Text is commonly thought of as a mere synonym for writing. It can, however, also be understood more broadly as pertaining not only to written language, but also spoken language. It is also possible to understand it even more broadly, so that it pertains to anything that is thought to be meaningful, regardless of the semiotic mode. This mean that just about anything, including paintings, photos, video games, virtual reality content and even landscapes, can be regarded as meaningful and therefore as texts.
The purpose of this post is to explain what texts are, how they are connected to one another, how they are understood, and how the way they are connected to another affects how they are understood. To be more precise, this post therefore focuses mainly on textuality, contextuality, intertextuality and paratextuality. It is, however, difficult to do any of this without also linking the discussion to discursivity and therefore it will also be briefly addressed in this blog post.
The last part of this blog post is dedicated to discussing the broader implications of textuality. It is the most difficult part of this blog post. Its purpose is to address the utility of the concepts and, more broadly speaking, the ways in which one can think through them.
To be clear, this post will not provide definitions that everyone will agree on. This is simply impossible. It does, however, seek to provide definitions that many agree on and to address the differences between the definitions.
It is also worth that in this blog post the discussion only takes into account linguistics, applied linguistics, literary studies and philosophy of language. It makes sense to expand on this topic in other blog posts, instead of attempting to cram everything into the same blog post.
Fields of study
It is perhaps best start with differentiating linguistics, applied linguistics and literary studies from one another. If one enrolls in a university to study a language or languages, one typically studies linguistics, applied linguistics and/or literary studies and, later on, specializes something more specific, such as phonetics, language teaching and learning, translation or literature from a certain era and/or geographical area.
- linguistics = study of language; grammar (morphology, phonology, syntax), semantics, pragmatics
- applied linguistics = study of language in use; e.g. language teaching and learning, translation
- literary studies = study of literature; e.g. 19th century literature, Caribbean literature, literary theory
To be clear, this classification is cursory. For example, applied linguistics is different from linguistics, but it can also be understood as part of linguistics, similarly to how literary studies could also be considered part of literary theory. Philosophy of language is also difficult to define. It is connected to linguistics, in all or nearly all its forms, as well as to philosophy.
The core of this blog post deals with linguistics, applied linguistics, and literary studies. However, the more it expands on the core concepts relevant to these fields of study, the more it relevant it becomes to address them in relation to philosophy of language.
Some differentiate between fields and disciplines and subfields and subdisciplines. In that case, disciplines are thought of as more established or institutionalized, and, conversely, fields are thought of as less established or institutionalized. Others, me included, use them interchangeably.
It is often difficult to know what someone means when they refer to linguistics. There are many kinds of linguistics, such as general linguistics and historical linguistics (philology), with plenty of cross-over with other fields of study in many kinds of linguistics, such as the aforementioned applied linguistics, computational linguistics, neurolinguistics, psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics.
Some might say that linguistics is the study of linguistic signs. It is therefore a part of semiotics, which is the study of signs. However, if you ask linguists, you may find that many of them may disagree with that statement.
When someone refers to linguistics, without specifying what kind of linguistics one is referring to, it is only likely that the person means general linguistics. It carries a sense of authority and, arguably, orthodoxy, which is why it is occasionally referred to as ‘linguistics proper’.
This notion of ‘linguistics proper’ is attributable to how many linguists themselves do not see linguistics as merely the study of language, but as the scientific study of language. It is therefore not to be thought of as part of the humanities, like literary studies or philosophy, but a science that is equal to the natural sciences, namely biology, chemistry and physics, as explained by Randy Allen Harris (11) in ‘The Linguistic Wars’:
“Its methods, goals, and resilient results come from a long tradition of treating language … as something which could be observed, like the stars and the rocks, and sometimes poked, like the animals and the plants.”
Simply put, it is often thought and still widely held that a linguist engages in the scientific and therefore empirical study of language. It is also worth emphasizing that the study is not only scientific, but also that the object of study is language, not something else or something else in addition to language.
Pragmatics was and, to some, still is not considered to be part of ‘linguistics proper’. The problem was and still is that admitting it as part of linguistics results in the inclusion of what is thought to be non-linguistic or extra-linguistic, as explained 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.”
This was and still is major point of contention in or for linguistics, as further elaborated by Scott (3):
“For some, pragmatics is a key area in the study of language, and without a theory of pragmatics, we cannot fully understand how language is used to convey meaning. For others, pragmatics sits outside of linguistics proper and, indeed, may even be thought of as a ‘wastebasket’ for anything that is not worthy of scientific study.”
