The previous blog post dedicated to texts addressed the topic only in the context of linguistics, applied linguistics, literary studies and philosophy of language. The same also applied to the discussion of textuality, contextuality, intertextuality and paratextuality.
The purpose of this blog post is not to repeat to the contents of that previous post, nor to address whether text differs discourse. Instead, this blog post is all about doing what many consider to be unthinkable, to think just about anything as texts and thinking about them in ways that are different from what most people, including most linguists are familiar and/or comfortable with.
To be clear, people often think that text is writing. Therefore, it comes as a shock to them that someone can say that, for example, a painting or a photo can be understood as a text, not to mention that a landscape can be understood as text.
What may surprise you is that analyzing texts is not as difficult one might think, regardless of what kind of text one is dealing with. It does not take some special skill or talent. It does take skill to find the relevant texts, but I would not classify that as a special skill. There is no secret sauce. Instead, what it takes is time and considerable effort. If you have the time and put in the hours, it is not even that difficult, as also noted by Marcus Doel (219) in his book chapter ‘Textual Analysis’.
Expanding the scope from language, typically manifested in writing, to just about anything does, of course, make analysis much harder if you are only acquainted with linguistic analysis of texts. Luckily, this is simply a lack of familiarity with other kinds texts. Textual analysis is as simple as familiarizing yourself with the various texts and then interpreting them through various other texts.
Expressions
I will be referring to various expressions in this blog post to avoid giving the impression that texts consists of writing and/or speech. It is also what I prefer to use in general. It covers not only both speech and writing, but also other semiotic modes, without having to specify or list which kinds of expressions I am dealing with.
Consulting a dictionary helps us to understand why expression is such an apt word. Oxford English Dictionary confirms that expression (OED, s.v. “expression”, n.) covers both speech and writing:
“A written or spoken statement; an utterance[.]”
It is also noted that expression (OED, s.v. “expression”, n.) can be something non-linguistic:
“More generally: an action, appearance, state, etc., that represents, demonstrates, or indicates something; a sign, an indication.”
Therefore, a sentence is an expression, as is an utterance, but this is also the case with a gesture, a gaze, a glance, a posture, a smirk or a wink. They can also consist many sentences or utterances, so that a novel can be understood as an expression. Basically anything can be an expression, in the sense that it expresses something, whatever that may be. For example, it is recognized in the same dictionary (OED, s.v. “expression”, n.) that a painting, a sculpture or a song are all expressions, in the sense that they express something, such as “a theme, feeling, message” or “mood, or atmosphere.”
Expression also has this dynamic sense to it. An expression is an act. It expresses something. Of course, some expressions, such as novels, paintings and sculptures, have a more permanent, lasting form than others, such as speeches and songs (inasmuch as they are not recordings).
This is not to say that it is more apt to refer to speech, writing or sentences and utterances when one is dealing with speech and writing or sentences and utterances. The same applies to the other forms of expression. It is rather that it simpler to refer to them collectively as expressions. This also accounts for how an expression combine a number of semiotic modes.
Making sense
There are two ways to think about expressions, whatever they may be. We can ponder about what they mean, in the sense that we are occupied by what they truly are or what is their underlying truth. That is the dictionary definition of the word meaning (OED, s.v. “meaning”, n.):
“The significance, purpose, underlying truth, etc., of something.”
The problem is that this meaning of meaning that is indicated in a dictionary is just one of the meanings of meaning. The various meanings contained in the dictionary do give us an idea of what meaning means, but there is very little that is definite.
It is indeed difficult to tease out the meaning of meaning. I will nonetheless try my best to summarize the various dictionary definitions of meaning (OED, s.v. “meaning”, n.). Firstly, it is something about something or, to be more specific, something that is somehow important or significant about something. Secondly, it has to do intention or purpose. In other words, it is the why of something. Thirdly, is more or less synonymous with denotation, referent, sense and signification.
None of this particularly useful. It is almost like one is going around in circles. To summarize the synonyms or near synonyms, denotation (OED, s.v. “denotation”, n.) has to do with designating, describing, marking and most relevantly, meaning and signifying, referent (OED, s.v. “referent”, n.) has to do with that which one refers to or signifies by one’s expression, sense (OED, s.v. “sense”, n.) has to do with meaning or meanings, as in ‘in what sense’, that which is sensible or intelligible, and the idea, point or substance of something that can be expressed in various ways, and signification (OED, s.v. “signification”, n.) has to do with meaning or, to be more specific, that which expresses the meaning of something or what is important or significant about it.
Consulting a more specific dictionary, such as David Crystal’s ‘A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics’, does little to alleviate this is issue. It is difficult to explain what is the meaning of meaning. Crystal (298-299) also mentions that it is something about something and acknowledges that there can many meanings and many kinds of meanings, such as textual meaning and, more specifically, lexical meaning or semantic meaning, grammatical or structural meaning, which can then be contrasted with contextual meaning.
To account for the other terms, Crystal (436) indicates that in connection to signification meaning is the concept, what Ferdinand de Saussure refers to as the signified. He (102, 136) also comments that denotation has to do with the non-linguistic or extralinguistic referent, whatever it may be, that which one refers to in language, or, alternatively, close to that, the literal meaning, which is then contrasted with connotations, which are associated or related meanings. He (102-103, 432) notes that sense has to do with sense relations or semantic relations, which have to do with the meanings of words and phrases and how they relate to one another, i.e., whether their meanings are similar, dissimilar, multiple or hierarchical or forms are similar or dissimilar.
To consult another specialist dictionary, ‘The Cambridge Dictionary of Linguistics’, Keith Brown and Jim Miller (281) state that meaning is the “information encoded in a sentence and conveyed by an utterance” and that the former does not require taking the context into account, whereas the latter does require to it. In other words, sentences deal with textual meaning and utterances deal with contextual meaning. Furthermore, they (127, 264, 281) also add that there can be many kinds of meanings, such as grammatical meaning, lexical meaning (denotation), literal meaning and sentence meaning. Sense is explained by them (400) similarly to Crystal, but they also note that it is also used indicate a certain meaning, instead of another meaning, as in ‘in what sense’ one uses a word.
Even specialist dictionaries of linguistics struggle to define meaning. It is, however, broadly speaking classified as a matter that concerns both semantics and pragmatics, as stated by Kate Scott (2) in ‘Pragmatics in English: An Introduction’:
“Semantics is concerned with the meaning of a linguistic expression independent of the context in which it is used. Pragmatics, on the other hand, is the study of how meaning is produced and understood in context.”
It is, however, worth noting that semantics is not one homogeneous field of research that concerns textual meaning, nor is pragmatics one homogeneous field research that concerns contextual meaning. There are many kinds of semantics and pragmatics or, rather semantic theories and pragmatic theories that account for meaning and the terms used by the various theorists vary considerably, as elaborated by Crystal (379, 428-429).
In my experience, meaning is commonly used in both semantics and pragmatics. Some also use other terms, such as purport and sense, either synonymously with meaning or as something distinct from meaning. I personally prefer sense and like to distinguish it from meaning. I my view, sense is something that cannot be explained. It is not something pre-existing, but rather something that is made. It emerges in the process, so that something either makes sense or does not make sense. It also emphasizes the importance of understanding, for example when one asks ‘in what sense’ someone uses some expression. Meaning is something more general for me. I try to avoid using it. The reason for avoiding it has to do with how people think that meaning is something pre-existing and something that each word has. I do, however, use it in a colloquial sense when I say or write something like ‘I mean’ or ‘by which I mean’ or the like, because I cannot replace it with sense. It means something altogether different in the verb form.
This also applies to other fields and disciplines. These terms used in various ways outside linguistics. Therefore, you want to be careful when you are address other people’s work. For example, Doel (218) uses the terms meaning and sense meaning and sense interchangeably in a book chapter called ‘Textual Analysis’, but I do not. This is fine, no problem. I do not find it fruitful to police how this and/or that term is used. It is rather that I think that you should seek to understand that how they use the terms is not necessarily the same as how you understand the terms.
Expanding the scope
To make more sense of how texts can be just about anything, it is useful to address the word itself. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, text (OED, s.v. “text”, n.1) has and can still be understood in many ways and it is generally understood as synonymous with writing:
“The main content of a piece of writing, in its original form, as distinct from any commentary, annotations, notes, introduction, appendices, etc.”
This is repeated in another definition (OED, s.v. “text”, n.1):
“The part of a manuscript, a printed book, a page, etc., which contains the main written content, esp. as distinct from parts that contain other elements, such as glosses, notes, commentary, appendices, and images.”
Here text is, indeed, understood as synonymous with writing, which can be contrasted with other writing and anything else, including the illustrations, that can be understood as paratext.
The same dictionary (OED, s.v. “text”, n.1) does, however, complicate things. Firstly, it is acknowledged that text can be writing or speech. Secondly, it is also acknowledge that text can something else as well, inasmuch as it is something that can be analyzed or it is open to interpretation.
Doel accounts for the analysis of texts in book chapter that also bears the title ‘Textual analysis’ (different content, different pagination). He (586) addresses the etymology of text (OED, s.v. “text”, n.1) and context (OED, s.v. “context”, n.), noting that text is really something woven, like a fabric, i.e., texture, and context is the way in which texts or textures are woven together. This makes sense. Firstly, the etymology of texture (OED, s.v. “texture”, n.) helps us to understand it is anything that is woven together, like a textile (OED, s.v. “textile”, n.) . Secondly, this also applies to language use is always connected to other uses of language, both before and after, as explained by Valentin Vološinov (72) in ‘Marxism and the Philosophy of Language’.
Texture is, however, more than text or textile. It (OED, s.v. “texture”, n.) also pertain to how something feels, like when you run your hand on something and you notice that it has a certain texture to it:
“[T]he tactile quality of an object or its surface, or of a substance, material, etc.”
To be clear, it is not that fabrics or textiles cannot have this quality, but rather that texture is just that (OED, s.v. “texture”, n.):
“The tactile property or quality of a fabric, esp. a woven one, resulting from its component materials and the way in which they have been woven or otherwise formed into cloth.”
This is also the case when people talk about food. The texture of food is not the taste itself, but rather how the food feels in one’s mouth (OED, s.v. “texture”, n.):
“[T]he way a food feels in the mouth; the tactile quality of a food or its surface.”
In other words, texture is, in this context, the mouthfeel or, as it is noted in the dictionary (OED, s.v. “texture”, n.), the consistency of the food.
Doel addresses texture in the other book chapter called ‘Textual Analysis’. In his (217) view, text is about sense, what most people probably refer to as meaning, whereas texture is about sensation, what most people probably refer to as feeling.
To add something to Doel’s distinction between text and texture, the dictionary definitions (OED, s.v. “texture”, n.) remind us that, oddly enough, what is typically considered a text can also be understood as having a certain texture to it:
“The characteristic style or quality of a piece of writing[.]”
In my view, this is not as surprising as one might think. While we may think of speech or writing as something that expresses something, some meaning or sense, but it is also important to acknowledge what that expression does to people, i.e., what sensations they cause in people. This way one addresses they ways in which language, be it spoken or written, and, more broadly speaking, any semiotic of mode of expression is not only capable of making sense, there and then, but also to affect people, and to arouse certain feelings in them that they then make sense of linguistically. In this way, text and texture encapsulate the ways in which language is simultaneously about making sense and affecting others and, reciprocally, being affected by others.
- Text = making sense
- Texture = affecting
In other words, thinking in terms of text and texture helps us in two ways. Firstly, it helps us to understand how language is not about discovering or uncovering a meaning, like decoding what such and such a sentence means, as if meaning existed on its own, but rather actively making sense, with emphasis on making it. Secondly, it helps us to understand how language simultaneously affects people. Some might say that language therefore has the capacity to touch them, but that is not accurate as it has no capacity to alter anything or anyone physically. Instead, think it is more apt to say that language has the capacity to move people and, by extension, any other being that is capable of comprehending humans. This has to do with how one can be emotionally moved by what someone says or writes. It also has to do with how by saying or writing something others can be made to move, by which I mean to do something.
It must also be added that I do not think that one can separate text and texture. I realize that others, especially many linguists, may disagree with me, but, in my view, what is interesting about language is not what it is, nor what its constituent parts, such as sentences, words, morphemes, sounds, are, as these are all abstractions, but what it does and, more specifically, what it can be used to do to people and what it causes in them. For example, your capacity to affect and be affected is physically altered if you have a lower body injury that prevents you from walking. You are stuck at home until you have recovered from your injury. Let’s say that someone kicked you and that is how the injury happened. This can also be the case even without the kick. Your capacity to affect and be affected can also be limited by a spoken or written threat. You can walk. Nothing physically prevents you from leaving your home. You are nonetheless stuck at home, because you fear that something will happen to you.
To explain that in another way, language cannot actually do something, whatever it is, to people, but what is remarkable about it is that it can do that to them virtually. If someone injures you, for example by kicking you, and it prevents you from moving, you are then actually immobile. If someone threatens to injure you, for example to kick you so hard that you can then no longer move, you are not actually immobile as you remain physically able to move. Instead, you are virtually immobile, as if you were immobile, because that fear has effectively paralyzed you.
The odd thing about language is, however, that it is not just about the texture, i.e., its capacity to affect. You still need the text, i.e., making sense. For example, if someone speaks to you, but you do not understand that text, because you lack familiarity with other texts, you may not be able to comprehend that text, what they say to you, as a threat and therefore you do not end up feeling threatened. This does not, however, mean that what was said was not necessarily a threat. It may well be a threat and have serious consequences to you, regardless of whether you understood it as such. The point here is rather that ignorance can be a bliss. What was said makes no sense to you. It is, in fact, nonsensical. If it is an empty threat and you cannot comprehend it as a threat, it is not effectively a threat to you.
Locution, illocution and perlocution
J. L. Austin explains in ‘How to Do Things with Words’ that what is said, written or simply expressed in some way has three dimensions. Firstly, locution is what is said, written or expressed. Secondly, illocution is what force one attributes it with. Thirdly, perlocution is what effects it has.
