<snip>
I'm arguing, or go on to argue, or try to argue, that ALTHOUGH form and
content are inextricably interrelated, they are STILL two entirely separate
things. Like meaning and sound. [BG]
<snip>
I'm not sure it works that way. I think the two most common models of
communication, encoding/decoding and ostensive/inferential, both apply (and
probably overlap). We encode/decode when we move between print and speech,
say, but also when we use language denotatively. In this mode, *meaning* or
*content* is for most practical purposes _within_ the text in its auditory,
visual or orthographic form. Language is ostensive/inferential when it
gestures at things that require a cultural context or when it is connotative
and those connotations are at best only partially shared. Here the
container/content model breaks down: *meaning* is incomplete and is supplied
by reader or hearer.
To put all that more concretely, 'potatoe' on a blackboard simply *means*
potato. But consider this piece of nonsense: 'Mistress Frobisher did broil a
digitate potatoe in a girdle.' Because *meaning* here is not so easily
accessed odd things start to happen. Some of it is auditory: why does
'Frobisher' turn into 'Frobrisher' when one says it, for example? Some of it
is about register: the supererogatory e fits with the cod historicism of
'mistress' and 'did'. Some of it is semantic: '...toe' with the extra e
seems to amplify 'digitate'. And some effects are mixed. Should 'broil' be
'boil' (auditory/semantic ambiguity)? Should 'girdle' really be 'griddle'
(auditory/semantic ambiguity, plus inappropriate register)?
What I am trying to argue, not particularly well, is (a) that a form/content
distinction seems conceptually flawed and isn't too helpful in practice, and
(b) that something like the denotative/connotative distinction, albeit
fuzzy, allows one to conceive of elements within a text which act as
instructions to a reader or hearer on how to complete the text from outside.
And those elements do have a place in taxonomies. They can't be rejected as
'content'.
<snip>
Specifically, a single change in a text of a poem will have to change some
part of what might be called its text-map. Which would not be a primitive,
but would combine various maps that are primitives, such as various repeneme
maps, like a rhyme scheme, metrical scheme or simple syllable-per-line map.
[BG]
<snip>
I disagree with some of the detail (I'm not sure why maps must be tiered,
for example), but the broader point is important. Work has been done on the
schemas underlying metaphor. In principle, there will be far less latency in
how you interpret a cliché than in how you interpret something new. Much the
same applies, no doubt, to how we recognise a sonnet. Moreover a poet, any
author, becomes less *difficult* as you read more. So one's general
expectations are being sculpted in some way.
Of course, this hints at form v content again. Albeit more or less sub rosa.
CW
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