Is There a Text in This Class? ‘The Authority of Interpretive Communities Stanley Fish Hanvano Univenstry Pesss (Cambridge, Massachasees London, Englandopi ay he Present Allghsroered woe? Printed inthe United Sater} America Lisaty of Congren Cataloging i Pubiaon Date "lion itn Inte ioe ann PNELESS fovas, — Soagyst SBN este tra) Tomy parents, a and Mox FishPreface “THE ANSWER this book gives to is tite question i “there is and there isn't.” Thee isnt text in this or anyother clas if fone means by text what ED. Hirch and others mean by i, "an femtty which always remains the same from one moment tthe next” (Validity in Interpretation, p. 46), but there iy text {his and every cas if one means by text the seructre of mean: ings thats obvious and inescapable fom the perspecsiv of what ver interpretive assumptions happen to bein force. The points finally a simple one, but i as ken me more than ten year (0 see it and in what follows, i will ake me almost four hundred pges to elaborate it, Along the way Ihave had 2 great deal of help: fom my students a che Univentyof California ae Berhe- ley, The Johns Hopkins University, and the University of South fern California: from the members of two NEH summer sem inas (1974, 1976): from the fcaley and sadente(hemseles facole) who made the 1977 seston ofthe Schoo! of Criticism, and Theory so intense an experience: and from a number of col leagues and fiends, Leo Braudy, William Cain, Rob Cummins, Hubert Dreyfus, Frank Hubbard, Seven Mailloux, Ellen Man ko, David Sachs, and John Searle. Lee Erickson performed the invaluable service of refusing to let me off the hook for an ex tire year. Lee Patteron and CiristyJo Anderson gave me the aileofa chance conversation. OF two others can only wy what is very conventional thing to say, that this book fas much theirs mine: Kenneth Abraham and Walter Michaels worked i out With me in elassooms, in reaurant, at partes, on basketball ‘courts, and, once, even on the radio. Jane Parry Tompkins has eevaage mean ipied meand sven meaningto erthing inaay lite ‘Chapters 1-12 have been previouly published inthe followws Preface ing journals and clletions: chapters 1 and 3 in New Literary Hsory (sop, son: chapter «in Approaches fo Poetics, edited by Seymour Chatipan (1973) chapter ¢in Milton Studies (1978) chapters 56,7, 11,and 12 In Critical nguiry (L975 1978. 1978, 1979); chapter 8 nd gin Modern Language Notes (0g, 97?) dpter rein Boundary I (ag6o). Tam gratefl for permission eprint. SF. Contents 1 ot 5 cs Intreduction, or How 1 Stopped Worrying and ‘Learned To Lave Interpretation PART ONE: Literature in the Reader Literature in the Reader: AMesive Stylistics What Is Stylistics and Why Are ‘They Saying Such Terrible Taings About le” How Ordinary Is Ovdinary Language? What I's Like To Read I'Allegro and Il Pensroso Facts and Fictions: A Reply to Ralph Rader Anuerprting the Varin Amterpeting “Interpreting the Variorsm s ist Homileie How To Do Things with Austin and Searle: Spec Ace Theory and Literary Criticism ‘What Is Seyitics and Why Are They Saying Such ‘Terrible Things Aboue lt? Part If [Normat Circumstances nd Other Speci Cases A Reply co John Reicher, PART TWO: Intespretive Authority in the Classroom and in Literary Criticiom 1 There a Text in This Claw? How To Recognize a Poem When You See One ‘What Makes an Interpretation Acceptable? Demonstration vs. Persuasion: Two Models of Critical Activity Notes Index * 1 "4 8 ” st ss aIs There a Text in This Class?Introduction, or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love Interpretation \T INTERESTS ME about many of the esas collected here isthe fact cht 1 could ot vite them today. 1 could not write them today because both the form of their arguments and the form ofthe problems those arguments address are «function ‘of assumptions I no longer hol It soften asturmed that literary theory present set of problems whore shape remains chang ing and in relation to which our critieal procedures ae found to be more o less adequate; that i the fled of inguiry stands always ready to be interrogated by quetions it ise constrains Te seems to me, however, that the Teationship is exactly the revere: the fel of inquiry is constituted by the questions we are able task because the entities that populate Ht come into Deing as the presuppostions—they are discoursespecii entities ef those questions. In 1970 I was asking the question “Is the reader oF the text the source of meaning?” and the eftiie presippostd bythe queition were the text andthe reader whowe independence and ability were thos aimed, Without that ‘sumption the assumption thatthe text and the reader can ‘bedistinguished from one another and that they wil hol ill the merit for their rival claims coald not have