- Locution = the expression
- Illocution = the force of the expression
- Perlocution = the effect of the expression
It is crucial to understand that locution, illocution and perlocution are not sequences of the expression and that the force and the effect of the expression are not something added to the expression, as cautioned by Austin (113). One does not move from locution to illocution and then from illocution to perlocution, nor attach illocution and perlocution to locution, as if giving them some additional color or flavor. Instead, locution, illocution and perlocution are dimensions of each expression, as noted by Austin (109).
It is therefore worth emphasizing that Austin does not distinguish between language and language use, which makes his account of language revolutionary. Unlike those who subscribe to ‘linguistics proper’ or ‘mainstream linguistics’, he does not believe that linguists need to investigate language, in all its complexity, and provide “a purely static description of the code itself” before they address language in use, so that they “know what words mean” in advance, before they are used, as commented by Oswald Ducrot and Tzvetan Todorov (338) in the ‘Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Sciences of Language’. Austin’s focus is therefore on what one accomplishes by saying something, “in the very act of speaking”, and not on what one can “accomplish by using speech”, because language and language use are one and the same thing for him, as summarized by Ducrot and Todorov (342).
To be clear, Austin is not the only one to have rejected distinguishing language from language use and privileging the former over the latter. It is fair to say that Mikhail Bakhtin and Valentin Vološinov held this view before Austin. It is also fair to say that others, namely Wilhelm von Humboldt, Karl Bühler and Roman Jakobson also accounted for functions of language, why and how people say something about something, to someone, as commented by Ducrot and Todorov (339-342).
To summarize Austin’s account of language, we can think of the expression, whatever it may be, as something that someone expresses to someone else, that is the locutionary act, with some intent or purpose, that is the illocutionary act, and it was understood by that someone else in some way, that is the perlocutionary act. There can, of course, be multiple people involved, which may result in a number of perlocutionary acts, instead of just one perlocutionary act, which complicates matters considerably.
It is also possible to think of the expression as consisting of a number of acts, as specified by Austin (107). For example, if I tell someone a story in which someone says something to someone else, we can also analyze that story on its own, as consisting of various locutionary acts, i.e., whatever it is that someone says to someone else, illocutionary acts, i.e., whatever it is that someone seeks to achieve by saying something to someone else, and perlocutionary acts, i.e., the way in which that someone else then understood what was said.
To be clear, it is not that the locution is unimportant. It is the text. It is necessary. Otherwise there is no illocution, nor perlocution. It is rather that, penultimately, what that one can do with an expression and, ultimately, what that expression does is much more important than the expression itself.
For example, I can ask you something like: ‘Are you dumb?’ If we focus on the locution, it is fair to say that it is a question. The question mark already signals that to us and, in its absence, it is the structure, verb-subject-object, instead of subject-verb-object, that tells us that. But is it really a question? It is, it is not and/or it is both.
If we think of that locution and analyze it grammatically, it is clearly a question. There is no doubt about it. We might say, for example, that it is a yes/no type of an interrogative. The expected answer to that is an affirmative declarative clause, ‘Yes, I am dumb’, or a negative declarative clause ‘no, I am not dumb’.
To be even more specific, we can examine that locution more closely. To summarize Austin (92-93), it can be understood as a phonetic act, accounting for “the act of uttering certain noises”, a phatic act, accounting for the ways in which these noises come together as words that appear in a sequence, having a certain form and order, etc., and a rhetic act, accounting for its “more or less definite ‘sense’ and … more or less definite ‘reference'” that can together be understood as its meaning.
There are two problems with remaining at the level of locution. To account for the first problem, locution pertains to locutionary acts. Simply put, it is always someone who expresses something. The expression does not exist without an expresser. The expression can, of course, remain in existence longer than the expresser. For example, the author, such as the writer, the painter, the photographer or sculptor, is often dead and we can make sense of their work. Nonetheless, the expression owes its existence to the expresser. There is no question about that. Austin recognizes this, that it is always people who say or write something and that they have certain intents, that they seek to achieve something by saying something. That is illocution. So, when someone ask a seemingly simple question like ‘Are you dumb?’, it is fair to counter that question with another question like ‘What do you mean by that?’ or ‘In what sense are you using that question?’, as recognized by him (99):
“It makes a great difference whether we [are] advising, or merely suggesting, or actually ordering, whether we [are] strictly promising or only announcing a vague intention, and so forth.”
Therefore, it is not that locution is unimportant, as it is the expression, what we might call also call a text. Without it, there is no illocution. Austin (99) aptly summarizes the difference between the two and why the latter is much more important than the former by noting that a locutionary act is an expression, for example “an act of saying something”, whereas an illocutionary act is the force of an expression, for example “an act in saying something”.
To comment on the example, ‘Are you dumb?’ can be a question, inasmuch the person expressing it uses it in that sense, with intent to clarify whether the person that they express it to is unintelligent. It can, however, also be assertion that the other person is unintelligent, inasmuch as the person expressing it uses in that sense, with intent to insult the person they express it to. It can also be more than that. It can be intended as an insult, while also making the insulted person realize or recognize something and do what they were, perhaps, supposed to do. It might also be that it is not intended as an insult, in the sense that one asserts that someone is unintelligent, but rather as an admonishment, in the sense that one thinks that someone is naïve.
This is exactly what makes speech act theory revolutionary. It reveals that when one expresses something one is not simply expressing what has been expressed before to another person, as if tapping into a pool of pre-existing meanings that match that expression and then communicating that to another person who recognizes that meaning because it is tied to that expression. It reveals that meaning is always made, hence the expression that something makes sense. This means that one can say one thing and mean just about anything with it. It does not even have to be grammatical. We can therefore alter the example, ‘Are you dumb?’, by dropping the initial verb, ‘You dumb?’. If we focus solely on its structure and therefore ignore the question mark, somehow that expression can still make sense.
The reason why that example, now reduced to ‘You dumb’ or, to use phonemic notation, /ju dʌm/, still makes sense has to do with the way it is expressed. It is not what is said that matters. It is how it is said that matters.
This is also a juicy example in its reduced form. Changes in intonation and stress make it appear as a declarative clause, short for ‘You are dumb’, exclamative clause, short for ‘You are dumb!’, or interrogative clause, short for ‘Are you dumb?’.
Vološinov helps us to understand why this is the case. He (99-100) differentiates between abstract meaning, which he simply refers to as meaning, and concrete meaning, which he refers to as theme. To be more precise, he (99-100) states that meaning pertains to “all those aspects of the utterance that are reproducible and self-identical in all instances”, whereas theme pertains to what is “individual and unreproducible” about the utterance. To be very precise, he (100) states that:
“Theme is a complex, dynamic system of signs that attempts to be adequate to a given instant of generative process. Theme is reaction by the consciousness in its generative process to the generative process of existence. Meaning is the technical apparatus for the implementation of theme.”
To unpack that, theme is simply what the expression seeks to account for the concrete, historical situation, there and then, whereas meaning is the ways in which this is done. This may make it seem like he is stating that we must there focus on efforts on meaning, what amounts to scientific study of language, to understand theme. This is, however, not at all that he stating. He (100) does recognize the importance of meaning in determining theme, as one cannot ignore locution, that it the expression has a certain form, namely that expressions consists of “words” and that they have “morphological and syntactic structures, sounds, and intonation.” However, understanding meaning, what we might also call form, in all its detail and complexity, does not, however, result in understanding the theme, because meaning is, in his view, only a means to an end and not the end itself.
