Magin_Edward-thesis

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trying to grasp that meaning we will strive to attribute to each semantic
unit one single significance that seems most obvious or most logical in the
context; when we read verse, however, the form itself serves as a signal to
us that our minds should remain open to ambiguities at every rank, and
even once we have chosen one specific signification 17 of a word, a line, a
stanza, or an entire poem as the chief surface signification, we do not
reject other possible significations out of hand, but hold them in abeyance,
as so many further elements in the highly intricate communication which
we expect a poem to be. In this most complex of all linguistic structures, a
whole range of significations, and not simply the signification most
obvious or most logical, fuse to create the total ‘meaning’ and the total
effect.
Coping with all of the extra significations, and keeping track of potential significations,
can become burdensome for the reader. To understand significations, or “markers,” De
Beaugrande (1978:17), citing Petöfi (1969), defines two relevant terms for understanding
reader expectations when processing a text. The first, co-text, is to be understood as
“combinations of items within a text.” The second term, context, includes “co-text plus
the factors relevant to the use of the text by writer and reader.” Often it is when a word
appears in conjunction with another word or words, or co-textually, that the meaning is
understood. Sometimes it is the context, not the co-text alone, that helps a reader
understand the intended meaning. With regard to the reader’s textual processing of
available meanings for words, De Beaugrande (1978:39) writes,
It is more probable that the meaning potential of words is automatically
reduced somewhat as soon as a context and a topic are established in a
particular situation, and that this reduction controls the expectations of
both the sender and the recipient of a message within the situation.
The reader is even more challenged by the processing of non-literal language,
particularly metaphor. Petöfi (1975:290) defines metaphor as “an interpretable stretch of
text in a contradeterminate context.” The reader’s expectations are not met when
confronted with a metaphor. However, he or she possesses the mental faculties to make
necessary connections between words, therein discovering the meaning being conveyed.
17 “Using the term ‘signification’ in its largest sense, to include not only the semantic function of a
linguistic unit, but also its other functions (acoustic, rhythmic, etc.) within the poem” (Holmes 1988:18).