response
to alan's texts appearing onlist is not at issue here).
the question might be whether these texts are 'closed' to the extent that
the silence of addressees is actually _imposed_ upon them by directions or
signals within the texts, so that readers feel constrained to respond in
certain ways and no other, as simpkins suggests eco believes; or whether a
combination of denials of the competences or instances noted above has any
bearing on such non response.
do readers, for example, feel that they are not worthy of writing into such
texts, or do they feel that the writer himself is not competent to speak on
such matters? or is it that they deny the existence of the topics in
question as something able to discussed onlist? or is it that such texts
are meaningless and lack sense?
<then again, maybe there are just too damn many of them!>
or is it rather that such posts evoke the silence of 'poetics', where that
which has not yet been said, that for which phrases have not yet adequately
been devised, that which hitherto has been felt to be inexpressible, are
able to _affect_ the reader in such a way that no response is possible save
that of silent appreciation?
no conclusion
----
thanks to all who made it this far,
L.
alan wroet,
a few universities, some with commercial partners,
keep on collecting texts from all over the place.
oxford university is one.
alma mater birmingham is another
and there's several in the us altho
i can't be sure which ones.
they keep the texts as a data base.
they apply concordancers on them-
select the word and the field (such as uk newspapers)-
it tells you more data on the word's frequency and
the other words which are likely to be in its vicinity
and the possiblity of them appearing within spitting distance
of each other.
studies using this are called corpus linguistics
collocations are descriptive devices for, as some call it, 'parole'-
words as they have been used, in talk too, but not so much of that
-- transcribed, obviously.
a synoptic approach.
slightly predictive, if one is willing to see
vast screeds of data
(eh, i made a mistake, only 10's of millions of words)
as producing useable patterns,
like when you throw a die enough times, mebbe.
i'd like to forward them the cybermind archives i have,
give 'em a more well-rounded database....
anyway, a links page for some corpus-based studies can be found at
[
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~barlow/corpus.html#Useful ]
and if you want to get some more info on the cobuild (birmingham corpus)
[
http://titania.cobuild.co.uk/direct_info.html ]
they also have a demo look, it's not so fully-fledged,
(have a word starting with 'j' in mind)
and you need telnet or java capabilities
coding and abstracting grammar is a completely different thing,
the main reason being that, as we have discussed,
grammar and words themselves are not separable like that.
if words are taken away, then we are left with a slot and filler
type grammar, mathematical, not so good,
unless you believe that green ideas sleep furiously...
which of course they might, for a shizophrenic.
one person i know who is making a good stab at it
um, creating a a program for coding discourse features, that is,
is mick o'donnell.
have a look at
[
Coder] for Mac
there was also a tagger program going on at birmingham,
but it seems to have been taken off public access.
no guarantees, but see
[
CoBuild ] pages
hope this is useful to someone,
L, I
"As the source of a message's closure, the encoder's presence hovers over
the text like a spectral figure in loco parentis, overseeing and invisibly
directing the decoder's respectful, _appreciative_ practices. The decoder
is "bound" once more, through the agency of the encoder and a host of
protective buttresses that could be accurately be grouped under the rubric
of "competence", not to "impair" the message's "original
essence"...[...]...
so, does this mean that because readers (decoders) are required to accept a
multiplicity of readings of a text, reflecting a so-seen multiplicitous,
fragmented 'reality', it is then to be concluded - decoded in this instance
- as an interpretation of an encoder in the position of hobbler, of
container of the reader, of _imposer_ of a freedom to make a fragmented,
multidimensional reading, therefore situating the decoder-encoder
relationship as one based on a rigid power structure?
"...the only way that multivocality, or openness, or infinite semiosis, can
be conceived of systemically, is to base them on a necessarily domesticated
decoder who willingly adheres to prescribed rules...[...]...
"Open works [Eco] adds, are "art stripped of necessary and foreseeable
conclusions, works in which the performer's freedom functions as part of
the _discontinuity_ which contemporary physics recognizes, not as an
element of disorientation, but as an essential stage in all scientific
verification procedures..." Eco's vocabulary choices here reveal his
interests in this position once again. This type of openness, he suggests,
tames "indeterminacy" into a "valid" simulacrum or tool. It produces
"discontinuity", not "disorientation"...[...]...
"For instance, his depiction of James Joyce's immensely polysemous novel,
"Finnegan's Wake", reveals a great deal about Eco's own investment in
hobbling the decoder in this vein. Longoni reflects a parallel
historicizing assertion by arguing that works of modern writers such as
Kafka and Joyce "_impose_ on the reader a plurality of interpretations,
because for them there no longer exists a unique interpretation of the
world. Reality itself is fragmented, and it is represented in the literary
text by fragments that can be endlessly reassembled"..."