To comprehend the abstractness of meaning and the concreteness of theme, it is helpful to think of the former as the lower, general limit of understanding and the latter as the upper, definite limit of understanding, as explained by him (101). This also has clear implications for analysis, as stated (101-102) by him:
“Investigation of the meaning of one or another linguistic element can proceed … either in the direction of the upper limit, toward theme, in which it would be investigation of the contextual meaning of a given word within the conditions of a concrete utterance[,] or … toward the lower limit, the limit of meaning, in which case it would be investigation of the meaning of a word in the system of language or, in other words, … of a dictionary word.”
This account for how it is possible for people to understand one another, while also accounting for misunderstanding and non-comprehension. Jean-Jacques Lecercle (66-67) comments on this matter, albeit in his own way, in his book ‘Interpretation as Pragmatics’. Think of total strangers. The better command they have of language and the more they have knowledge of the world, the more they can strive for the upper limit and still understand one another. Conversely, the worse command they have of language and the less they have knowledge of the world, the more they need to rely on the lower limit in order to understand one another.
It may seem like Vološinov considers the study of meaning, i.e., ‘linguistics proper’, a worthy cause and that is not entirely inaccurate. He does recognize its value, but the problem for him (101) is that misses the point:
“Meaning, in essence, means nothing[.]”
He has two reasons for stating this. To account for the first reason, he (100-104) takes issue with the rigidity of linguistics: it focuses only on meaning and, even then, fails to account for how flexible meaning is. He (100-104) exemplifies this with intonation, how we can take just about any expression, such as a four word expression “‘What time is it?'” or even just one word expression, no matter what it is, and change its theme by altering another part of meaning, not the words, but the way they are expressed, making them “only a vehicle for intonation.”
To return to my example, ‘You dumb?’, the reason why this makes sense and can be used in a number of ways has to do with harnessing meaning, in specific way, overriding its syntactic structure with intonation and stress, while retaining the notion or implication tied to the word ‘dumb’ that someone is unintelligent or naïve, so that it has a concrete theme.
To be crystal clear, this works with single words and even with something, in itself, nonsensical as “‘Ah!’”, as acknowledged by Mikhail Bakhtin in ‘The Problem of Speech Genres’. In fact, it does not matter whether a word has a dictionary meaning or if it is made up, for the simple reason that theme cannot be reduced to meaning. Vološinov (104-105) is particularly adamant about this:
“In … these instances, theme, which is a property of each utterance … , is implemented entirely and exclusively by the power of expressive intonation without the aid of word meaning or grammatical coordination.”
This leads us to the second reason why he takes issue with linguistics. To reiterate an earlier point, there is no expression without someone who expresses it. Linguistics tends to ignore the expresser and therefore it fails to account for how people can utilize meaning the ways in which they see fit for their purposes, hence also the difference between locution and illocution. It also fails to account for how all expressions accented by evaluation, by which Vološinov (103) means that what people say, write or express in any other way is always marked by “social value judgement”. This is why linguists miss the point if they opt to focus on locution instead illocution.
While analyzing locution can be useful, for example to differentiate how intonation and stress can alter the meaning of an expression, such the way in which ‘You dumb’ can be interpreted as a declarative, exclamative or interrogative clause. However, it does not account for theme, which is central to illocution. Therefore, focusing on locution fails to explain how it is, for example, possible to state something, such as that someone is unintelligent, in the form of question and how is it possible to state something in the exact opposite form, which is the case with irony and sarcasm.
To be clear, even a single word can work this way, as explained by (101-104) Vološinov. For example, one can say ‘great’ to indicate that something is ‘terrible’. In fact, a word can be used to indicate anything, whatsoever, as “[t]he meaning of a word is determined entirely by its context”, albeit this is rare because it is confusing to use “a semantically full-fledged word” this way, as expressed by him (79, 104). All I can think of are curse words or, rather words that are often used as curse words, as also alluded by him (103-104) in his own example, which is why such all-meaning words tend to be limited to peculiar expressions like “‘so-so,’ ‘yes-yes’, ‘now-now,’ ‘well-well'”, as specified by him (104).
Circumstances
Linguistics also tend to ignore that it takes two to tango. Locution is simply the expression. Illocution acknowledges the expresser, that expression is always an expression of something, by someone. Perlocution shifts the focus from the expresser, the person who expresses something, to the expressee, the person or persons who come into contact with the expression.
This also applies to speech act theory. It tends to ignore this, that it takes two to tango. Illocution is thought of as a matter of intent, that it simply conveys what the person expressing something wants to achieve by expressing it. It acknowledges perlocution, which is what the expression actually achieves, but this aspect of the theory is rather underdeveloped.
Speech act theory treats language not as something that is, but rather something that does. Therefore, it is all about the action, but what it fails to address about action is that it is, in fact, always a matter of interaction. This is why I stated that even it fails to account for how it takes two to tango.
It is not that Austin fails to elaborate what he means by perlocution. He (105) is, in fact, very clear that someone may express something, that is the illocutionary act, and it may have the intended effect, so that someone else understands it the way it was intended or misunderstands it as something else, that is the perlocutionary act. Furthermore, he (116) acknowledges that certain expressions are bound to prompt certain responses and that they are typically responded with certain expressions. For example, questions tend to be answered and, to be more specific, yes or no questions tend answered with either yes or no, and how questions tend to be answered with explaining the ways in which something is the case.
He (120-121) also acknowledges the importance of understanding. It is of little consequence what one intents if what one expresses and the way in which one expresses is not understood as such. For example, if you say ‘I’m so excited’ with flat intonation, the problem is that you do not express excitement. There is nothing wrong with the locution and there is a meaning that is conveyed, but the illocution is off, so that theme is not about excitement, but about something else. This is also the case if one uses a rising intonation. The locution is just fine. Some meaning is conveyed. However, instead of expressing excitement, you either appear to be posing a strange question, questioning your own state of mind, or to be sarcastic, expressing that you could not care less, as it is conventional to use rising intonation to mark yes-no type of questions. This is not to say that neither of these make any sense. You can imagine a situation where you say such, for example if you are surprised by how you have been overcome with some emotion, like how can that even be and you verbalize that, or if you want to make a snarky remark. It is rather that if you intent to express something and others to understand that, you do have to express it in a way that others can understand. You can, of course, play with this. You can express something in a way that is difficult for others to comprehend, so that just some people can understand you and others cannot.
In addition, he (121) acknowledges that there is no way of verifying whether someone understood something:
“A judge should be able to decide, by hearing what was said, what locutionary and illocutionary acts were performed, but not what perlocutionary acts were achieved.”
It possible to analyze the locution, even in great detail, as done by many linguists. The illocution can also be analyzed, as done by pragmaticians, inasmuch there appears to be some intent to achieve something by expressing something. It is also possible to ask the person what they tried to express, albeit there is the risk that the person lies about the intent. None of this is possible with perlocution. We can certainly ask people whether they understood what was expressed and what someone sought to achieve by expressing it, but there is nothing in their response that guarantees that. We simply have to trust them. They may even say that everything is crystal clear to them, only for us to later on realize that it was not the case. They may have thought they did, but they did not. The same also applies to us. Others cannot be sure that we understood their response. They simply have to trust us. This is not to say that people do not understand one another, as they frequently do, but rather that it cannot verified with recourse to the expressions.
