The Cultural Analysis of Texts

Mikko Lehtonen

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780761965510, 9780761965503
• eBook ISBN: 9781446237823
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

Drawing upon a range of perspectives from textual and cultural studies, this book synthesizes textual, contextual and audience analysis into an overall picture of meaning making. Using examples ranging from Balzac to blonde jokes, modernist poetry to pop lyrics, the book discusses the factors that contribute to the fomation of meaning: language, media, texts, contexts and readers.

In the cultural study of texts - texts, contexts and practices - are equally important, the author argues. Meaning making takes place in the articulation between these different elements. But how can one examine all three areas at the same time? In The Cultural Analysis of Texts, Mikko Lehtonen develops a model to enable just such an approach.

CHAPTER 1

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STOP THE WORLD, I WANT IN!

 

This is a book about the formation and study of meanings. In the following pages, I attempt to develop a notion of the contextual and cultural nature of textual meanings. In addition to being an introduction to its subject matter, this book contributes to the development of a theory of meaning that is based on a theory of articulation. Unlike many theories concerning meaning, I endeavour to go beyond the level of signs and texts to study how their meaning potentials are realized in their cultural contexts.

The meanings of the world decline to organize themselves into a serene landscape that is conveniently placed at a researcher’s disposal. On the contrary, the researcher must construct an image of them piecemeal; an image which will largely resemble the cognitive and conceptual frameworks that were utilized in its production. In this sense, to research the meanings of the world is in itself to produce meanings.

It is not my objective to produce a general view of the world of meanings or to divide them into controllable segments, removing the components from their contexts or arranging them into neatly labelled patterns. On the one hand, my objective is more limited than the objective of one who produces overviews or a lepidopterist. On the other hand, it is perhaps more challenging. In the pages of this book I ask: where and how are meanings formed? I seek an answer by combining the tools of the poetics of texts, the hermeneutics of contexts and notions concerning the subjectivity and identity of readers, viewers and listeners.

As to the study of texts, my book is localized in the ‘long revolution’ that took place during the second half of the twentieth century, where the previously author-and production-centred views were substituted firstly by text-centred and later by increasingly context and reader-centred views.¹ Radical contextualism forms the basis of this book. All in all, I deal with six issues that are present in one way or another in the formation of meanings: culture, language, media, texts, contexts, and readers.

There are seven main chapters in this book:

 

• In the second chapter, ‘The Meaningfulness of the World, the Worldliness of Meanings’, I delineate the approach I have chosen.
• In the third chapter, ‘Language as Human Being in the World’, I study the historical and social nature of symbolic meanings.
• In the fourth chapter, ‘The World of Sign Systems and Technologies’, I consider the share of different material forms of texts (oral, literary, audiovisual and digital) in the formation of meanings.
• The focal point, the fifth chapter, is ‘The World of Texts’, which examines the formation of meanings on a textual level, and the action of textual signifiers. In this chapter, which largely focuses on the printed text, I ask: How do texts work?
• In the sixth chapter, ‘The World of Contexts’, I analyse what happens when texts meet other texts. Now, in addition to text, the concept of context is introduced. It seeks to explain how the multiple meaning potentials of texts become or do not become realized. The central question of the chapter is: What do texts mean?
• In the seventh chapter, ‘The World of Readers’, I study the subjectivities, activities and cultural identities of the readers (and the spectators and listeners).
• In the eighth chapter, ‘The World of Articulation’, I weave the threads together and seek to develop a tool box based on the theory of articulation for cultural text analysis.

In this book I thus analyse the relationships between texts, contexts and readers in the formation of meanings. Correspondingly, I seek methods through which each of these three elements can be analysed in relationship to the other elements. This is necessary for the very reason that in the formation of meanings, none of these elements exists on its own, independent of the other elements. On the contrary, texts, contexts and readers do indeed obtain their identity in interaction with one another.

In spite of their mutual dependency, texts, contexts and readers are not identical and therefore cannot be studied in the same way. Hence, when it comes to texts, I attempt to develop a poetics whose objective is to analyse the different kinds of meaning potential that texts reveal. Where contexts are concerned, I develop a hermeneutics that would assist in analysing which of the meaning potentials opened up by texts can be realized in the actual readings. When it comes to readers, I outline the tools which it is possible to use to answer questions, not only ‘what kinds of meanings are there and why do these people produce them from this particular text in this particular historical place and time?’ but also ‘what kinds of effects do texts have regarding the subjectivity, identity and empowerment or disempowerment of the readers?’

