The Idea of a Text and the Nature of Textual Meaning

Download or read book The Idea of a Text and the Nature of Textual Meaning written by Anders Pettersson and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2017-04-15 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his account of text and textual meaning, Pettersson demonstrates that a text as commonly conceived is not only a verbal structure but also a physical entity, two kinds of phenomena which do not in fact add up to a unitary object. He describes this current notion of text as convenient enough for many practical purposes, but inadequate in discussions of a theoretically more demanding nature. Having clearly demonstrated its intellectual drawbacks, he develops an alternative, boldly revisionary way of thinking about text and textual meaning. His careful argument is in challenging dialogue with assumptions about language-in-use to be found in a wide range of present-day literary theory, linguistics, philosophical aesthetics, and philosophy of language.