There is a very good reason for why it is impossible to verify whether someone has understood what someone else’s expression. The simplest explanation is that theme is indivisible, as stated by Vološinov (100). This means that it is impossible to analyze it, considering that analysis (OED, s.v. “analysis”, n.) is another word for division, for breaking something down to its components to understand it through its composition. In other words, theme is unitary, as noted by him (99), and therefore you either understand it or you do not understand it. It is as simple as that.
To be more specific, theme is space and time specific, unique to each expression, and therefore it cannot be explained with recourse to any of its forms (e.g. linguistic forms, such as “words, morphological and syntactic structures, sounds, and intonation”), nor to the sum of its forms (i.e., accounting for all of them), as explained by Vološinov (99-100). These forms are important, but they only account for meaning and not for theme, which also depends on various non-linguistic or extra-linguistic factors, what he (100) also refers to situational factors.
The reason why it appears to be possible to think that each word has a corresponding fixed meaning and that we can therefore understand what someone says or writes by simply analyzing what someone says or writes is because we imagine a concrete situation in which someone says or writes something, as explained by him (100). We then use it as an example to account for what something means, as also noted by him (100):
“[I]t is impossible to convey the meaning of a particular word … without having made it an element of theme, i.e., without having constructed an ‘example’ utterance.”
In other words, when linguists state that some word has a certain meaning, they must account for how that word is used and therefore they must provide an example of its usage. That example can be what someone actually said or wrote, but it can also be made up, what someone might say or write. In fact, it makes no difference which one it is, because, in his (38, 72) view, thinking is inner speech, speaking is outer speech and all speech is dialogic. To be more specific, thinking simply replaces the actual person that one is speaking to with a virtual person that one imagines speaking to, as explained by him (85). The meaning of some word is therefore simply abstracted from the way it is used in a wide variety of concrete utterances. It accounts for what is common between these utterances and disregards what the theme, i.e., what is unique about them.
Social circumstances
It is fair to say that, on one hand, Austin does acknowledge how circumstances matter when it comes to speech acts, but, on the other hand, he does not elaborate on the circumstances. In his words (8):
“[I]t is always necessary that the circumstances in which the words are uttered should be in some way, or ways, appropriate, and it is very commonly necessary that either the speaker … or the other persons should also perform certain other actions, whether ‘physical’ or ‘mental’ actions or even acts of uttering further words.”
He (3, 6, 8-9) occasionally mentions certain circumstances, noting that people tend to say certain things, only in certain circumstances, so that, for example, naming a ship only makes sense in the context of a ship that is there, waiting to be launched, and indicating one’s willingness to marry only makes sense at a ceremony, between unmarried, competent people. Similarly, betting only makes sense in the context of some competition, race or the like, as noted by him (13-14). Some of them he (22) mentions being ordinary circumstances, while others are special circumstances.
What matters to him (9, 13) is that things are said in appropriate circumstances. To be clear, one can say just about anything under any circumstances. He does not consider such to incorrect, untrue or wrong, but rather inappropriate. His (22) preferred terms for this are felicity and infelicity that account for whether what is said is happy or unhappy, fitting or not fitting for the circumstances.
- Truth → felicity
- Falsity → infelicity
Beyond this, he is not particularly specific about distinguishing between different circumstances. They can be just about anything, involving just about anyone and they can also pertain to the people involved, as explicitly acknowledge by him (34):
“Indeed ‘circumstances’ can clearly be extended to cover in general ‘the natures’ of all persons participating.”
By this wishes to cover circumstances in which you need certain kind of people, having a certain kind of status, for any of it to make sense. For example, he (35) mentions baptizing and appointing consuls. The former requires a member of the clergy, a baby, water and a human name that is given to the baby. The latter requires a head a state or ministry and a human candidate that is appointed to the position.
While speech act theory accounts what is said (expressed), the person who says it (expresser) and the person to whom it is said or who just happens to hear it (expressee), it does not elaborate on how that person came to say it and how the other person or persons came to hear it. There are these circumstances that Austin mentions, but he is otherwise rather unspecific about the people involved. Moreover, what is common about the views regarding speech act theory, whether it be Austin or those who build on his work, is that circumstances are largely about the people involved. This applies to John Searle’s work in particular, as commented by Marina Sbisà (422) in ‘Speech acts in context’:
“[M]ost of those [felicity] conditions are formulated in terms of beliefs or intentions of the participants.”
It also applies to Kent Bach’s and Robert Harnish’s view of the matter in ‘Linguistic Communication and Speech Acts’, how people come to recognize and understand the intent of the speaker, as noted by her (422):
“[T]he success of the speech act … is defined in terms of the recognition of the speaker’s communicative intention by the hearer.”
In summary, the context is limited to the speaker (expresser) and the hearer (expressee). Everything is irrelevant, as she (422) goes on to specify:
“[A]ny reference to social situational factors has disappeared from the definitions[.]”
This applies also another well known theory in pragmatics, relevance theory. As indicated by the name of the theory, what is considered particularly important is what is relevant, as judged by the hearer who infers this from what the speaker says, as commented by her (422).
To be clear, this is not to say that the people involved are irrelevant, but rather that accounting only for them and how they think and feel is reductive. This means that the context, wherever it may be, is thought of as simply given, as noted by her (424). This is, however, less the case with Austin’s original formulations and more the case with others, as commented by Sbisà (428):
“[R]eference to context in speech act theory has shifted from context as actual states of affairs … to context as a set of proposition attitudes[.]”
She (428) rejects this shift for the simple reason that the actual states of affairs matter. It makes a world of difference whether something is the way we and/or others think it is or whether we and/or others only think it is the case.
To exemplify this, imagine attempting to rob a bank, with and without a firearm. If you walk into a bank with a firearm, it is likely that people will believe that you are there to rob the bank when you shout ‘This is a robbery!’ and highly likely they believe you if you fire a few shots before or after shouting that. If you walk into a bank without a firearm, it is unlikely that people will believe that you are there to rob the bank, no matter whether you shout that and/or if you also shout ‘Bang! Bang!’ before or after shouting that a robbery is now taking place.
To further exemplify this, imagine the same scenario, but change the place. Imagine that it does involve a firearm, but it just takes place elsewhere. It may still make sense as a robbery if it takes place in a store or if you stop an armored car transporting money, but it is unlikely to make sense as a robbery at a homeless shelter or at a prison.
Judges are another good example. They can sentence people, to pay fines, to serve time in prison or even to death. This power is, however, limited. They can only do this in a courtroom. They have no such power over others elsewhere. They also need to be assigned to a case, work on that case, deliberate on that case and then, and only then, can they do this. Furthermore, this only makes sense if law and order prevails. They cannot do any of this if law cannot be enforced.
