and the Discourse Community”

Written by, James Porter Rhetoric Review 1986

Presentation by, Dr. Iris D. Ruiz

“INTERTEXTUALITY

CHALLENGES THE MISCONCEPTION OF THE

FREE WRITER/LONELY WRITER

-The idea of Intertextuality

challenges the idea of the Writer as

a free and uninhibited spirit.

-The writer is always situated in

many discourses at once (the 11

kinds texts on next slide)

-(35) According to this view, authorial intention is less

significant than social

context; the writer is simply a part of a discourse

tradition, a member of a team,

and a participant in a community of discourse that

creates its own collective

meaning. Thus the intertext constrains writing.

Writer as a “Collector of

fragments” (34).

When we piece together our thoughts on a topic, these parts are essentially made up of the following:

1. Texts….What kind?

2. Visual Texts (Digital, Cultural, and Mundane)

3. Personal Texts (Literal) (Pathos)

4. Academic Texts (Ethos) (Discourse)

5. Social Commentary/Media (Digital Texts)

6. Personal Experience (Empirical Evidence)

7. Outside Voices offering their experience

8. Artistic Texts (Constraints)

9. Literary Texts (Romantic, Post-Modern)

10. Religious Texts (Various)

11. Historical Texts (Various)

V

Visual Religious Intertext

The Web of Meaning

-Vgotsky’s “Web of Meaning” postulates that all texts are interconnected like a spider web.

-This can be referred to as Logos or the way a text is sewn together to create meaning.

-The sources that produces that meaning comes from the 11 mentioned previously.

-34 The most mundane manifestation of intertextuality is explicit citation, but intertextuality animates all discourse and goes beyond mere citation.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AS

INTERTEXT

-Was Thomas Jefferson the real

author of the Declaration of

Independence?

-No. The Declaration of

independence is an intertextual

text in that it borrows from a

pastiche of texts and is sewn

together to demonstrate a new

textual creation.

-Borrowed from John Locke’s

Social Contract Theory

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND OUR

OWN INTERTEXTUAL EXAMPLES

-And the most memorablephrases in the Declaration seem to be least Jefferson's: "That all men are createdequal" is a sentiment from Euripides which Jefferson copied in his literary commonplacebook as a boy; "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" was acliche of the times (late 18th cent), appearing in numerous political documents (Dumbauld).

-Was Jefferson a creative genius or a blatant plagiarist?

-Our intertextual examples dealt with the following issues:

1. We live in America, so we should speak English.

2. We live in America, so we should know more than one language.

We used intertextuality as a way to conceive of two authors that can inform these 2 issues.

• How would Anzaldua and Rodriguez debate these issues? We referred to quotes from the texts to respond to one another. For example:

INTERTEXTUALITY AND DISCOURSE

COMMUNITIES

• A discourse community is a group of individuals bound by a common interests who

communicate through approved channels and whose discourse is regulated.

• p. Some discourse communities are firmly established, such as the scientific community,

the medical profession, and the justice system

• An individual may belong to several professional, public, or personal discourse

communities. Examples would include the community of engineers whose research area

is fluid mechanics; alumni of the University of Michigan; Magnavox employees; the

members of the Porter family; and members of the Indiana Teachers of Writing. (39)

• What are some discourse communities that you all belong to?

IS THERE A SUCH THING AS AN ORIGINAL TEXT?

• We are free insofar as we do what we can to encounter and learn new codes, to intertwine

codes in new ways, and to expand our semiotic potential-with our goal being to effect

change and establish our identities within the discourse communities we choose to enter.

• We can do this by putting two unrelated voices in common like that of Anzaldua and

Rodriguez.

• "The struggle of the student writer is not the struggle to bring out that which is within; it is

the struggle to carry out those ritual activities that grant our entrance into a closed

society" (Bartholomae 300).

QUOTES AS INTERTEXT

• We use quotes to talk to each other.

• We use quotes to support our own points.

• We make points with other peoples texts even when our arguments are counter to their

claims.

• I.E.: Conversation between two unlikely conversants.

• Anzaldua says: (108) “I am visible—see this face—yet I am invisible. I both blind them

with my beak nose and am their blind spot. But I exist, we exist. They’d like to think I have

melted in the pot. But I haven’t, we haven’t.

• Rodriguez says: Rodriguez recollects family members’ fears of having children with dark

skin and his mother’s constant concern that Rodriguez stay out of the sun. At the age of

eleven or twelve, Rodriguez had attempted to shave off the brown of his skin

CULTURE/IDENTITY AS AN INTERTEXTUAL DEBATE--

-- 1ST 2ND 3RD WAVE FEMINISM VS. WOMANISM

VS.

I am possessed by a vision:

that we Chicanas and

Chicanos have taken back or

uncovered our true faces, our

dignity, our self-respect. (109)

As Gay points out, Beyoncé's a "great feminist"

who "happens to be sexy" and no longer wears

pants. It's all about freedom of choice, right?

Beyonce is a feminist because she says she

is...