been debated aidan argument for ane or the other could not ave been made "The fat that I wae making sch an argument was 9 diect con2 Is Therea Test in This Clas? sequence of the fact chat i had already been made, and the ppttion I ptoceeded to take war dicated bythe position that, Fad already been taken. That position was best represented, pethaps, by Willian Wimsatt and Monroe Beasley's esays fo the affective a intentional fallacies ( called), exays that pled a succesful case forthe text by arguing, on the one hand, {hat the intentions of the author were unavailable and, on the blher. thatthe responses ofthe reader were too variable. Oaly the text was both indisputably there and stable. To have re- ‘course either to the causes oa poem oF its eects isto exchange ‘objectivity for “impressionism and relativism.” ff either Fallacy, the Intentional or the ARectve i that the poet itself as ah object of specifically critical judgment, ends fo dssppea “The outcome | “To the degree that this argument war influential (and ie | vas enormously 10) it contained In sdrane jhe form any Couterargupent might tke In oder to dodge the afecive {alc for elample, ne would have to sow Gm that the text veas.no) the seltanicent repository of eating and secon, thet something ele wan atte wry len, conrtry. Tis tes exactly my satgy in the fie ofthe aries presented in Uhisbook.fclenged the selauficlency ofthe text by potning tat this appre) sail form beled the emporat nen Slo in which hs meanings were actual and argued that ias the developing shape ofthc actsiatio, eather han {he sta shape tthe printed page that shouldbe the object tial dessipton. fn shore Tsbatied the suctre of the readers enpeience forthe formal trace ofthe et on the grounds tha while the Iter were the more visible, hey equiv sgifeane only in the context ofthe forter. TH general postion tad many consequence, Fis of al the ste Kfesot the reader wee gen a prominence and mporance hey Aid not have before if meaning embedded inthe text Te fenders spon re ited othe ob of extng tn if meaning develop and iit developers dynamic ela Tlonhip with the reader expectations, projections conlsions julgmens and sseomptions. these acts he things the Fender dec) are not erly inumental, or mechanic, but Introduction B sential and the act of descripeion must both begin and end ‘with chem. In practice, this esulted in che replacing of one qu tion-—what does this mean?—by another-—what does this do2— with “do equivocating between areerence tothe action of the text on a reader and the actions performed by 3 retder a he iegolaes (ad, in some sense, actaaizs the ext. This que cation allowed me to retain thetexe asa stible entity a the same time that 1 was dislodging it as the privileged container of rmeaning, The reader wat now given joint responsibility forthe preduction of 4 meaning tae was fell redefined a an event rather than an entity ‘Thais one could not point to this mean: lng as one could if were the propecy of the ext rather, one ‘ould observe or folow its gradual emergence fn the interaction between the text conceived of as 2 succesion of words, and the developing response ofthe reader "In this formulation, the reader's esponte ie not tothe mean ing ie the meaning, oF atleast the mediuen in which what I ‘wanted to all the meaning comes into being, an therefore ignore or discount itis 0 T claimed, to rk rising 2 great eal of what is going oa. In order to suppor this caim I per. formed analyses designed to demorstate both the riches of literary experience and the extent co which that experince was tunaailable to (because i was Natiened out by) 3 formalise rend ing Idd not make use of tat the time, but ee following passige from Paradise Lost might well have been the bass of sich 3 demonstration Suan, now fist ina’ with rage cme down, The Tempur ere th Acct of matin, “To weeck on innocent frail mat hit los (Of shat fist Bate, nd his igh wo Hell avo) My contention was that in formalist readings meaning is ident fied with what 2 reader undertands at the end of a unit of sense (a line, 2 sentence, 2 paragraph, 4 poem) and that there fore any understandings preliminary to that one are to be di regarded as an unfortunate consequence of the fact that veading proceeds in ume. The only making of sense thc cous in & formalist reading i the lat one, and T wanted to sy tha every‘ Is There Test in This Clas? thing 4 reader does, even if he later undoes i, is pare ofthe ‘eaning experience” and should not be disarded, One ofthe ‘ings a reader does in the course f negoiating these lines i to ‘swuine dat the referent of “his” in ine 11 18 “innocent fal ‘man. Within this ssumption the passage would seem to be ‘signing the rexpoosbiie forthe Fall to Satan: Satan, infaed. With rage, comes down to init the lss of Eden on a couple Unable to defend themselves beeause they are innocent and. fnuil, This understanding, however, must be revised when the reader enters lin 12 and discovers that the los in question i Sita’ fore of Heaven, sustained in "chat fist battle” withthe loyal angels estat los of which Adam and ve are innocent, fn the Hse ofthe Fall n0¢ being raised at all, But ofcourse iehas been mised, if ony in the reader's mind, and inthe kind ‘of analysis Tam performing, that would be jase the point. The Understanding thatthe eader must give up is one that is par ticulaziy tractive to him because it asserts the innocence of his fist patents, which i by extension, his innocence too. By first, encouraging that understanding and then correcting it, Milton (ao my argument would go) makes the reader aware of fis tendency, inherited from those same parents, to reach fori terpreatons that ae, the basic theological sense selfserving. ‘This pasage would then take its place in a general strategy by) teans of which the reader comes to know that his experience | fof the poem ia pate of ts subject; and the conclusion would be that this pattern, csenial to the poems operation, would go) landetecte by a formalist analysis “That claim would be attached to the more general lam 1 was making, that I had escaped formalism by diplacng at- tention from the text, i its sada configurations tothe reader dnd his temporal experience. In order to maintain this aim ie war necermry to remove the chef objection to talking about the experience of the reader, to wit, that there are (at Teas potentially) as many experiences ay there are readers, nd that {herefore the decrion to focus on the Fader is tantamount to ving up the pomibiliey of sying anything chat would be of feneral interes T-met that objection by posting a level of experience which al readers share, independently of differences Introduction 5 in education and culeure. This level was conceived more or les synuctcally, a an extension of the Chomsbian notion of [ulitic competence inguisi system that every native speaker ‘hares. I reasoned that sf dhe speakers of a language share a fystem of rer that cach of Uhem has somehow internalize, Undersanding wil, in some sense, be uniform, ‘The fat that the understandings of 50 manyeaders and tities were not uni form vas accounted for by superimposing on this primary or basic Tevel(ientiied mote or les with perception itself) 2 secondary of aftertheact level at which the differences be tween individeals make themselves manifes. At times I char acterized this secondary letel as an emotional reaction tothe ‘perience of the fast (whether the reader likes oF dikes the ‘experience of Faullner’s delays, he will, in common with every other reader, experience them} and at ocher times I spoke of it ts an act of intlletion, mote or fs equivalent sith what we ‘ually call interpretation. In either case the assertion was that thie subsequent and distorting acivity was the source of,the ‘apparent varlation in the esponse of readers to Iiteray text: “itis only when readers become literary critics and the sing of judgment taker precedence over the reading experience that ‘opinions begin to diverge. The act of interpretation is often 0 removed from the ace of reading that the Tater {in ime the former) is hardly remembered.” “The disineion then was beween the actual reading ex pevience and whatever one might fel or sy about it in reo pect. Te was also distinction between something that was ob- jective and shaved (the basic dsta of the meaning experience) and something that wat subjecive and idiosyncratic. From this it followed that the proper practice of Tera criticism de ranged the suppresing of what is subjective and idicsyneratic fn favor of the level of sesponse that everyone shares In terms ‘of my own crticinm this provided me with a strategy for dealing ‘wih may predecesor. I trented their accounts of literary works 4s diaguited yepore of the normative experience that all in formed reader have. ‘These epost are disguised, T reasoned, becatsea reader who fe also a critic wil fel compelled to trans Tate his experience into the vocabulary af the critical priniples‘ Ie Dharaa Test in This Cae? hr setconsciously holds. He will, that i, be reporting not on his immediate or basic response to a work but on his response (Gs dictated by his theoretical persuasion) co tha response. In ‘elation to such critics I performed the service of revealing to them what ther atual experience of a work was before it Was obscured by their aftershe fact (interpretive) reflections ‘In shor, I was practicing a brand of criticism whose most Aiscinctve claim was not to be criti stall but a means of undoing