It is also worth pointing out that speech acts are generally thought of as occurring in isolation. One person expresses something to another person, who then understands it in a certain way. Even if one addresses what people say to one another, the back and forth between them tends to be isolated from what happened before and after it. Vološinov (72) objects also to this:
“Any utterance—the finished, written utterance not excepted—makes response to something and is calculated to be responded to in turn.”
In other words, there is always something that was expressed before the expression and something that will be expressed after the expression, in response to the expression. Furthermore, what is expressed and how it is expressed is not simply a response to something and prompt another expression in response to it. It is also important to realize that each expression is based on previous expressions and the imagined future expressions.
To summarize Lecercle (67-68), people have to constantly calculate what they will say, write and/or otherwise express to someone and adjust to the context. They base this on what has been expressed before, by them and others, to the extent that they are aware of it. They also base this on not what other will express, but what they think others will express in response to them, which is also calculated on the basis of what they know of them and others. This is, of course, not only impacted by what people know, but also how good command they have of a certain language or a dialect.
This applies to everything, including this blog post and my other blog posts. I have not simply chosen to write about something. Instead, what has been written before prompts me to write about it and what I have written may prompt me or someone else to write about that in the future.
Powers of expression
It is important to emphasize that, for Austin, language is indeed capable of having an effect on the world. It is not capable of changing anything about the world physically, but it is capable of changing the way we understand it. Furthermore, it is not just about how it changes what we think of the world, but also what others then think of the world. The effects it has on the world are not something we can choose to recognize. It is often what we have to recognize.
Louis Althusser explains this in ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation)’. He (173-174) points out that when people (expresser) say something or write something (expression) to others (expressee), others are forced to recognize not only that something was said or written (expression) and that it was directed at them (expressee), but also the person who said it or wrote (expresser). It is therefore fair to say that, similar to Austin, he recognizes how language involves illocution and perlocution, but, unlike Austin, not as something that one person says, writes or otherwise expresses to someone else, but, much like Bakhtin and Vološinov, as something that takes place between them, as commented by Lecercle (152-153).
Althusser (174) refers to this as interpellation and exemplifies it with how someone utters something as simple as “‘Hey, you there!'” to someone else. He (174) specifies this with noting that this is what police officers do routinely when then they suspect someone of something. What is special about this example is that the person addressed by the police officer is forced to respond to the police officer from the subject position of a suspect. Even if the person has not done anything or is misidentified, the person still has to respond from that position. If the person ignores the police officer, hearing it, but not responding to it, as if having not heard it, the police officer will repeat this and/or move closer until the person is forced to recognize and respond to the police officer. If the person seeks to escape the situation, for example by running away, that is also a response, albeit a non-verbal response, to being suspected of something by the police offer.
This example is particularly good because police officers have considerable authority. This means that they occupy a position that allows the interpellatation of not just one person, but many people, basically everyone who happens to be present, as commented by Lecercle (156):
“[T]he sense of guilt which is the psychological correlate of
subjectification is so diffuse that everyone turns round[.]”
What is particularly noteworthy about interpellation is that it takes place, there and then, between people who always, already occupy certain subject positions that allow them to express something that has the force to put others in certain subject positions. However, those subject positions, in this the case that of the police officer, are also defined in this way. Someone else must have put them in that position, having hired the person work in that position, after checking that the person qualifies for that position. This also applies to that someone else as well, in this case the person responsible for hiring police officers. That person must also be hired by someone else, just so that they are in position to hire police officers. Everyone is therefore always, already interpellated, occupying certain positions in a chain or a network of interpellation, as stated by Althusser (175-176) and Lecercle (156).
- Interpellation → subjectification
What is therefore remarkable about interpellation is that there are no stable subjects (expresser) who say, write or otherwise express something (expression), to some other subjects (expressee) who then do the same (expresser) by opting to respond or to not respond in some manner (expression) to those who said, wrote or otherwise expressed something to them (expressee). In other words, the subjects do not simply create some text that some other subjects then read. Instead, it is rather that various texts create them as subjects, defining the texts that they can create for others to read. The subject is therefore “constituted rather than constitutive”, as summarized by Lecercle (154).
In practice, this means that interpellation is both individual, concerning just one person, and collective, involving a large number of people, as explained by Lecercle (154). This is why everyone turns around and not just the person who is hailed by a police officer as being suspected of something. They know that it is what they are supposed to do when they are hailed by the police and even if they do not turn around, they know that ignoring the police is also a response to the police. One might even say that everyone who turns around makes it appear that they have not done anything, while those who do not turn around become the suspects, regardless of whether they have done something that the hailed person was suspected of having done.
It is also worth emphasizing that interpellation is something that happens between people and, more specifically, through people, as they do something, rather than something that people do. Therefore, it is not that a police officer spots someone and then interpellates that person. Instead, hailing is a speech act that involves interpellation and it concerns both the person who hails and the one hailed, as explained by Lecercle (166):
“[T]he hailing speech act is always-already caught up in a serial arrangement, which means that the hailer is not the originator of the act, but only a mouthpiece.”
In other words, police officers are interpellated through their own actions. They do what they are expected to do, which confirms that they are, indeed, police officers. If they did not do that, they would not be police officers for long. Simply put, “[t]he Scene of Interpellation is a scene …, where roles are acted out”, as summarized by Lecercle (167).
Textual analysis
The analysis of texts is generally referred to as reading, even though this is somewhat misleading. This gives the impression that all texts are writings, even though even linguists would disagree with that. For example, while speech is typically understood as discourse, linguists might point out that audio recordings can be understood as texts, in the sense that they are also inscriptions.
The good thing is that reading is familiar to just about anyone who can read and, highly importantly, comprehend what they read. Doel (218) reminds his readers that geographers are, in fact, earth-writers and earth-readers, which means that they are, most likely, already adept in analyzing the world as texts and in attuning to their textures. This is indeed what geography generally means. If we take a closer look at the word (OED, s.v. “geography”, n.), it combines two forms, geo- (OED, s.v. “geo-”, comb. form) and -graphy (OED, s.v. “-graphy”, comb. form), that together express how one depicts (e.g. draws or writes) earth.
This is not to say that reading a text, whatever it may be, is easy. The difficulty of textual analysis has to do with how a text is never self-contained. There are three key reasons for this, as explained by Lecercle (1-4) in ‘Interpretation as Pragmatics’. Firstly, understanding a text is not reducible to going through a text and then paraphrasing or summarizing it. Instead, textual analysis involves interpreting a text. Secondly, interpretation is not a matter of uncovering some meaning in a text. There is no objective meaning that is concealed or hidden in a text. This tempts people to think that it is then the author’s intent that matters. Thirdly, interpretation is not reducible to author’s intent, for the simple reason that there are many texts and many kinds of texts that can be understood even in the absence of their authors, as already noted. Therefore, there is no subjective meaning either.
In summary, there is no objective meaning to be found in the text, nor can we explain its meaning with recourse to its author. This temps us to think it is the reader who gets to define the meaning of the text. However, this would make meaning once more subjective and entail that anything goes, that any interpretation is equally good, as cautioned by Lecercle (12).