What is crucial to many linguists is that their object of study is language, as already noted. Unlike semantics, pragmatics does not focus solely on language. It therefore falls outside ‘linguistics proper’ as noted by Scott (3).
To be clear, this is not a view held by all linguists. It is nonetheless a view held by many linguists. It is also a view that I have witnessed, having taken part in applied linguistics and linguistics conferences and having shared offices with people who consider themselves linguists. It is not necessarily that they declare their opposition of everything that is deemed to be non-linguistic or extra-linguistic, but rather that they get irritated by such as, in their view, such falls outside the purview of linguistics.
This is exactly why I opted to cover this background information in some detail. It should help you to understand the concepts discussed in this blog post are defined the way they are by linguists and others in other fields of study.
Texts
Text is a word that is often used interchangeably with writing. It can, however, also be understood more broadly. In linguistics, text refers to anything written or spoken, as noted by David Crystal (481) in ‘A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics’.
- text = written and spoken language
Similarly, it is common for people to say that they read a text. By this they mean they read something that has been written by some writer, on some surface, typically on paper or on a screen. The word is, however, also used when text is understood more broadly.
Text is also often used interchangeably with discourse. This also applies to some linguists, but many linguists consider texts to be the products and discourse to be the process that involves the production of texts, as indicated by Crystal (482).
- text = discourse
- text = product of discourse
- discourse = production of text
This can be confusing. People are used thinking that text simply means writing, for example a book, whereas discourse means speech, for example a conversation. It can be frustrating for them and, frankly, difficult to understand how a conversation can be understood as a text and a book can be understood as a discourse. To account for how a conversation can be understood as a text, this makes sense inasmuch we think of it as a product of discourse, for example in the form of an audio recording of a conversation. To account for how a book can be understood as a discourse is, however, a much more complicated and contentious matter. It is best left addressed in another blog post that approaches this issue through discourse, as opposed to text.
If text and discourse are not used interchangeably, the former is thought to be read and the latter to be heard or listened to. This is not necessarily the case if they are used interchangeably.
- text = writing + reader
- discourse = speech + listener
Text linguistics focuses on texts. It addresses features, such as cohesion and coherence, and helps to understand texts according to their text type or genre, as also noted by Crystal (482).
Some linguists consider discourse analysis and text linguistics to be synonyms. However, this is not a view held by all linguists.
- text linguistics = discourse analysis
To summarize Crystal (148, 482), many linguists consider discourse as pertaining to specifically to spoken language, while sociolinguists, psycholinguists and critical linguists emphasize the social, psychological and political aspects of discourse respectively.
- text = written language
- discourse = spoken language
Nonetheless, it is common to see the terms used interchangeably, to mean the one and the same thing. This can be confusing for people if they are not aware whether these terms are to be understood as distinct from one another or simply used interchangeably. This becomes even more confusing for people if the terms are applied even more broadly, but this is out of the scope of this blog post.
This is relevant not only to anything that that consists of writing, such as books, or speech, such as audio recordings of conversations, but also to various art forms and media, such as films, television series and video games. From a linguistic perspective, they all tend to contain speech, in the form of narration and dialogue between characters, and various visual elements that contain writing. It is also possible to address them not only as containing text or discourse, but as texts or discourses themselves. However, this is out of the scope of this blog post.
Contexts
Context is a word is generally used to the explain how our understanding of something is circumstantial. To summarize Crystal (108-109), linguists use context either in a limited sense or in various expansive senses.
The former accounts only for how understanding a text depends on other texts that surround it. For example, a sentence can be understood in one way on its own or in another way if we account for the sentences that appear before and/or after it. If one focuses solely on one sentence, or a part of it, and finds something problematic about it, in the absence of the preceding and/or following sentences, it is often said to have been taken out of context.
- linguistic context = other surrounding text
The latter accounts also for the non-linguistic context, which is also referred to as the situational context. This can include anything in addition to the linguistic context. It can be limited to who it pertains to and their background, as well as where and when something happened. It can, however, also be expanded to include anything beyond the immediate situation.
