Introduction to the Study of Cultures and Literatures in English

- Introduction to the Study of Cultures and Literatures in English
- Előszó
- Contents
- Part 1 What is English Studies?
  - 1. What is a university? A proseminary
  - 2. Paradigms and paradigm shifts
  - 3. What is English Studies? English as a university subject
  - 4. Ideology, criticism, history
  - 5. Registers of Culture
  - 6. Canon formation and alternative reading practices
- Part 2 Fields of English Studies. Language, Literature, Culture, and Critical Approaches
  - 1. Preliminary problems: definitions, scientific expectations
  - 2. Ontological problems: the way literature exists
    - Semiotics
    - Literary communication
    - Language and Critical Thinking
    - The Language of the Sciences and the Language of Literature
  - 3. Methodological problems: the way we understand texts
    - Meaning and context
    - The Process of Interpretation
  - 4. The Theory of Genres
    - Genres and Their Historical Changes
    - Genre-generating Factors and Historical Changes
  - 5. Poetry and Figurative Language
    - Exercise in Interpretation / 1
      - I First level of meaning
      - II Second level of meaning
      - III Third level of meaning
      - IV Fourth level of meaning
  - 6. Narrative Fiction
    - Exercise in Interpretation / 2
      - I First level of meaning
      - II Second level of meaning
      - III Third level of meaning
  - 7. Drama
    - Exercise in Interpretation / 3
      - I First level of meaning
      - II Second level of meaning
  - Self test I
  - 8. Literature, Culture, and the Reading Subject: An Overview of Major Trends in Literary and Cultural Theory
    - I Preliminaries
    - II Formal critical trends: from the authorial intention to the close reading of the text (1st shift)
    - III Contextual aproaches: from text to context
    - The critique of structuralism
  - Self test II
  - 9. Critical Literature Consulted and Recommended
  - 10. Appendix

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# Literary communication

On the basis of the above, we see more clearly now that readers and scholars of literature are studying texts, and not meanings directly emanating to us from the consciousnesses of authors.

We can make our model of literary communication more precise.

Sender (Sd1) ---------------- signifiers (Sr) ---------- Receiver (Sd2)

Author (meaning1) ---------------- TEXT (Sr) --------------- Reader (meaning2)

Unless we employ absolutely the same codes, the meaning we establish in our consciousness will most probably be different from the meaning the author had in mind. The author was writing on the basis of his/her codes, we are reading on the basis of our own codes. Since readers and authors tend to depend on different historical, cultural, political ideological backgrounds, their codes are not identical. In other words, they use the signifiers on the basis of different contexts.

Why is it impossible to understand the signifiers without codes? The semiotic explanation for this, as Saussure already argued, is that in the elements of the signifying system, that is, in the linguistic signs, the relationship between the signifier and the signified is not a natural, empirically determined relationship, but an arbitrary, socially determined, conventional relationship. If we consider a signifier, e.g., the sound sequence “apple”, this signifier can be employed to refer to the mental image of the fruit in our consciousness NOT because it is in some inherent, intrinsic or naturally established connection with the piece of reality, i.e., the fruit: the sound sequence “apple” does not look, smell, feel, or taste like the fruit, and it does not contain a piece of the fruit, either. It is a social convention which sets up this relationship between the signifier and the mental concept, i.e., the signified. This social convention, this rule is the code. This is why in different languages different words are used for the same element of reality. The Hungarian speaker and the English speaker both see the same element of reality in front of them, but one will say “apple” while the other will say “alma.” Neither of these two words as signifiers has a direct, natural connection with the element of reality.

We can again arrive at two new realizations:

1. Meaning depends on the codes we use in the process of communication.
2. Codes depend on the context in which we use them, that is: meaning is always context-dependent.

This will explain why different readers read and understand the same TEXT in various different ways in different historical periods, in different cultures, in different contexts. The reason is that in fact they are not reading the literary work of art but the text, which is just a potential for meaning, a special system of signifiers.

The LWA has to be “actualized”, activated and brought into being by the reader on the basis of the text.

Thus, the LWA is not something stable, permanent, identical, but it is dependent on the codes, the cultural backgrounds, the contexts of the readers who actualize the LWA on the basis of the text. It follows that various readers, that is, various interpretive communities will have various different readings of, reactions to, evaluations about the same TEXT.

TEXT ---------------------------------reading--------------------------------- INTERPRETATION

material sign-vehicle ------ interaction ------ meaning in the reader’s consciousness

If we want to formulate this in more theoretical terms, we will realize that the Literary Work of Art is not an objective, empirical entity, since meaning or a system of signifieds does not exist objectively, independent of the human consciousness. The LWA, just like the category of literariness, depends on the receiver’s consciousness, his/her codes, and these are all determined by the social, cultural, ideological background.

We reach two final conclusions:

1. The LWA is an intentional object, it is determined by the interpretive consciousness, and not by the authorial intention. At the same time, the reader is a member of a reading community, and his/her consciousness will be determined in the reading process by the codes used in the immediate context of reading and the larger context of his/her cultural background.

2. Literariness is always a context-dependent social value-judgement, not an objective quality.

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