Similar commentary is provided by Gilles Deleuze in his book ‘Proust and Signs: The Complete Text’. He (28-29) notes that people often think that there is something in the object, that it can be seen or, more broadly speaking, perceived through senses and then put into words. This is, however, a presupposition, a belief that people hold on to very tight, as commented by him (30-32). Once they recognize this as an illusion, that there is no objective meaning that can be found in an object, they tend to think that it must then reside in them, that meaning is therefore subjective, as noted by him (34-36).
Focusing on solely the object, i.e., the text, or the subject, be it the person who created it or the person who encounters it, is problematic. It fails to account how one makes sense of texts through texts and, more specifically, that it is language that defines the position from which one makes sense of them, as acknowledged by both Deleuze (36-37) and Lecercle (158). One does not choose to understand a text in this and/or that way. In fact, one cannot help but to understand it in a certain way or ways, because of various other texts that one has previously encountered.
One’s interpretation of a text is therefore never objective, nor subjective, but rather collective. One always makes sense of a text dialogically, through other texts that one has come into contact with as our psyche is both linguistic and social, as explained by Vološinov (26, 28, 34). There is no human experience that we can ever explain that is not always, already marked by language; there is no individual “‘I-experience'”, only collective “‘we-experience'” that is determined by our interactions with other people, as stated by him (88). This does not, however, mean that everyone interprets and understands the same text the same way, but rather that their interpretation and understanding of a text is determined by their interactions with other people, that is to say through various texts, in the sense that everything that is said, written or otherwise expressed, and then heard, read or otherwise engaged with is understood as a text. What makes one’s interpretation and understanding from someone else’s interpretation and understanding is not that they are unique individuals who have unique views. Instead, it is that their engagement with various texts ends up differentiating them and their views, so that they end up being similar or dissimilar to others depending on their previous engagement with various texts, as specified by him (88).
It is also important to understand that this is a general feature of language. Deleuze explains this in ‘The Logic of Sense’. He (12-22) acknowledges that each expression, for example what one says or writes, has four dimensions. The first dimension is denotation or indication. They are true or false, but only in the sense that they pertain to time and space, when, for example, one refers to proper names or “this, that, it, here, there, yesterday, now, etc.”, as noted by him (13). The second dimension is manifestation. It accounts for the person who expresses something and, crucially, explains why something is expressed. The third dimension is signification. It accounts for how each expression always refers to other expressions, in infinite regress. There is nothing true or false about this dimension. Instead, the expressions only create conditions of truth that do not, however, make possible to judge something as either true or false, but rather as true (sensical) or absurd (nonsensical). This dimension also accounts for how someone can express something, in the sense that they, for example, say or write something that makes sense to others. Simply put, it may seem like the expression is attributable to a certain person and the person’s motivations, but it does not account for how that person can express anything, considering that language is something that one learns from others and through which one makes sense of oneself and others. The fourth dimension is sense. It accounts for the way in which we make sense of the world. It “is that which is expressed”, which appears, occurs or emerges the very moment something is expressed, as stated by him (20). This also explains how illocution requires locution, but also how the former is distinct from the latter or, as he (21) expresses it:
“What is expressed has no resemblance whatsoever to the expression.”
There is something that is referred to (denotation), who refers to it (manifestation) and the way in which that person refers to it (signification). That accounts for the locution. There is always someone who says something about something. However, what is expressed of it, the illocutionary act, is something completely different from the expression, the locutionary act, as explained by Deleuze together with Félix Guattari (77-81) in ‘A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia’, in explicit reference to Austin’s work.
To summarize Deleuze’s (12-22) ‘The Logic of Sense’, each expression is always highly specific. It refers to this or that, to some thing, whatever it may be, here or there, now or then, which defines whether something can be said to be true or false (e.g. this can be only this and that can only be that). It is always expressed by someone, the ‘I’ that speaks and writes, because they have certain desires and beliefs that they want to express. These desires and beliefs are not, however, their own, but rather constituted through language. What is expressed of that thing is not a quality found in that thing, nor in the expression. It is, instead, “an attribute which is said of the thing”, as stated by him (21). The queer thing about sense that likely bothers many linguists is, however, that it cannot be pinned down, because it only appears in the act of expression, as it is the illocutionary act, so that it cannot be said to ever exist, but rather subsist, as explained by him (20-21). In other words, it “cannot be grasped independently of a certain action that [it] allow[s] us to accomplish”, as commented by Ducrot and Todorov (342). This is a problem for many linguists, namely to those who subscribe to ‘linguistics proper’ or ‘mainstream linguistics’ as this means that it is impossible to “establish the semantics of these expressions without including in them at least a part of their pragmatics”, as further commented by the two (342).
Intertextual analysis
It should be clear by now that all texts are intertexts, as stated by David Bloome and Huili Hong (4875) in ‘Reading and Intertextuality’. A text only makse sense as one text among many many texts and it always appears to us in a specific context, which can only be understood through text, as our understanding of the here and now is always marked by language. Simply put, it is never enough to just read the text you want to analyze. In fact, this is impossible. You also need to read other texts and, to make sense of those other texts, you also need to read more other texts, and so on and so forth. This is what you have already done, to a certain extent, hence the impossibility of ever reading just one text, as if it existed in isolation from other texts.
In practice, this means that one really does need to read a lot of texts to make sense of just one text. It is fair to say that the task of analyzing texts may come across as daunting, considering that there is no beginning nor end to them, as stated by Doel (586) in the other ‘Textual analysis’ book chapter. There is this infinite regress, which makes analysis of texts particularly messy, as acknowledge by him (586):
“[T]extual analysis is arguably the most mixed up of mixed methods. It weaves together texts and contexts that always remain open to other texts and other contexts, and so demands further exegesis that may encompass every conceivable domain.”
If we take into account that texts can be anything, things get even more messy. It would be highly tempting to restrict the analysis, to only consider the text and to ignore anything that is not the text, i.e., non-textual or extra-textual, but the problem is that no text can exists out of context, as noted by Doel (587).
Things also get messy with a lot of texts for the simple reason that the reader, the person interpreting the text, often only has that text and cannot consult other texts or ask someone to create more text, like in a conversation, as noted by Lecercle (70). This is not to say that conversations are somehow inherently clearer than, for example, reading a novel. Conversations can be very messy, especially if people’s command of language and their knowledge of the world is limited or varies considerably, as acknowledged by him (67-70). This is more of a matter whether you already have or can gain access to more text to make sense of the text you are dealing with. Conversations allows quick back and forth, which amounts to continuous production of text that helps when there is some misunderstanding. If you struggle to understand a book, you may be able to consult other texts. This is used to be much more difficult, because you needed access to a physical copy of, for example, other books and therefore had to buy them, loan them or visit a library that had them in the collection. This is still sometimes the case, especially with older texts and niche texts, but nowadays you can access various texts immediately in electronic form, even when you are on the go. There is almost no excuse for not attempting to figure out some text by accessing other texts these days. It is simply a lack of effort if you fail to make sense of something. The only downside of this is that one still needs to know what texts one is looking for to make sense of some other text. There are countless texts that exist in electronic form and more and more are produced every single day. Sifting through all that, finding the right texts or even the right kind of texts, is takes time and effort. It is, perhaps, a skill that you need the most these days.
