Tim Lensmire
Washington University in St. Louis
On Thu, 14 Dec 1995, Gordon Wells wrote:
> I have been interested to see how many responses to the original question
> have focused on the way in which so much of what we read seems to "feed
> into" our current projects and concerns, whether selected for that
> purpose or not. Writing about this very topic some years ago, I didn't
> know whether I was atypical in this respect, but I noted how I tended to
> be more interested in the thoughts that the text provoked in me relative
> to the topic I was working on than in those that the author wanted to
> convey (?evoke).
>
> One of the texts I was reading at that time was Lotman's (1988) "Text
> within a text" (Soviet Psychology, 26(3): 32-51). He distinguishes two
> functions of text: "in an overall cultural system, texts fulfill at least
> two basic functions: to convey meanings adequately and to generate new
> meanings" (p.34). These functions he terms the "univocal" (text as conduit)
> and the "dialogic" (text as "thinking device"). He goes on to describe
> the text, in the second function, as "a generator of meaning" (p.40).
>
> Obviously, most of those who have responded are more interested in the
> dialogic function. Russ Hunt evenseemed to be suggesting that this is the
> _only_ function for him - or did I misunderstand? (Presumably, though, to
> ask about misunderstanding is to recognize the importance of the univocal
> function?)
>
> As a teacher, I have been concerned about the appropriate balance between
> these two functions in students' reading. The traditional reading lesson
> (e.g. as described in Heap's "Discourse in the production of classroom
> knowledge" (Curriculum Inquiry, 15(3):245-79, 1985)) is mainly concerned
> with students' ability to uptake the author's meanings (the univocal
> function) and this seems to continue to be the main emphasis when
> students read most texts in high school. Very little attention, if any,
> is given to the dialogic function - at least in the official business of
> the classroom, according to the lesson extracts quoted in articles that
> I have read. In the reading of "literature", on the other hand, reader
> response theory has sanctioned a much greater valuing of students'
> responses to what they read - sometimes, it seems, to the point where
> there is little concern that they engage with what the author might have
> intended.
>
> With the M.Ed. students I teach (all full-time educators), I have noticed
> that, when they are engaged in group discussion of a text, they too tend
> to emphasize the dialogic function rather than the univocal. And
> sometimes, I confess, it worries me that they don't seem to be too
> concerned about whether or not they have understood the author's meaning.
>
> At the same time, I am sympathetic to Russ's point that meaning is a
> process and that it is therefore problematic to talk about the
> author's meaning, as if it were a fixed thing that could be got from the
> text. And yet, as a writer, I know that I try to construct a text so that
> it will "convey [my] meanings adequately"; I also hope that my reader
> will attempt to understand those meanings and respond to _them_ (rather
> than to quite different ones) when dialoguing with my text.
>
> I see I have now written myself into a state of considerable uncertainty
> about the relationship between the univocal and dialogic functions. Can
> anyone come to my assistance?
>
> Gordon Wells, gwells who-is-at oise.on.ca
> OISE, Toronto.
>
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