the damage that follows in critcsm’s wake. This is parcicularly ue of the esay on Milton's Z'dllegre, where the Srgument i that a8 poem whore parts are arranged in such a vay as to exert no interpretive presures ic is unavailable 0 criticism insofar 25 interpreation is its only mode. It fllows then that since others who have written on the poem have to a man sought to interpret they are necessarily wrong. They fee wrong, however, in ways that point inadvertently t0 my de scription ofits experience: fr iis in response to the curious discreteness that characterizes a reading of L'Allgro thatthe tiie are moved to faule the poem fora lack of unity or to supply the unity by supplying connections more fm and de- limiting than he connections available in the text, Thus, the vary efors of my predecesors testify o their involuntary recog nition of the truth of wha Iam telling them; thei reading ex perience is finally exactly lke mine ts jus that ther critical preconceptions lead them ether to ignore or devalue i. Not nly ai this strategy enable me to turn opposing postions into versions of my own, but i also gave mea way of answering the question most often asked in the clasoom and in public ‘meeting: How i i that readers who are atleast as informe a8 you are (in the sense of having “Titerary competence") do not experience iteratore as you sy they should? T simply sid tha ‘hey do, even thowgh they may not (consciously) Know it, and that ifthe wil only liste ore chey wil earn how to recognize the configurations ofthe experience chey have always had Ie this veay Twa able to account forthe (apparent) diferences In ie ‘raty exponte without having to give up the claims of generality. Like any other polemical succes, however this one had is price for by thus preserving generality Ilefe mel vulnerable Introduction 7 to the mos pensstent objection to the method, that in essence it was no diferent frou the formsliom to which i was the toriealy opposed. In order to argte fora common reading ex pectience, I fle obliged to post an object in relation to which Fenders activities could be declared form, and that object teas the text (At leat insofar ait was 4 temporal sruccure of| ‘rdered ites): but th meane-that the integrity of the text was {basi toy position ait was to the position ofthe New Cris. ‘And, indeed fom the very Bret I wat much mate dependent on fnew critical principles than T was willing to admit. The argu ‘ment in "Literate inthe Reader” is mounted (or itis an rounced) of Bell ofthe tetder and again the slfsuficiency ofthe text, bein the couse of ic the text becomes more and tore power, nd rather than being liberated, the reader finds Ihimself more constrained in his new prominence than he was before, Although bis standard ie raised in opposition to for ‘malian, he is made into an extension of formalise principles as hisevery operation iaid tobe stiely controled by che featres, ‘of che text, The lat paragraph of the esay urges a method of ‘lasroom teaching in whieh students are tained fist to recog hiae and then to "éicount” whatever was unique and personal in ther esponteso that there would be nothing between them and the exertion of the texs conta What I didn't se was that T ould not consistently make the to arguments atthe mime time, That is, T ould not both ‘declare my opposition to new criti principles and rein the ‘oat base of those principlesthe inegsty of the text—in fonder to be able to claim universality and abjectiviey for my method. I kept this knowledge from myself by never puting the two arguments together but marshaling each of them only to rebut specific points. When someone would charge that 2 ‘emphasis nthe reader lends direct to solipsism and anarchy, T would seply by insisting on the consrains imposed on readers, by the text: and when someone would charscerite my post ‘on as nothing more than the most recent carn of the new fritid stew, T-would reply by saying that in my model the reader sas fred Bom the tyranny of the text and given the Cental role nthe production of meaning.s Is Theve 0 Text in This Clas? In short, I as moving in two (imcompatible) directions at ‘once! in the one he hegemony of fortmalisn was confirmed and ‘even extended by making the text responsible for the activities ‘obits readers: in the other those seme activites were given a Tanger and larger role to the excent that 2 times the very & intence ofthe texs wt called into question, The ension between ‘hese two directions is particularly obvious inthe second ofthese cas, "What Ix Sylistics and Why Ate They Saying Such Ter rible Things About 12" The argument of tis pice i argely 2 negative one, directed at those practitioners of spies who ‘wih to go directly fom the description of formal