It is worth emphasizing that a context is always also a text. One may certainly specify the context and therefore seek to account for the linguistic context and/or the non-linguistic context, but even if one wishes to only account for the latter, one is always also accounting for the former. There is a simple reason for this. They need one another. The latter makes no sense without the former and the former does not exist without the latter.
The way texts require other texts or, simply put, some context, is paradoxical. To summarize Doel (586-587), texts only make sense in the context of other texts, yet it is impossible pin down that sense. One may attempt to do that by attributing meaning to the intentions of the author, but that does not explain how someone engaging with the text can nonetheless make sense of text without consulting the author, as already noted. It is also worth noting that the author explanation of something, for example what they wrote is, in fact, the author’s subsequent interpretation of what their text, what they wrote, as noted by Lecercle (62). This is not to say that it may not be useful, but the author’s interpretation, for example what they write about what they had previously written, is yet another text, one among many, and what matters when someone interprets a text is how that text is understood by the person doing the interpreting, as noted by him (62, 240-241).
What is particularly interesting about the analysis of texts is that they can be qualitative and/or quantitative, as noted by Doel (588). This may cause some discomfort in some people, including academics, but the thing is that mathematics and statistics are both a matter of interpretation because numbers and figures are, in themselves, nonsensical. They are texts among other texts that only make sense in certain a context, which is, in itself, also a text.
It may seem like any kind of analysis of texts is pointless because, as already established, there is no objective meaning that can be found in the texts. The way we make sense of texts is not, however, subjective. There is nothing whimsical about texts. In fact, the only reason that we can make sense of texts is because of texts. The irony of this is, of course, that an analysis of a text that typically takes the form of an article, a book chapter, or even an entire book, is also a text. It is extremely important to understand that this is how language functions, that its theme is emergent, that it appears there and then, in a specific context, as we engage with texts, with recourse to other texts, as Vološinov would explain it, that it is we who make sense, there and then, in a specific context, as we engage with texts, with recourse to other texts, as Deleuze would explain it.
This is baffling to many, including to many academics. They fail to understand textual analysis and, to use the terms interchangeably, discourse analysis. This has to do with how they have been taught to think that, simply put, words not only refer to things but also correspond to them and that each word and each part of a word has some fixed meaning. To them, this kind of analysis appears pointless, because the analyst cannot pin down some meaning or meanings in a text, be it spoken, like a speech, written, like an article, or otherwise expressed in one or more semiotic modes, like a film, an episode of a television series or a video game. They think that there is something in a text, like an empirical fact, and that the analyst must point to this, even though that is not how it works, how what matters is the engagement with a text is always a collective endeavor that involves making sense of the text through other texts in a specific context, which is also another text. To them, such analyses are simply subjective, like reading someone’s opinions about something.
These people are correct about how textual analyses and discourse analyses are not objective, albeit only because nothing, not even mathematics, is objective. They are, however, wrong about how these analyses being subjective, for the simple reason that meaning, purport, sense or theme, whatever your preferred term happens to be, does not reside in the object, nor in the subject, as explained by Deleuze (36-37) in ‘Proust and Signs: The Complete Text’ and Lecercle (158). Instead, it is collective, because our psyche is both linguistic and social, as explained by Vološinov (26, 28, 34).
It is as this stage that it is, perhaps, worth noting how difficult it is to explain that, how we make sense of texts through texts and how texts also limit the ways in which we can make sense of texts. I would say that discourse is a better term than text in this regard, even though it is fair to say that we also make sense of discourse through discourse. In my view, discourse is fairly easy to understand as the process through which more discourse emerges, so that we have all these objects that owe their existence to discourse, in the sense that we fail to understand them without discourse. In contrast, text makes you think of the objects, even though they also owe their existence to texts.
I also want to emphasize the difficulty involved in analyzing texts and, to use the terms interchangeably, in analyzing discourses. On one hand, text or discourse analysis is very easy. Put in the hours and, lo and behold, the task will not not result in you sweating bullets. On the other hand, do not underestimate how much work you have to do. Oddly enough, I would say that what will make it easy is a combination of hard work and recognizing that, no matter how good you think you are, you cannot expect to know it all. Take pride in your work, that you can get the job done, but do not take it for granted. Once you start thinking that you know it all and, to make matters worse, that you do not need to up your game and, by proxy, to raise the bar for everyone, you might as well quit.
Intertextual analyses
Texts can be anything and therefore the analyses can also involve any kind of text. Doel (220) also reminds his readers that there is no reason to privilege texts that are typically held in high esteem, such as “literature, legislation, and gene sequences”, over other kinds of texts that people encounter much more frequently, such as “graffiti, garbage, and carrier bags”. What I think is particularly important about the study of texts, in general, is exactly what Doel (220) proposes:
“Be guided by your interests rather than by presuppositions about what counts – and what does not count – as an acceptable text[.]”
I could not agree more. If you ask me, one should always, always start with acknowledging the various presuppositions that tend to define what counts as proper research. It is important to realize one’s interests and, to be sure, not let them dictate what one researchers. However, what I believe Doel (220) wants to emphasize here is that once you know aware of your desires and beliefs, and can account for them, you are simply much more honest about your research than you would be if you simply opted to do what you have been taught to do and what others expect you to do.
To exemplify this, he (220) reminds his readers, once more, not to think that some texts or kinds of texts are, somehow, inherently more important than other texts or other kinds of texts. Some might object to analyzing films, comics, novels or, as I would like to add to the mix, video games. They might prefer that you focus on state or municipal politics or policies, but that presupposes that the latter kinds of texts are somehow more important than the former kinds of texts, as noted by him (220). In fact, it is often the mundane, if not banal texts that turn out be surprisingly interesting, as added by him (220).
This is not to say that you should focus your research on the most mundane texts possible. Remember, this is not a competition. Turn your attention to what you are already partial to, that is to say to the texts that already draw you to analyze them. That will keep you motivated. If you attempt to analyze what others in your field or discipline expect you to analyze, it is only likely that you will struggle to stay motivated and that your analysis will be hampered.
I cannot tell you what it is that you should be interested in, nor can Doel do that for you. My guess is that the text is something that already concerns you, here and now. In my experience, it is often something that is controversial, influential and/or popular. It is likely something that matters and you think that your contribution might be something that could make a change in the world. I would not be surprised if you are drawn into analyze texts that concern you right here, right now, as opposed to somewhere else, hundreds or thousands of years ago. This is not to say that history is not fascinating, but rather that you might be disappointed by how little you have to work with, how difficult it is to access and how little impact your work will have, for the simple reason that most of the interesting texts are long gone, inaccessible and/or largely irrelevant to contemporary states of affairs.
Let’s say that you like a film, an episode of some television series, a video game or some virtual reality content. What should you analyze? My reply to that is that you are asking the wrong question. Do not think in terms of what others want you to do or, worse, what you think others want you to do. Think in terms of what you want to do. This is, of course, not to say that others will, nor that they have to approve of your choice. To put it bluntly, if you pick the most obscure film, episode of television series, video game or virtual reality content ever, you may end up struggling with convincing others that your work matters. I realize that I risk overemphasizing the importance of social impact of research, but, that being said, do think whether what you do will have any impact in the world. If it does not, consider focusing on something that does. Unlike cats, you have just one life, so you might as well make it count.
References
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