- non-linguistic context = situational context
Intertextuality
Intertextuality pertains to how texts are connected to other texts. In linguistics, this has to do with how a text incorporates other texts, or parts of them, in it, explicitly or implicitly, for example in the form of quotations, summaries and allusions, as summarized by Peter Hugoe Matthews (199) in ‘Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics’. This also applies to a text that is self-referential, in the sense that a text may incorporate references or recycle parts that are also present elsewhere in the same text, as noted by Matthews (199).
- intertextuality = texts are connected to and composed of other texts
The origin of the concept is, however, to be found in literary studies and not in linguistics. It is, in fact, rarely even mentioned by linguists. The term intertextuality (French: intertextualité) is attributable to Julia Kristeva. She coined it in her book ‘Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art’. The notable absence of this term in linguistics and the limits imposed upon it by linguists explain why Kristeva has little good to say about linguistics in her book.
While the term is attributable to Kristeva, she (66) attributes the concept to Mikhail Bakhtin, a Russian literary theorist. To summarize his view on this matter, there is no discourse that does not build on, nor incorporate other discourses, and therefore no text that does not build on other texts, nor incorporate other texts.
- intertextuality = texts incorporate other texts
- interdiscursivity = discourses incorporate other discourses
It is worth clarifying that while the notion of intertextuality is fairly narrow in linguistics, it is very broad in literary studies. Leon Roudiez (17), the editor of Kristeva’s book and one of its translators, specifies this in the book’s introduction:
“It has nothing to do with matters of influence by one writer upon another, or with the sources of a literary work[.]”
This is not to say that writers do not influence one another, nor that citations do not count as intertextuality. It is rather that intertextuality is a constitutive feature of all texts and, in fact, language itself, as stated by Kristeva (37):
“The text is therefore … a permutation of texts, an intertextuality: in the space of a given text, several utterances, taken from other texts, intersect and neutralize one another.”
In applied linguistics, intertextuality is defined in this manner. David Bloome and Huili Hong (4873) summarize its importance, if not its gravity of, in ‘Reading and Intertextuality’, which is included in ‘The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics’:
“[W]hat is at issue in the term ‘intertextuality’ is not the simple juxtaposition of texts per se, but the deconstruction and reconstruction of dominant theories of semiotics, linguistics, hermeneutics, language, reasoning, and related topics including reading, composition, literary theory, and how a text is defined.”
Simply put, intertextuality is a big deal. In fact, it is fair to say that it is a game changer, as acknowledged by them (4876):
“[T]he concept of intertextuality challenges models of language, semiotics, and communication in which an author or speaker encodes a meaning or intent into a text that is decoded by a reader or listener. It is replaced by a more diffuse, diverse, contested, and historical set of processes in which traditional conceptions of author, reader, and interpretive process are problematized and fictionalized.”
This is not to say that there are no people involved, those speakers, writers, listeners and readers, that language and other semiotic modes are not systems, nor that they do not involve coding and decoding. It is rather that language and other semiotic modes are always more than that and that as stable as they seem, they are always subject to change.
This changes what we mean by text. Firstly, a text is no longer something that simply has a meaning that can be uncovered. It cannot be found in the text, no matter how hard you search. Secondly, a text is no longer a product of an autonomous and conscious person. It can, of course, be attributed to a certain person, i.e., to its author, but it is not at all clear that it involved just one person, nor that they acted autonomously and consciously. Thirdly, it is not just that, as a product, a text is explicitly linked to other texts, which all are then also thought to be products. In other words, it is not just that a text by one author is linked to other texts written by the same author and/or by other authors. It is also linked to whoever comes across it and what other texts that person has previously encountered.
In summary, what matters about texts is that they are interactive. A writer does not simply write something, which the reader then simply understands or fails to understand. A speaker does not simply speak something, which the hearer simply understands or fails to understand. Instead, whoever reads something or hears something must interpret what someone else wrote or said. In other words, they must make sense of what they have read or heard.
To be clear, interpretation is not a matter of right or wrong. It is, at best, a matter of agreement and disagreement. It is fair to say that one may understand a text, no matter whether it is written, spoken or otherwise expressed, or, conversely, that one may misunderstand it. However, it is impossible to verify this understanding or misunderstanding. Even if one is sure about having understood something, or someone, one may later realize that, in fact, one did not understand it or that person, or vice versa. The difficulty involved with this that meaning or sense, as I prefer to call it, is emergent. It emerges, there and then. It can emerge directly, between two or more people. This can happen when they speak to one another. It can also happen indirectly. This can happen when they read something that someone else has written. This can also happen through other semiotic modes, directly or indirectly, but that is beyond the scope of this blog post.
