Could we perhaps imagine that when we write to large, diverse, or
unknown readerships that it is difficult or impossible to be
aware of and write for many possible reader-stances for
individual appropriations of our text to reader projects, but
that when we write, say, a personal letter we can and often do
take such possible private appropriations into account along with
the expected, more standardized interpretations of what we say?
Perhaps the great fiction writers Michael noted (and I think this
is probably relatively common in writers who 'speak to us') are
indeed capable of writing with multiple subtexts which are
addressed to many of our deepest and most private concerns, at
the same time that, like all of us, they also write a text
capable of being interpreted in a relatively more standard,
impersonal, public fashion.
I would say that I do, very occasionally, in writing for xmca
shift a word-choice or append a theme, or even more rarely, write
for an individual while still mindful of the public 'audience',
so as to double the possibilities of interpretation, for the
group as a whole, and with a 'hidden private message' for
someone. More often I think about possible reactions from
particular group members to what I am saying (which may or may
not lead me to write differently), potential dialogues born of
particular interests and projects. But mostly, I write for a
spectrum of readers, from the ideal-reader I project (most like
myself, I suppose) to those whom I imagine to have progressively
less access to the ways of interpreting my text that I would
myself use (though always with plenty of ways of appropriating my
text for their own purposes, including by rejecting its themes).
So we can probably improve on the notions of Standard
Interpretation for a community, or Ideal Reader projected by a
text, both with a more by-degrees-and-dimensions notion of the
topology of reader positions relative to the text (heterogeneity
within any community), and with a complementary emphasis on both
individual appropriation by readers and individual-addressivity
on the part of writers. I do not think we would get very far with
a notion of the meaning of a text in a community that tried to
begin from a 'least common denominator' view of what _every_
member of the community would agree on regarding the text -- not
least because I doubt that texts are _written_ with this view of
audience (not even scientific articles).
Has anyone ever actually tried to map out the real diversity of
readings of a text by a genuinely diverse population of readers?
under conditions where readers were not normalizing their
interpretations to conform to some imagined expectation on the
part of the researcher? JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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INTERNET: JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU