'Intertextuality: Meaning of Life and Silk Cut Essay\r'

'What is inter school schoolbookuality? How does inter schoolbook editionuality challenge E. D. Hirsch’s composition that a schoolbook has a angiotensin-converting enzymeness meanspiriteding fabricated by its origin? Explain with lengthiness to examples drawn from any media take a leakat. According to Ameri idler literary critic, E. D. Hirsch, in order to interpret a personate of text, one must ask one’s self the still question that can be answered objectively ? â€Å"what, in all probability, did the antecedent mean to convey? ” He believed that the indite’s think meaning equates the meaning of a text and it is in fact, the endorser’s duty to uncover the the origin’s intentions.\r\nâ€Å"The meaning of a text and its author’s intentions ar one and the same. ” Hirsch’s theory revolves most the assumption that a personify of text is original, and is purely a body of the author’s resole â€Å" intentions”. The cropion of text, if one were to adhere to Hirsch’s theory, is therefore exclusive to the author’s take in melodic themes and concepts and free of external influence. However, the caprices of langue and parole disputes this imagination. According to Barthes in 1984, â€Å"It [la langue] is the social part of speech, the individual cannot himself either create or modify it”.\r\nFurthermore, Ferdinand de Saussure’s officiate on structuralism and semiotics demonstrates the overpowerivity of language and can be said to contrive stitch the seeds for modern concepts of intertextuality (such as those developed by Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva). Intertextuality challenges the approximation of a text’s ability to be truly original and therefore disagrees with Hirsch’s theory. In this essay, I will focus on how assured intertextuality as well as the semiotics obscure in unconscious intertextuality both dispute th e idea that the meaning of a text belongs exclusively to its author’s intentions.\r\nJulia Kristeva, who was the first to part the term â€Å"intertextuality”, proposed the idea that a text should not be understand merely by its words at vista value, but also studied based on former(a) whole caboodle it has adapted and was influenced by. The concept can be that expanded upon by Gunther Kress’ notion of â€Å"ceaseless semiosis” which brings to light the social aspect of a text’s creation. â€Å"From the beginning, I use materials which I turn in encountered before, which bear the meanings of their social contexts, to weave a new text which, because it is woven from materials of opposite(a) texts, everyplace and al instructions connects with those other texts.\r\n” -Kress, 2000 Conscious intertextuality therefrom enables a reviewer to participate in this â€Å"ceaseless semiosis” by the identification and application of their preceding knowledge to a text, along with creating their let version of the text by combining their breathing knowledge gleaned from other texts with the works of others a text is based on (e. g. psyche watching a satirical television exhibition such as The Simpsons). The best example of this variety of intertextuality would be the process of a reader (or surfer) search the world wide web. Here, an author cannot control the way in which a reader approaches his or her body of text.\r\nThere is seldom a linear mold in which a reader consumes allegeation succession surfing the network. It is common for him or her to absorb hardly small chunks of texts on one rascal of a web commit before being led to an altogether antithetic webpage via joins. Through surfing and following pertains of their choice, readers efficaciously thus begin to construct their own text of sorts as they make their way by dint of divers(a) sites on the internet. irrelevant newspapers or most ot her forms of targeted media, intertextuality on the internet is much one of a blatant and conscious personality.\r\nHere, almost more so than anywhere else, it is clear that content is not entirely original, nor is it based on an author’s sole ideas and concepts. It is common for a great many websites to drove a multitude of consociates, and consist of short articles that physical contact to other sources of information that the work was based on, or that provide further elaboration. Even on the internet, trustworthy etiquettes atomic number 18 often observed, one of them being the good manners of giving credit where it is due. A pictorial or firearm of digital art or soone uses on his or her website, for example, often requires credit and a link back to the page of the artist that created it.\r\nUpon following the link to the artist’s page, one might pass further credit and a link to the photographer who provided the stock photograph from which the graphi c was created. One past clicks on the link that leads us to a page of stock photography, on which, perhaps, yet another link to the homepage of the model in the photograph might be provided. One visits the aforementioned homepage, and might perhaps baffle out upon the business relationship of the model or a pocket-size story about his or her life.\r\nThe initial graphic no longer stands on its own, and new history and meaning is germinated with every link the surfer clicks, examine a â€Å"path” that paints a story beyond the original piece of art. Hirsch’s idea of a text having one sole meaning ? that of the author’s ? no longer applies. The readers construct their own text, and therefore their own meanings as they navigate finished the internet, often with no apparent logical progression. The existing knowledge they possess, along with their ability to identify the other works a text is based on, shapes their reading of an idea being presented.\r\nEve n the authors themselves often do it the lack of complete originality in their content, and through associate and credit on their page, make it obvious that their text is a coalition of ideas and texts by other authors, whose texts are a coalition of ideas and texts by yet, other authors and so on There are also varying degrees of intertextuality on the internet. Some sites, such as The Onion (www. theonion. com) restricts the direct of interactivity on their website by limiting links to only those of their admans.\r\nHowever, the content of their site is a testament of undefiled conscious intertextuality. Much like the Simpsons, â€Å"The Onion” is a satire. It parodies legitimate news websites and global current affairs. Readers’ prior knowledge of these affects the way in which they view the site and interpret these satirical â€Å"issues” of The Onion. A webpage that allows for a great level of interactivity through its onslaught of links is â€Å"How To attire Emo” (http://www. geocities. com/howtodressemo).\r\nA site that makes fun of a puerile trend in today’s society, the text has potential to be humorous to its reader. However, the degree of cargo deck and humour a reader might find in the text depends on the level of the reader’s prior knowledge of the â€Å"Emo” trend and sub-culture. Unlike The Onion however, the white text on â€Å"How To tog up Emo” is peppered with phrases and words that are grey in colour. actual knowledge of the internet and html might inform the reader that these grey words and phrases are in fact links, and clicking on them will lead them to further sites, games, generators and articles that provide further references and elaborate upon the original article.\r\nThe internet has made it possible for authors to quote another piece of work â€Å"wholesale” by simply and handily placing a link on their page. The two texts pass away inevitably intertwined and new meaning is generated as the reader pieces together information gleaned from both works. Another form of intertextuality is one that is often based on a more subconscious mind level. Arguing against the idea that a text is an isolated entity, Kristeva once stated, â€Å"any text is the absorption and transformation of another”.\r\nThe text in question is not limited to only that which is literary in nature, and whatever form it should take is subject to its reader’s or audience’s interpretation based on their knowledge of other existing texts, their cultural literacy and associations they individually produce. In subconscious intertextuality, interpretation is based on a passing individual level and may scour produce meanings that the author had no knowledge of whatsoever, let completely intended. However, a study of subconscious intertextuality and semiotics is often useful to advertisers who then use these sagacious allusions to maximal effect.\r \nThe reader or audience is often incognizant of the subconscious effects an advertisement has on their sensing of a product. Nevertheless, through signs in commercials and print advertisements, the meanings an advertiser wishes to convey about a product are presented. Silk adulterate cigarettes in England demonstrates clever advertising in their campaigns. Strict laws and restrictions are imposed on tobacco plant advertisements in the country, forbidding any association of sports, glamour, success, luxury, maleness and femininity with tobacco products.\r\nTargetting a tobacco advertisement towards a certain market or appointment in society was also banned. Silk cut, however, has managed to get around such stringent laws by the use of semiotics, thus showcasing intertextuality and the ability to generate multiple meanings out of a single text. In one of their most smash advertisements in the 90’s, magazine advertorials often feature a purple silken sheet with a single oval slit in the middle.\r\nThe connotations were luxurious, versed and feminine, yet in a way that was subtle and did not violate the advertising code for tobacco. On one hand, one could explain the text as being simply representative of a destroyed piece of stuff ? no more, no less. Doubtlessly, this would have been Silk Cut’s explanation had they been questioned by the law. However, on a more subconscious intertextual level, the colour purple and the expensive silken fabric could have been construe as an association with luxury and royalty.\r\nThe texture of the cloth could also have been seen as an allusion to the smooth nature of a Silk Cut cigarette, therefore making the product appealing to women (despite the fact that targeting a specific sexual activity or market was forbidden). The diagonal slit in the cloth could be slowly interpreted as sexual in nature, and representative of a fair sex’s genitalia, thus giving the cigarettes a declarative appeal. Through these clever advertisements, Silk Cut became widely cognize as THE woman’s cigarette of choice. They were even featured in the bestselling novel, â€Å"Bridget Jones’s Diary”.\r\nIn this book by Helen Fielding, the protagonist, Bridget, smokes Silk Cut. The brand is constantly referred to end-to-end the novel, therefore once again making use of intertextuality. Bridget Jones spends a great deal of the book attempting to withdraw from smoking. However, she is simply unable to curb her craving for the Silk Cut cigarettes. The qualities that have come to be associated with Silk Cut cigarettes through their advertising campaigns, can now be seen as the qualities Bridget desires by smoking Silk Cut.\r\nOnce again, Hirsch’s idea of a text bearing only one singular meaning can be easily disputed. The interpretation of the Silk Cut advertisement, as well as the use of Silk Cut cigarettes in Bridget Jones’s Diary, is super subjective and depende nt on the reader’s cultural literacy and existing knowledge. Intertextuality in the media, both print and otherwise, has become too powerful to ignore, especially in this day and age. The internet, satirical texts, advertisements and books are only some examples that demonstrate the effects other works and a reader’s prior knowledge have on any given text.\r\nIntertextuality in its non-homogeneous states, conscious and unconscious, is certainly a valid inclination against the theory of E. D. Hirsch. Bibliography, References & Notes 1) Cultural Consumption and public Life”, Reading As Production, John Storey, Pg 63, Arnold, capital of the United Kingdom, 1999 2) Intertextuality, Allen. G, Pg 9, Routledge, London 2000 3) http://web. uvic. ca 4) http://www. theonion. com 5) http://www. geocities. com/howtodressemo 6) http://www. aber. ac. uk 7) Reading Ads Socially. Goldman. R, Routledge, London, 1992.\r\n'