It is worth emphasizing that making sense of something, or someone, directly or indirectly, is therefore not merely a matter of communicating information from one person to another. Instead, they interpret the situation based on their previous experiences. Not all of these experiences involve other people, but they are always understood through various texts that people have encountered previously. In fact, it is fair to say that these experiences are themselves texts. The point here really is that one can only make sense of texts through other texts. That is the crux of intertextuality.
This also means that any analysis of any text cannot be limited to that text only. Even if one focuses solely on one text, one is always interpreting that text through other texts. This why all analyses involving texts are intertextual.
Intertexts
What is particularly notable about intertextuality is that you cannot undo it. It is always there, no matter how you try to focus solely on this or that text and keep it neatly bounded. It is not something extra, as Bloome and Hong (4875) point out:
“[I]ntertextuality is a primary characteristic of text and of reading; not an add-on or an accoutrement, but rather the essential nature of text and reading themselves.”
This is a big deal and a game changer, as already noted, because this means that, strictly speaking, there is no text, as specified by Bloome and Hong (4875):
“[T]he term ‘text’ as an integral, autonomous phenomenon is a non sequitur and might better be labeled an ‘intertext.’ The meaning potential of each text lies not in the text alone but in the relationship(s) of that text to the system of texts with which it might be juxtaposed within a field and a discourse community[.]”
Simply put, all texts are made of other texts and they are always understood through other texts. This is why Bloome and Hong (4875) state that we should refer to text as intertext.
This also applies to discourse, in the sense that it is understood in a limited sense as pertaining to what people say to one another. Information is not simply communicated from one person to another. Instead, one is always attempting to make sense of what the other person is saying on the basis of prior discourse, which amounts to what one has previously heard, read or experience through some other semiotic mode. All discourse is therefore interdiscursive, as acknowledged by Bloome and Hong (4877), and there we should refer to it as interdiscourse.
- text = intertext
- discourse = interdiscourse
To be clear, not all people are the same, even if they appear very similar and live in close proximity to one another. One is always many. One may interact with others in a certain language or a certain dialect, but the way one interacts with others, in a certain language or a certain dialect depends on the communities one is part of and, conversely, is not part of, as acknowledged by Bloome and Hong (4876). For example, one may speak Finnish and, more specifically, the kind of Finnish people tend to speak in Southwest Finland, but one must also take other kinds of social and economic variables, such as one’s education, occupation, familial status, social standing and wealth, into account and consider their relevance in various contexts in which one speaks, writes or otherwise expresses oneself, in the presence or absence of others, and listens, reads or otherwise witnesses others doing the same.
This does not, however, mean that it all matters, at all times. Bloome and Hong (4876-4877) exemplify this with the creation and publication of a text, which happens to be a well-known children’s picture book. It is not just that it has an author who wrote and illustrated it. You also need all these other people, like the accountants, the printers, the marketers, the distributors, the people working at the book store and the libraries, as well as the people buying or borrowing the book. Then you need to account for all the other texts that they have been involved with, for one reason or another, and, more broadly speaking, their life experiences thus far. Me buying or borrowing that book involves many of the same people, but my experience reading it is nonetheless different from other people’s experiences. It is, in a sense, a unique experience to me, but it is likely an experience that resonates with other people like me, inasmuch as they have a background that is similar to me. I cannot help but to notice and pay attention to certain things, because of my background.
This also applies to virtual reality content, such as video games. When I play a video game, my experience of that video games is always marked by background. If I play a military themed first-person shooter, my experience of it is marked by my own experience of having served in the military and I share this experience with countless other people who have served in the military and, to be more specific, who have served in the Finnish military. It is, of course, not the only experience that will have an effect on how I will experience and interpret that kind of video game. I am also an academic and, to be more specific, an academic who is highly aware of social and economic issues and a notable interest in philosophy. This means that it is only likely that my interpretation of a military themed first-person shooter is going to be influenced by that. It is not going to be just a bit of fun. I am bound to assess the content of the video game critically, but this does not mean that I am the only one to do so, nor that one requires a academic and/or military background to do so.
Paratextuality
Much like intertextuality, paratextuality has its origins not in linguistics, but in literary studies. It pertains to how texts are closely linked to another texts. It therefore overlaps with context and, more specifically with linguistic context. It is also more specific than intertextuality, which pertains to how texts are not only related to other texts, but also build on other texts, incorporating them into themselves.