(excerpts from Scott Simpkins' lecture "The 'problem' of controlling the
decoder", a critique of Eco's 'Role of the reader'. The Cyber Semiotic
Institute homepage)
"No phrase is able to be validated from within its own regimen: a
descriptive is validated cognitively only by recourse to an ostensive ('and
here is the case'). A prescriptive is validated juridicially or politically
by a normative ('it is the norm that...'), ethically by a feeling (tied to
the 'you ought to...') etc."
and so what of reader-response, or the role of the reader in relation to
texts produced in this medium?
--
(JFL, 41)
"Objects and circumstances which remain absolutely constant relative to the
observer, unchanged either by his own movement or by external events, are
in general difficult and perhaps always impossible to perceive. What we
perceive easily is difference and change - and difference is a
relationship."
looked at in this way, a sense of relationship is necessarily constituted
by difference, or an awareness of difference. to belabor the point a little
longer, i want to cite another social semiotician who says:
(GBateson. 87:173)
"...it is clear that while _social_ beings share much , they also are, in
any particular _instance_, on any given occasion divided by differences of
whatever kind. This difference always has a linguistic form, and leads to
dialogue, and hence to text. Texts are constituted in and by this
difference. Where there is no difference, there is _silence_."
the concept of _silence_, and silence as a phrase in negative response,
especially in the sense given it by Lyotard, will be taken up again
shortly. in the meantime, it can still be seen as significant that for any
group awareness of itself to occur, there also needs to occur some
relationship based on an awareness of difference: a perception that an
'other' exists and that this other is also aware of one's existence.
in the context of mailing list interaction, it seems obvious that such a
perception may be generated by having one's posts responded to...are you
receiving me?
"-no text is the work of any one person."
(Kress. 85:32)
"...the reality of the interactive whole [is] a determinant of the
functions of the constituent parts...
The condition for the existence of a determinative group in this sense
seems to be that each participant be aware of the perceptions of the other.
If I know that the other person perceives me and he knows that I perceive
him, this mutual awareness becomes a part determinant of all our action and
interaction...[..]..if only to stress that the group as defined in terms of
mutual awareness of perception, is something different from groups
determined merely by mutual irritability or responsiveness...[..]
...the motivation for deliberate falsehood can hardly exist without
awareness of the other individual's perception..[..]..thus the occurrence
of falsehood becomes evidence that the group is one based upon mutual
awareness of perception."
<please, please, try to deceive me>
(GB, 208-209)
"The disposition of a phrase universe consists in the situating of these
instances in relation to each other."
he then continues by characterising the relationship between these
instances and places where a phrase is constituted by silence:
"26. Silence does not indicate which instance is denied, it signals the
denial of one or more of these instances...[for example]...1) that of the
situation in question (the case) is not the addressee's business (he or she
[feels that s/he] lacks the competence, or he or she is not worthy of being
spoken to about it, etc); or 2) the case never took place [does not exist];
or 3) that there is nothing to say about it (the situation is senseless,
inexpressible); or 4) that it is not the [addressor's] business to be
talking about it ([s/he]they are not worthy, etc). Or several of these
negations together."
< note that here lyotard is referring to a specific case involving a denial
that the holocaust took place. for this addressor, i feel that it is not my
business to be talking about this case, and so have removed reference to it
from the quotation above>
"It is not expected of the Assembly that it should take the floor, that it
should debate, nor even that it should judge. The epideictic is not
dialectics, nor is it even forensic or deliberative rhetoric; it leans
rather towards poetics. It is a matter of arousing in the addressee not
phrases, but those quasi-phrases which are silent feelings. If phrases took
place, they would sooner or later remove the equivocation from the pathos
and dissipate the charm (it can be observed here that certain phrase
families - the poetic ones - are staked upon the addressee's silence as a
signal of feeling)
----
...in the addressor is presupposed a disimulation, an occultation, the
apocrypt (it's not me, it's the gods, the heroes who are phrased through my
mouth...)..." (JFL, p21)
Date: Sat, 16 May 1998 17:21:35
From: eldon
Subject: Re: role of the reader
>Can you say more here about recent lexicography, dictionaries, computers?
>I'm curious about the huge projects now going on, involving say expert
>systems or ways of dealing with a total sememe completely out of
>control...
well, i could say something about my own
derived theories and notions on this topic,
make a "completely out of control" sememiosis,
but, instead, some description.
Notes
Lexa for DOS
Notes
(1) Thus is the infinite regression of la langue disposed of. 9407