features toa specification oftheir meaning. My thesis was thae such 2 move, because iti unconstrained by any principle, produces interpre tations that are always arbitrary. didnot, however, deny ether the possibilty or the relevance of cataloguing formal fesesre: {merely insted thatthe value of those features could only be ” Ie There Text in This Can? well and passionately for differing interpretation? "This, ie cet to mein peed problem. Most literary quarrel re not Gisgreemens above response, bat about 4 Fesponie 10 a Te sponse, What happens to one informed reader of a work will ‘happen, within a range of nonessential variation, to anathe. Tt is only when readers become literary critic ad the passing of| judgment takes precedence over the reading experience that ‘opinions begin co diverge. The at of interpretation in often 40 ‘emoved from the act of reading that the later (in Une the former) is hardly remembered. ‘The exception that proves the sue, and my point, sC.S. Lewis, who explained his differences with FR Leavis in chis way: "Ie ismot that he ad Tee diferent things when we look at Paradise Lost, He ses and hates the ‘very same things that I see and love.” "The third objection isa mote practical one, In the analysis of reading experience, then does one come to the point? The miner is never, oF no sooner than the presre to do so be- comes unbearable (pryehologially). Coming to che point isthe foal of etic tha believes in content, in extractable me ing in the wtterance st repository. Coming to the point ful fills # need that mow literature deliberately frutates (if we ‘open umes to), the ned to simplify and clase. Coming to the point shovld he resisted, an nix small way, tis method will help you to resist. Other Versions, Other Renders Some of what Ihave said in the preceding pages wil be familiar to aiden of literary crtcim. There has been talk of readers And responses before and I feel some obligation at this point bath to acknowledge my debes and to distinguish my mechod from others more ores ike e2* ‘One bogins of course with I. A. Richards, whose principal article of faith sounds very much ike mine ‘The beliet hat there is such a quality or abu, namely ‘Beauty, which auaches co the things which we righ eal bens fais probaly nevtable forall reetve perionsat certain stage of their mental development. Ten among thove who Neve exaped fom this delusion and Literature inthe Reader 2 are well aware that we condnally talk as though Cogs poses ‘alse, when what we ough to tay chat they eae fects in 1 of one kin or another, te falacy of "projecting" the elect land making Ia qual of s cause tends 16 recur ‘Whether we ae dsusing musi poeuy, paling, seulpure forarchitectute, we ae freed vo speak a though certain physical objects are what we ate king about. Ad yet the remarks we make ats donot ply Wo auch eject butt wates of ‘mind wo experiencia © “This obviously brie fora shift of analytical atention away from the work af an cbject tothe respons it draws, the experi fence it generates; but the shife is in Richards theory pre liminary to severing one from the other, whereas I would insist fon their precise interaction, He does this by distinguishing sharply between scientific and emotive language: [A satement may be usd for the sk of the reerence tae oF fale, which i cauiee This che sent we of Language. But say alo be uso forthe sake of the eects in emotion anda [oe produced bythe reference ie ocasions Thi the mate tue of Language, The distinction onee clearly grasped I imple ‘We may either swe words forthe stke ofthe rerenes they Pro- smote or we may ie the fr the sake of the stude snd emo. Sone which este (p87) Bu may we In’ the cate, rather, that in any linguistic ex perience wear interaliring atiides and emotions, even ifthe attitude isthe pretension of no attitude and the emotion is a passionate coldness? Richards distinction is too absolute, and in his lierary theorizing i becomes more absolue stl. Refer ‘ental language, when it appears in poetry, is not tobe attended to a referential in any sense Indeed, iis hardly co be attended to at ll. Ths isin general the thesis of Science and Poetry" ‘The inlets seam i fal ean flow i follows el 20 to speak: butt the le mpartant ofthe to. In poetry mat tery only as 2 eons (p13) ‘A good dea of poetry and even some reat poety exis (eg. some of Shakespeaze's Song and, in a dieent way, much ofthe bet (of Swinbura) in which the ease of the words cn be almost em ‘Srey mined or neleted without lous (pp. 3-29)a Is There a Text in This Clu? [Most words are ambiguous at regard hei plan sense, expecaly in powey. We can te thor steeples ina varity of ci ‘The vm we are pleased to choose the one which ose Sus the imple slressy sized through the