The term and the concept is attributable to Gérard Genette. He (1) uses paratextuality in ‘Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation’ to account for how texts are surrounded, extended and presented by and through other texts. He (1) refers to these other texts as paratexts.
- paratexts = texts that surround, extend and present other texts
Paratexts can be understood as the texts that accompany other texts in such and such contexts, so that the texts in question appear to us in a certain way and, most importantly, so that they make sense, as explained by Genette (2). This can be exemplified by how something as simple as a book has its contents, but it is typically accompanied by “an author’s name, a title, a preface, [and] illustrations”, as noted by him (1). These other texts are not necessary for that text, but they present it it in a certain way, so that it makes sense to people as a book and not as just a book, but as a certain kind of a book, such as a cookbook.
There are two kinds of paratexts according to Genette (2-5, 9-10). Firstly, some paratexts are peritexts. They are deemed official as they share the same physical or digital medium with the text in question. For example, novels are texts that are published as books or e-books. The peritexts are these other texts, such as the the aforementioned name of the author, the title and the preface, that are part of the books and e-books. Secondly, other paratexts are epitexts. They are deemed unofficial as do not share the same physical or digital medium with the text in question and may not have been intended for publication. For example, a book is often accompanied by various public texts, such as author interviews, adverts, commentaries and reviews, and associated with various private texts, such as author notes and diaries that may, perhaps, gain access to following the author’s death.
- paratext = peritext and epitext
As a side note, when these paratexts, such as prefaces, commentaries and reviews, comment on specific texts, they can be also understood as metatexts, as noted by Genette (270). Signposting in academic texts is another example of metatexts, which are simply texts about texts.
All texts tend include some paratexts. There are texts, such as manuscripts, that may lack them, but even they contain traces of other texts, such as handwriting that tells us something of the writer, who may or may not have been the author, as acknowledged by Genette (3). There are, however, paratexts that are not connected to any texts as, in some cases, the texts in question have been lost, but commentaries of them exist, as noted by him (3).
Some texts are therefore accompanied by many paratexts, whereas others are marked by a general lack of paratexts. Moreover, some people are more aware of and attentive to the various paratexts, whereas others are less aware of them and may even ignore them on purpose, as noted by him (4). For example, people may choose to watch a film, or relevant to this blog, play a video game only after reading about it and familiarizing themselves with it or without having any idea of what is in store for them.
In summary, what matters about paratexts is that they present some texts in a certain way. They therefore texts that have the capacity to alter the way people make sense of texts. There is a major difference between reading a text and reading an annotated texts, just as there is a major difference between reading a text and reading it together or only after reading someone else’s commentary of it. Even something simple as knowing the author, who wrote something, what one is about to read, before one reads it has the capacity to change how one reads the text. One may, for example, think of favorably of the text simply because one likes the author. Conversely, one might not end up reading something, simply because the author is not indicated or because one likes the author.
Interpretation
I wrote this blog post how we can understand anything written and spoken as texts and how our understanding depends not only on those texts, but also on other texts. This means that to understand some texts we must account for the contexts and the paratexts.
Our understanding of texts is, however, complicated by intertextuality. We cannot simply uncover some meanings in texts by closely analyzing them, while also accounting for the linguistic contexts and the non-linguistic contexts in which they are produced and encountered and the paratexts that consist of the peritexts and the epitexts.
It is crucial that we understand that all texts are, in fact, intertexts. They are therefore not self-contained. This makes analysis very difficult and, frankly, messy. There is no correct, right or true interpretation that is inherent to texts, only interpretations that differ from one another and emerge between the texts and their readers. French novelist Marcel Proust explains this particularly well in ‘Time Regained’ when he (266) writes that:
“[A] book may be too learned, too obscure for the simple reader, and thus be only offering [the reader] a blurred glass with which [the reader] cannot read.”
To be clear, he does not claim that a ‘learned’ reader, what we might call an expert, is a better person than a ‘simple’ reader, what we might call a layperson. Instead, he claims that some texts are more difficult than others and they may therefore require the reader to become more ‘learned’ or simply give up and read something ‘simple’ instead.