The organization of the chapters does not imply an order that starts from the most important subject and proceeds to the least important one – or the other way around. Though culture, symbols, technologies, symbol systems, texts, contexts and readers all relate to each other in the formation of meanings, the order in which they are presented does not represent any kind of a hierarchical mutual relationship. Had it been possible, I would have liked to present the subjects side by side.

Now, however, the context of the book defines the order of the chapters. Since the notion of meanings is generally solidly wound around texts not only in disciplines that study texts, but also in our culture in general, I must first criticize this text-centred view in order to progress to other elements that I find equally important: contexts and readers. Nevertheless, the book can freely be read in any other order. If the reader wants to know something about contexts, s/he can quite happily start from Chapter 6.

In the book, I lean on the discussion on the significatory nature of culture and the textuality of culture that has been going on for the last two decades in the various human sciences, particularly in literary studies, communications studies and cultural studies. Alas, among other things, my book is intended to be a suitable introductory textbook in the field of cultural text analysis, among others, for the above-mentioned fields. However, I have not attempted solely to write an introduction, but also to formulate a new methodology for cultural text analysis. To be on the safe side, it should also be mentioned that my intention is not to require everyone who practises the cultural study of texts to undertake a study concerning the triad of texts, contexts and readers within each and every one of the texts they analyse. As beneficial as this kind of comprehensive study can be, it usually demands a great deal of time and human resources. I content myself with emphasizing that the model I attempt to develop functions first and foremost as a research horizon, a necessary reminder of the fact that whether we enter more closely into texts, contexts or readers, we cannot presume that any of the three acquires its form on its own, independent of the other two.

Human beings are by their nature cultural

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My book treats the subject of cultural text analysis. As I place stress on the cultural nature of texts, I want to emphasize two closely connected matters: the constitutive role of culture for human existence and the notion of the worldly nature of symbolic meanings that it opens up. Again, one can get a grip on these two by taking a moment to examine the concept of ‘human nature’.

In these allegedly postmodern times, ‘human nature’ might not make it to the top ten list of popular concepts. Have we not just recently learned both in the social and human sciences that a human being is a thoroughly cultural being, Homo significans, to whose existence, which fluctuates from one place and time to another, meanings are fundamental and who, therefore, has no unchanging ‘nature’? In spite of this – or perhaps for this very reason? – I begin with ‘human nature’.

Naturally, nature is not very far from us. As human beings we all are close to nature in the sense of being physical creatures who would perish were we not in interaction with nature. Moreover, we are natural beings since we can be treated as objects. However, compared to other living beings we possess the extraordinary quality of not having a predetermined scope of activities and habits.

As physical beings humans are obviously part of nature, but they are part of a special nature; such a nature that while changing the material objects surrounding them, they can also change themselves. In this sense, the specific nature of human beings could be conceived of as not having a specific nature. Moreover, if human beings are actors that are able to change themselves, they are never identical with themselves in the same way as other animate or inanimate natural creatures are. We are formed in a creative relationship with our world.

In fact, the human body possesses the special ability to produce what reciprocally produces the human body. In this sense, the human body resembles another matter that, in addition to its physical nature, is fundamental to humanity: language. On the one hand, we encounter language as if it was already completed and learn to use it in a way that is comprehensible. On the other hand, however, we can also produce things in language that have never been done before. As linguistic beings we are astoundingly creative. Moreover, as physical creatures we encounter material reality as something already existing, yet we are able to produce something new from it.

From this perspective, humans are no more ‘cultural’ than ‘natural’ beings. We do not belong primarily to culture or to nature, but to both. We can think of ourselves as cultural beings by our nature.²

Nonetheless, we are not cultural beings only by nature, but also out of necessity. One of the great insights of psychoanalytical theory is that we are all born prematurely. It takes a great length of time before we are able to look after ourselves. Without immediate, long term care we would succumb to a very early death. This unusually long dependency on our parents is primarily connected to nurturing and caretaking, satisfying biologically determined needs such as nourishment, warmth and so on. Yet, beyond these biological needs of self-preservation, we are dependent on our parents for various other needs. We would not become humans without other humans.