form ofthe verse [Nov the src loi sense of what fai, but the tne of woe fd the ocesson ae he primary factors By which we nerptet od 1s never what a poem ays whieh ates, but wat ti (p85) Well, what ist? And sehat exacly is the “form of the vere” whichis supposed to dgplae our interest in and responsibility to the sense? The answers to these question, when they come, ste disturbing: The cognitive stractite of poetic (ead literary) Tanguage is a condit through which 4 reader is wo pass un ‘ouched and untouching on his way to the impulie which was the acasion ofthe poem i the ise place ‘The experienc isl, the tide of impulses sweeping through the mind, the source andthe sanction of the wordr sto a= ‘hleveadr... the words will reproduce in hs ind sna play ‘fret puting him for the wile nt «snr etuation aed leaiag to the ee ‘Why this should happen i il wrest of # mystery. AR external intricate concourse of ispulses brings the word together, Then in snodher mind the afar in pate vevess Hel ‘he words bring 3 similar concourie co imple. (p>. #6-27) Destining to identify mestage with meaning, Richards goes 100 far and gives the experience of decoding (or attempting to de- ‘de) the metsge no place in the atualization of meaning. From {eeling to words to feeling the passage should be made sith 3¢ lite attention as posible to the sense, which i usually "Ely cary to follow” (hati, disposable, ke a stuaw). Tn fact, atten ton tothe sense ca be harmful, ane takes too seriously. As sertions in poetry are ‘pgudostatements" A pseudostatement is a form of words whichis justified entirely by its effect in ‘leasing or organizing our impulses and attitudes (due regard being had for the better or worse organizations of these inter 4); 2 statement, onthe other hand, is justified by its ruth, ie ies comespondence with the fact whieh it points” (p 5) Literature in the Reader a This would be unexcepronable, were Richards simply warn sng aginst applying the criterion of truthvale to saeznents Jn poetry; but he seems no mean that we should not experience them a Statements at al, even in the limited universe ofa is cezay discourse, That i, very litle corresponding to cognitive process should be going on in our minds when we read poetry, Jes the all important release of ippiles be impaired or Bcked, Contradictions are not ta be noted or worried about, Logical arguments need not be followed ton cltey ("he relevant con Sequences ate 0 be arvived at by 8 partial relaxation of logic’). Bue while eis may be the response called forth by sone poetry (and prose), itis by no means universally true tha in reading literature we ate always relieved of out responsibility to logie and argument. Very often, and even when the sensei aily easy to follow,” cognitive proceses—. 300), From this and other samples Halliday proceeds to description ofthe people's language, using the fullapparats of his category scale grammar; but what begins at 4 description turns very Quickly into something else “The cawes of passage A. are manly dauses of asin Tocxion «=F ental procs... the remainder are atributve “Atos allo heaton clase --- esrb simple movements tnd of thee the majority ae inant» Evem mich ‘ommally wansve yerbs as grb oceur insanely. More ‘vera high proporion - ofthe subjects are not peopl they te elther pats of the body or inanimate object and of {he human sobjects half agin, are ound i elt which ate not causes of acon. Even song the four anive tion laws. one hea inanimate sbjec and one ftehesive. There Ina sues st up, a ind of yrtaciccouterping, between erie ‘of ovement in their most active and dynatie for ad the preterence for nontuman wets and the ios tal abvence of wanstive clases (pp. 49-350) Here, ofcourse, where the sleight of hand begin. To label verb “active” is simply to locate iin a stem of fora der fences and relationships within a grammar; to call it "dynamic isto semantcze the label, and even, a we see when the descrip: tion continues, to moralize it ‘cs portieaaly the lack of tensive cave of acon with hua subjeee ha rete an stonpere of inet setivity the seene js one of constant movement, bat movemene which i ‘much animate as human andin which oly the mower feted ‘The syntactic temion expeenes ths combination of acilty ‘and helpeinen. No doubt thi isa fair summary ofthe Ie of Newndertal man. (pp. 248-900)a Is There Pest in This Cae? "This paragraph i a progression of legitimate inferences. Hal liday free ver his esespive terms value, and then he makes a ieogeam of the pauierns they yield. Moreover, the content ofthat deogram-—the Neandewthal mentaliy—is quite literally 1 ton (one wonders where he got is information) and itis therefore imposible that thee or any other fons should expresit ‘What happens next is