Deleuze comments on this matter in conversation with Foucault in ‘Intellectuals and Power’. In his (208) view, what matters about texts is not what they mean, as there is no meaning, nor authorial intent to be uncovered in or through them, but how they function, as in what they do to people. He (208) credits Proust for this observation:
“[I]t was Proust … who said it so clearly: treat my book as pair of glasses directed to the outside; if they don’t suit you, find another pair[.]”
For Proust (266), texts are indeed “optic instruments”, what we might simply refer to as lenses. In his (265) view, the writer is less important than the reader, in the sense that it is reader who reads what someone has written:
“In reality, every reader, as [one] reads it, is the reader of [one]self.”
The reader is not simply reading what has been written and there is no meaning, nor authorial intent to be uncovered in what has been written. Instead, reading is a matter of learning and, more importantly, a matter of learning about oneself. The writer is merely providing the readers opportunities to learn about themselves and it is too bad if they fail to learn something or something about themselves.
These views are also similar to what Jessica Mason expresses in her book ‘Intertextuality in Practice’. She (8-9) faults Genette for focusing too much on texts and intertextuality, on the grounds that they are all treated as being static entities that refer to another, and, more importantly, for ignoring the relationship between the texts and their readers. She (6-8) recognizes that another French literary theorist, Michel Riffaterre, offers us more in this regard, but faults him for thinking that certain interpretations of texts and their connections to other texts are there to be found by those who have enough expertise and not by those who lack that expertise.
In summary, the issue that Mason (8-9) takes with both Genette and Riffaterre is that they fail to recognize that meaning does not exist in a text, in the related texts, nor can it be assigned to their authors, but rather in the relationship between the texts and those who encounter them or, as Proust (266) expresses it:
“[T]he difference between two texts [is] often less attributable to the author than to the reader.”
This is also the view championed by French philosopher Jacques Derrida. He (8) states in his book ‘Limited Inc’ that:
“[M]y … disappearance will not, in principle, hinder in its functioning, offering things and itself to be read and to be rewritten.”
What is notable about texts, such as books, is that they function even when the person responsible for their creation, i.e., the author or, more specifically, the writer is not present. This is the nonpresence that he (8) refers to as his disappearance.
This adds emphasis on context. It is, however, important to realize that the context in which something, for example a conversation or writing a book, took place is never the same as the context in which it is subsequently addressed, for example when analyzing a conversation or a book, as noted by Derrida (131):
“The reconstitution of a context can never be perfect and irreproachable even though it is a regulative ideal in the ethics of reading, of interpretation, or of discussion.”
This does not mean that one should therefore ignore the context in which a certain text came to being. It is rather that one should bear in mind that, in analysis, the context is always reconstituted, hence the primacy of the reader over the writer, or the hearer over the speaker.
To link this to virtual reality content, such as video games, it is not that they are not attributable to a developer or, more commonly, to a development team, nor that their efforts do not matter. It is rather that, ultimately, it is playing the game and, as Proust (265-266) might explain this, learning and, more specifically, learning about oneself while playing the game that matters.
It is tempting to think that texts and their analysis is simply subjective as there is no objective meaning to uncover in them. It would seem that it is up to each person to interpret texts the way they see fit. This is, however, not at all the case as one does not experience, interpret or make sense of the world in ways in which are attributable only to oneself. Mason (10) cites Geoff Hall’s article ‘Texts, readers – and real readers’ approvingly, noting that, according to him (331):
“Without a reader, there is no text, without a text no reader.”
Indeed, text is nonsensical without the person who encounter its and interprets it, just as that encounter is nonsensical if there is no text to encounter. This can, however, also be understood in another way. Interpretation of texts (or discourses), relies on our prior encounters with prior texts (or discourses). Therefore, not only are all texts intertexts (and all discourses interdiscourses), as stated by Bloome and Hong (4875, 4877), but their interpretation is also intertextual (or interdiscursive).
Derrida weighs in on interpretation in his book ‘Of Grammatalogy’. In summary, while he (158) is critical of giving primacy to certain interpretations, namely those who are considered experts, he does not think that anything goes, that all interpretations are equal:
“Without this recognition and this respect, critical production would risk developing in any direction at all and authorize itself to say almost anything.”
However, he (158) simultaneously chastises the experts for gatekeeping:
“But this indispensable guardrail has always only protected, it has never opened, a reading.”
In other words, while he (158) acknowledges the importance of expertise, he also recognizes that it can be used to promote and maintain a specific interpretation and block other interpretations, solely on authority that is attributed to expertise.