Does this mean that as cultural and linguistic beings we are absolutely free to do whatever we please? Most certainly not. Though some philosophers have attempted to imagine such a thing, none of us is born in a vacuum. We function in conditions which are not of our own making. Yet this does not imply that we are absolutely unfree. The matters that determine us – body and language – are at the same time things that we, ourselves, can determine. In other words, being determined allows us autonomy to a certain extent. We are no more utterly predetermined than totally autonomous, but can to a certain extent determine ourselves, produce ourselves. This, however, is not a consequence of us being completely independent of our environment, but is due to the fact that self-determination is a necessity produced by our environment. Were we not able to determine ourselves, we probably would have become extinct as a species ages ago. In order to survive, human beings cannot trust only their instincts but must use their reflective resources as well. Humans are preconceiving creatures – preconceiving for we are so incomplete. As unfinished, naked, badly equipped creatures we must be able to preconceive dangers and foresee possibilities simply to survive. Therefore, our hunger is not merely crude hunger but, correspondingly, always contains longing, images, will and, finally – perhaps – also action. Were we not capable of crossing the borders of previous experience and customs to a certain degree, we would not make it as a species. We are free for necessity’s sake.

The idea of people being naturally cultural, necessarily free beings has important consequences from the viewpoint of human culture and the studies of human meanings. It reminds us of the significant fact that what is at stake in culture is never solely a question of only culture, but is always also a question of something else. Contrary to an all-embracing culturalism, I want to stress the point that as we comprehend and interpret cultural symbols, the objective of comprehension and interpretation is always something else. We always comprehend something that we have perceived and that is never the same as the one who comprehends (this is also the case when we attempt to understand ourselves, for then we divide in two: the understander and the one to be understood). Likewise, our symbols always represent something that they themselves are not. The word ‘symbol’ is derived from the Greek verb symballein, which means ‘throwing together’ and ‘bringing together’. Hence, symbolizing is always bringing together a symbol and something else. For which reason, besides being mere signs, there are always other things represented in symbols.

Cultural symbols are omnipresent precisely for the reason that they are essential for our survival. Culture is the survival kit of humankind. Being biologically defective, humans must resort to their reflective resources for survival.

Language and its meanings indeed mark the terrain of human beings, interpreting the reality and producing identities. They are an essential part of our common history, the making of us and our societies. Therefore, in this book I expressly attempt to practise worldly studies. It is also a part of this worldliness that I have attempted to compile a text that does not conceal its own intellectual operations, but that makes the methods and techniques it utilizes as comprehensible and useful as possible. It is my wish that my book offer something of a tool for other researchers of text to take hold of and brings delight to those who cast an inquiring eye on our world: the world of nature and culture.

Notes

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  1. Since there has been a discourse about ‘the death of the author’ for some decades already, I did not consider it necessary to return to it in this book. Important comments about the discourse can be found in Roland Barthes’ essay ‘The Death of the Author’ (Barthes 1968/1986a) and Michel Foucault’s essay ‘What Is an Author?’ (Foucault 1979).

  2. See Eagleton 1996b, Chapter 4, which I have used in this condensation.

CHAPTER 2

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THE MEANINGFULNESS OF THE WORLD, THE WORLDLINESS OF MEANINGS

A few years ago, the side of a milk carton from Tine, a Norwegian dairy, featured the following hjernegym (mental exercise):

A milk lorry from Trondheim begins its trip southwards. Another one drives north from Oslo. The lorry from Trondheim leaves two hours later than the one from Oslo, but drives at a speed of approximately 70 kilometres per hour. The lorry leaving from Oslo travels at an average speed of 50 kilometres per hour. The distance between Oslo and Trondheim is 500 kilometres. Which lorry is closer to Oslo when they meet?

As I happened upon this brain teaser, I tried to recollect similar exercises from my long-past school days. Thus, I began to calculate how many hours the lorry from Trondheim would spend on the journey, how many hours the lorry from Oslo would need, and at which point they would meet. Since I was having breakfast, I could not be bothered to complete the calculations but cheated and sneaked a peek at the correct answer on the other side of the milk carton, kindly provided by the dairy. It read:

Regardless of where the two lorries eventually do meet, they are naturally at an equal distance from Oslo!

I had been fooled, just as the puzzler had intended. The textual form of the question and its connection to similar exercises in school mathematics had led me astray. Misled by the irrelevant details, I failed to notice the obvious clue to the correct answer which was included in the words when they meet.

In a Norwegian kitchen, the form, text and context of the exercise, a...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 Stop the World, I Want In!
• 2 The Meaningfulness of the World, the Worldliness of Meanings
• 3 Language as Human Being in the World
• 4 The World of Sign Systems and Technologies
• 5 The World of Texts
• 6 The World of Contexts
• 7 The World of Readers
• 8 The World of Articulation
• Bibliography
• Index