predictable. The novel receives a Dar winian reading i whic the grammatially impoverished "peo- ple” are deervedy supplanted by the “new people” whose aller transitivity potters ate cloner to our own: "The transitivity patter are the reflexion of the underying cheme the Inherent limitations of understanding of Lok and his people tnd ther consequent inability to survive when confronted with ‘heings ata higher stage of development” (p. 350) The remain der ofthe esa ell of statements ike tithe verbal pateras “reflect” the subject mater, are “congruent” with it "expres in, “embody” it, “encode” it, and atone point even “ensine” i The assumption isone we have met before "syntactic prefer fences conelate with habis of meaning"-—but here i is put into practice on a much grander scale: “The ‘people'® ose of tra tity pacterns argues 2 Neanderthal mind.” shore, when Halliday does something with his apparatus, ie is jut as arbitraty as what Milie and Ohmann and "Thome do with theirs. But why, one elghe ask, is he arbitrary in this dieection? Given the evidence, at least as he marshals it, che vay seem equally open to an Edenic rather than a Devwinian reading ofthe novel, «reading in which the language of the “people” reflect (or embodies or enshrines) a fost harmony be- tween man and an animate nature. The tumph of the “new people” would then bea disaster, the beginning ofthe end, of decline into the taxonomic aridity of # mechanistic universe. “There are two answers to this question, and the fee should not surprise us, Halliday’ interpretation precedes his gathering nd evaluating of the data, andi rather than any ably of ‘the syncax to embody a conceptual orientations responsible for the way in which the data are read. There is ome evidence that ‘the interpretation is not his own (he refers with approval ro the What I Sri % “penetrating critical eudy” of Mark Kinkeat- Weekes and Tan Gregor), but whatever ite source—and this the second answer to my question—its araction is he opportunity i provides hi to make his apparatus the hero of the novel, Fr in the retding Halliday offer, the deficencit ofthe “people” are messured by the inability oftheir Language to fil ont the categories of his grammar. Thus when he remarks that “in Lok’s understanding the complex taxonomic ordering of matiral phenome that is implied by the use of defining medifer is Icking, or. ud mentary" (p. 452), Me se him sliding from an application of his system toa judgment onthe description i yield, and conversely, ‘when the “new people” win out, they do in large part because they speak 2 Language that requires for its analyse the full ma chinery of tha yer. Not only does Halliday go directly from formal categories to interpretation, but he goes to an interpre tation which precaims the speririty of his formal categories, ‘The survival of the fites ibe is coincidental with 3 step toward the emergence ofthe Butest grammmsr. Whether Golding new itor no, it would seem that he was writing am allegory ‘of the uldimate triumph of NeoFithian man 1s there, then, no point to Halliday’ exercise? Ae the pa terns he uncovers without meaning? Not at all, Te just that the explanation for at meaning is not the eapaciy ofa sym tax to express it, but the ability ofa reader to confer i. Gold: ing, 5 Halliday nots, prefaces The Inheriors with an excerpt from H. G. Wells discussion of Neanderthal man, As result, ve enter the ory expecting to encounter a people who difer from us in importan respects, and we are predisposed to atach that diference 19 whatever in their Behavior calle attention to itself. Tes in this way that the language of the “people” Becomes significant, not because itis symbolic but becrose ie functions in a structure of expectations, and itis in the context of that structure that a reader is moved to asin it vale, The point is one that Halliday almost makes, but he throws it away, on fo ooeasons, frst when he remarks thatthe render’ entrance into the novel require a "considerable efor of interpretation” (p- 948), and later when he specifies the nature of that effort: "the dificulies of understanding area the level of interprets% Ie Thevea Text in This Clan? tion—or rather... of reinterpretation, as when we insist on ‘oansatng ‘the stick began to grow shorter at both ends as ‘the man drew the bow” (p. 458). Here T would quarrel only with the phrase “we insist" for the decison to reinterpret is not ‘made freely ti inseparable from che activity of reading (the text insists), andthe elore expended in the course ofthat activity becomes the measure and sign ofthe distance between us and the characters in the novel. In other word, the Hink between the language ad any sense we have of Neandertal man is fashioned fn reponse 