Mason also comment on this issue. She (123-124) points out that this is perpetuated in the education system. Teachers tend to rely on existing expert interpretations and expect their students to also rely on them as the ‘correct’ or ‘right’ interpretations of texts, as opposed to teaching them how to interpret texts and what it takes to interpret texts. This is not, however, simply because teachers wish to impose on their students or that students happily accept such imposition. It is rather because both the teachers and the students are well aware of how relying on existing expert interpretations is rewarded in society.
Derrida exemplifies his stance in the ‘Afterword’ included in ‘Limited Inc’. He (144) acknowledges the difficulty involved in reading and understanding a text that is, for example, attributable to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is not just that one reads one of his works and states something about it, as he (144) points out:
“[O]ne must be armed, one must understand and write, even translate French as well as possible, know the corpus of Rousseau as well as possible, including all the contexts that determine it (the literary, philosophical, rhetorical traditions, the history of the French language, society, history, which is to say, so many other things as well).”
This is not to say that one must dedicate one’s entire life to specific topic and only then one can say something about that topic. It is rather that interpretation is not to be understood as whimsical, that anything goes, as emphasized by Derrida (144-145).
The difficulty involved in this, how to even explain this, has to do with how texts can only be understood through other texts, i.e., intertextually, hence the importance of expertise, as he (144-145) points outs. This requirement, that one must have such and such expertise, is, however, context bound. Things only ever matter “in determinate contexts”, as acknowledged by him (146).
Writers and Readers
It is difficult to define how familiar one should be with all kinds of texts, because not all texts are the same. Moreover, while all texts are intertexts, as Bloome and Hong (4875) point out, their intertextuality varies considerably. Some texts require one to have read a great number of other texts, whereas other texts require one to have read only some other texts. In his book ‘S/Z’, Roland Barthes (4) refers to the former as writerly texts. The reader has to concentrate on the text, to interpret it and to make sense of it. The experience of reading is therefore comparable to writing oneself, or rewriting what has already been written by someone else. He (4) contrasts this with the latter, what he refers to as readerly texts. Barely any concentration is required as the text is already familiar to the reader. It is not necessarily the case that the reader has already read the text, but rather that its contents are familiar to the reader. Richard Howard (ix) comments on this matter in his preface, ‘A Note on S/Z’, that is included in ‘S/Z’ from the perspective of the writer:
“If we were to set out to write a readerly text, we should be no more than hacks in bad faith[.]”
This amounts to doing more of the same, likely to make the text more accessible to more and more people, in hopes of making more and more money. Detective novels, romantic comedies and superhero films, as well as their reboots, are good examples of readerly texts. They are hardly original, which is why he (ix) refers to people who write them as hacky and acting in bad faith. He (ix) then contrasts the perspective of the writer with the perspective of the reader:
“[H]ow hard it is to face the open text, the plurality of signification, the suspension of meaning.”
He (ix) further comments on this, noting that reading readerly texts is not as problematic as writing them. There is something reassuring about something that one already knows, as he (ix) points out. Detective novels tend to work the same way, as do romantic comedies and superhero films, so it is unlikely that there will be any surprises. It is easy to either accept it or reject it, without letting or having to let one’s mind to wonder, as Barthes (4) points out.
- readerly texts = simple, linear, familiar
- writerly texts = complex, non-linear, unfamiliar
It is, however, worth noting that, even seemingly simple texts require the reader to know a lot about grammar and vocabulary, as Derrida (146) points out. For example, it is only like that a language learner will struggle reading texts.
It is also worth noting that texts can be simultaneously writerly and readerly. As Barthes (4-6) points out, there is no shortage of readerly texts, but it is difficult to find a text that is writerly and the reason for this twofold. Firstly, there are no texts that are entirely unique, that do not bear some resemblance to other texts. This make sense, considering that all texts are, in fact, intertexts. Secondly, interpretation is not about finding the meaning of a text, nor about this and/or that meanings in it, but about tapping into what kinds of meanings it makes possible for the reader. This does not, however, mean that there are a specific number of meanings contained in the text, placed there by the author, simply waiting to be discovered. Instead, it is rather that the way that a text, such as a novel, has been written permits a great number of interpretations that are, in part, attributable to the reader, but without ever claiming that anything goes.
- readerly texts = guide the reader to certain interpretations
- writerly texts = facilitate open-ended interpretation
To summarize Barthes (4-6), interpretation is never about finding this and/or that meaning in texts. Instead, it is about what comes through or what emerges as one reads texts, which, of course, then depends not only on the texts, but also on the reader. Simply put, interpretation is all about the relation between the text and the reader, which is why we must not only pay attention to the texts, and the texts that they are linked to, but also who happens to be the reader and background of the reader.
To be clear, some texts are exponentially more difficult to understand than others and this is not merely a matter of knowing words and how they are connected to another in a certain language. The learning curve can be so steep that people simply give up. Derrida’s own work is a testament to this, of which he (146) is keenly aware of:
“[I]f Searle had been familiar enough with the work of Descartes to recognize the parodic reference to a Cartesian title in my text … , he would have been led to complicate his reading considerably.”
Simply put, Derrida’s texts are not easy. To say that they are very difficult is an understatement, no matter whether you are reading them in French or as translated into some other languages. Moreover, the difficulty involved is not just a matter of knowing the words and they are connected to one another in this or that language. Instead, it has to do with what someone like Derrida takes for granted. He simply assumes that, of course, anyone who thinks that they are a philosopher should be familiar or, at least, familiar enough with René Descartes’ works to realize that he was playing on a title of one of Descartes’ works.
It would, however, be misguided to think that Derrida could have simply written his works in a concise and precise manner. To be more precise, he could have done that, but it would have also undermined his own position. He did not write readerly texts, in which the writer seeks to hold the hand of the reader, directing them at certain interpretations. Instead, he wrote writerly texts, which require considerably effort from the reader to interpret them. It is simply impossible to pick one of his works and think that you can find a meaning contained in it. To understand his texts, you need to also have consulted other texts and, likely, even more other texts, as Zeynep Direk and Leonard Lawlor (4) point out in their introduction to ‘A Companion to Derrida’:
“Indeed, some of Derrida’s statements fail to be clear if we do not appeal to other texts[.]”
It is fair to say that he could have written in a different way, so that his texts would have elaborated on other texts, but he did not, which can very frustrating for his reader, as noted by Gary Gutting (85) in ‘The Obscurity of “Différance”‘ that is also included in ‘A Companion to Derrida’:
“[Derrida] … sometimes replaces argument with puns and other forms of linguistic play, and he often assumes the reader’s acquaintance with Lacan, Heidegger, and other difficult thinkers. All of this is disorienting, especially for readers not already well acquainted with [his] work[.]”
In other words, to understand one of his texts, it is necessary to understand his other texts, as well texts written by others, as well as to have a very good grasp of language to appreciate the way he plays with language. This is, perhaps, not ideal, nor even necessary, but it exemplifies how all texts are, in fact, intertexts, as stated by Bloome and Hong (4875).
The writer, in this case Derrida, has not failed if the reader does not understand what the write has written. It is the reader’s problem to find texts that suit them, there and then. They can, of course, return to them later on, to try on those glasses again, as Deleuze (208) would put it, as there is nothing inherently inaccessible about certain texts.
For Derrida, all texts are intertextual and thus intertexts, as well as a matter of interpretation. There is no correct or true meaning to be found or uncovered, only metastable meanings that are attributable to specific contexts, as specified by him (147):
“[T]he norms of minimal intelligibility are not absolute and ahistorical, but merely more stable than others. They depend upon socio-institutional conditions, hence upon … relations of power[.]”
In other words, we interpret of texts through other texts, some of which are thought of as more important than other texts, hence the importance of acknowledging power relations, i.e., who is, or are, in position to define which texts are or are not important in this and/or that part of the world, at any given time.
Intertextuality matters considerably as it cannot simply be ignored. In most cases, one does not simply choose to interpret some text in this or that way. Instead, one is conditioned by other texts. One may have read this or that text, but it is often that we end up reading what we are expected to read. This is more or less how the education system works. Moreover, one typically ends up reinforcing the existing texts by creating more texts that align with the existing texts.
Simply put, all texts are intertexts, which means that they can only be understood in reference to other texts and therefore while their meaning is fairly stable, as they are conditioned by the texts that we are expected to be familiar with, they are subject to change. Things appear to last forever, but they do not last forever. Nonetheless, no matter what text we are dealing with, even if we limit ourselves to written language or, more comprehensively to written and spoken language, our interpretation of texts is always bound by the texts that we are familiar with.
References
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