19 the demands ofthe wading experience: i does ro exist prot to that experience, an inthe experience of an bother work it will not be fashioned, even sf the work were (0 Aisplay the sme formal features. In any number of conte, the sentence “the stick grew shorter at both ends” would present no diticulty fora reader: it would require no efor of reinterpre therefore it would not take on the meaning which that effrecrentes in The Inkeritore, Halliday’s mistake is not toaserta value for is data but to locate that value ina paradigm and so bypass the context in which iis actally acquired, “This goes to the heat of my quarrel with the syisiians in tele rush to establish an inventory of Bxed sgaisicances, they bypass the activity in the course of which significances ar, if ‘only momentarily fed. Ihave said before that thele procedures fare arbitrary, and that they acknowledge no constraint on thee interpretations ofthe data, The shape ofthe reader's experience is the constrain they decline to acknowledge. Were they rake that shape the fru oftheir anaes, wo lea them the value conferred by its events, Instead they proceed in acord- ance with the nef laid down by Martin Joos, “Text signals es ‘own structure,” testing the deposit of an activity a iff were the activity iselt as if meanings arose independendy of human transactions Asa result, hey are left with patterns an stacstis that have been cutoff from ther animating source, banks of data tha are unatached to anything bu thei own formal categorie, and ate therefore, quite terly, meaningless ‘In his connection i is useful to turn toa distinction, made bby John Searle, between institutional facte-facts rooted in a What ts Sipe? % recognition of human purposes, needs, and goals—and brute facte—facs chat are merely quantifiable. “Imagine,” sys Seat, 2 proup of bighly tized observers describing football game in sacemente only of Ste facts What could they sy by wey of rived simultaneously to maintaining ordinary or menage: bearing language as 2 norm and to preserving the link between Janguage and humanity, humanity must be redefined 10 25 t0 bbe congruent with the norm you have decided to-maintin ‘Humanity must, Tike ordinary language, be thought of 3s a mechanism ora formalism, ay the revere of personality, a, and again these ate Mili's words, “the uniformity of the human ‘masi.” The ultimate confusion involved in this theoretical sleight of hand, of making humanity a deviation from isl, i How Ordinary Is Ordinary Language? a relleced in Milie’s procedures; i i his avowed intention to Sdentify the uniqueness that characterizes a author's eye, bot he obliged to regard the uniquenes, when ii discovered a8 2 regrewable aberration. Thus, for example, Milic's analyse ‘veal that in Swift's prove connectives often fanetion to sige & logic the atgument does not really poses; he then concer ah inevitable conclusion, given his setumptions-—chat this i tendency of which Swift must have been unaware, for had he heen aware of i it would have been curbed choose Mic for my example only because his statements reveal him to have the courage of his theoretical convictions. Other theorists are less open. Wimsatt and Beardsley, for in stanee, are engaged in precisely the same operation wich their Aisinctions between explici and implicit meaning, for in every ‘ase it turns out thatthe implicit meaning is admissible only ‘when it isan extension of explicit meaning; otherwise t becomes {in undesirable disraction which isto be deplored even siti ‘discovered. Winsatts stated intention is to reeue syle from the category of supericis or scum, but the reseue operation is performed at the expense of the Beneficiary, since style is Fonored only if it makes no lai for itself apare from the conveying of the mesige ‘MY intention is not to criticize dhe work of the men, but 10 point out the extent to which the decision to separate ordinary nd literary language dicater the shape of other decisions even before there i any presure to make chem. A distinction which scsmes 3 normative value at ix center is continually posing & choice between that value and anything else, and that choice will reproduce itelf a every subsequent stage of the criti proces It reproduces itself preeminenty in the only two dein tions of literature that are now avalabl, literature a either rmesage plus or mesageminus, A message minus definition is fone in which the separation of literature from the normative center of ordinary language i celebrated; while in messge- plus definidon, Ikeratare is reunited with the center by de- ‘lating ic tobe a more effective conveyor ofthe messages ordi nasy language eansmits Thus for Michael Rare, to cite jus one example literature, like language, communicates mes