On Tue, 2007-27-03 at 12:51 +0100, Greg Hacksley wrote:
> Is it actually possible to recapture the reading experience of an
> individual? Partially, perhaps, but ultimately I don't think one can
> do any more than speculate. The act of reading is an intimate act of
> performance in which a reader and a text interact in a completely
> unique and individual way. No two readings of a work, even by the same
> reader, can be regarded as the same. In addition while traces of
> reading in the form of written cues, such as comments / pictures /
> doodlings in the margin of a book, can possibly inform one as to what
> a reader was thinking about at a particular point, I don't think one
> can say anymore than that. In other words that at some point in time
> when reading Book X, Reader Y made the following markings which could
> possibly indicate that s/he was thinking about Z. Surely the same also
> applies to discussion of mental revision. We can't get into another's
> head. The best we can do is make informed guesses, but we need to
> acknowledge them as such.

It seems to me there are two issues here:
1) Can we actually model an event with perfect fidelity
2) Is there reliable evidence of reader's thoughts and activities

For the first it seems to me to be a law of wissenschaft (since we
prefer the smaller definition in English for science) that modelling
always involves a loss of fidelity: even if we had perfect access to
what readers were thinking, talking about it distorts it--we murder to
dissect. Without perfect access we also try to draw conclusions from
markings and other contextualisation cues; in doing so, we inevitably
read things into them that are not specifically there--if in no other
way than by reading them for different purposes than the original makers
of the cues, and by generalising from our knowledge of other similar
examples.

For the second question, it seems to me pretty clear that we can use
readers' evidence to try and deduce things about their understandings of
what they were doing, subject to all the provisos above. Certainly it is
central premise of pragmatics that we can. We may not understand things
the way our subjects understood them--to take a slightly different
example, I doubt our understanding of Old English metre is anything like
the Anglo-Saxon poets, though both seem to work--but I think there is
information that can be recovered.

> 
> Greg Hacksley
> 
> On 27/03/07, Wim Van Mierlo <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> > So much to respond to, so little time.
> >
> > 1) aren't we trying to reduce (or expand?) to something else: John
> > attributes a thought process to text, but that would rather have to be a
> > relationship between thought and language (and which one comes first, an
> > old debate), and then investigate the relationship between language and
> > (printed) text. At which point we can bring in our old friend Saussure
> > who divided language (or signs) in a material and immaterial part.
> >
> > 2) Peter's point about reading history: I think it is (again) very much
> > the traces of reading that we can respond to, and from these deduce (or
> > psychogolize) about the reading experience, but that actual reading
> > experience we cannot capture. (Nor can we, John, the actual composition
> > process in the mind: we can witness traces of revision, we can deduce
> > intentions in quite a number of instances, but it remains very much an
> > exercise similar to trying to reconstruct life and history from an
> > archeological site--or to choose another parallel: how I hate sports
> > commentators who get into the mind of the athletes on the field and
> > explain for their viewers/listeners what their precise
> > motivations/emotions are!) Even when we would study the neurological
> > processes in reading (or writing for that matter), we wouldn't have the
> > actual experience.
> >
> > Wim
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: The list of the European Society for Textual
> > > Scholarship and the Society for Textual Scholarship
> > > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter
> > > Shillingsburg
> > > Sent: 26 March 2007 18:36
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: Re: Texts as cultural objects
> > >
> > > When Paul, currently sitting across the room from me, writes
> > > in response to Wim:
> > > "Going back to Wim's observation: it  still leaves unanswered
> > > the nature of the relationship between the material and the
> > > conceptual dimensions of text and how (if at all) text may be
> > > said to exist 'independently'.
> > >
> > > I don't think it does."
> > >
> > > I think it may not just be perverse to say the opposite:  The
> > > only way that text "exists" is separated from the material.
> > > It is saying two different things.  What I mean, and I think
> > > this is operationally important, is that for text to get off
> > > the page and into our experience is must be
> > > interpreted--signs only signify by an interpretive act.  So,
> > > the work, as experienced, is OFF the material page and it can
> > > do that only according to skills of the person reading it off.
> > >     That is not really a contradiction of what Paul said.  He
> > > is right.
> > > The only place a set of symbols can be kept for reuse is in a
> > > material form.  Even Matt Kirschenbaum would agree to that, I
> > > dare say, given his emphasis on the materiality of electronic texts.
> > >     But a text on the page is not a text in the mind or in a
> > > process of being experienced.
> > >     The importance of that distinction weighs very much with
> > > me when I try to think of the history of reading.  Is it the
> > > history of the reading experience that gets recorded in
> > > marginalia and book reviews and diary entries, or are we
> > > looking at something else and just calling it reading?
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: The list of the European Society for Textual
> > > Scholarship and the Society for Textual Scholarship
> > > [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul Eggert
> > > Sent: 26 March 2007 18:16
> > > To: [log in to unmask]
> > > Subject: Re: Texts as cultural objects
> > >
> > > Wim van Mierlo interestingly picks up for clarification the
> > > perhaps satisfying but nevertheless baffling idea of texts as
> > > cultural objects that Dan O'Donnell had originally put
> > > forward in this discussion and that John Bryant reminded us
> > > G. Thomas Tanselle had
> > > defined:
> > >
> > > >  When it comes to using the words "text" and "object," I tend  to
> > > > think in terms that Barbara's mentor Tom Tanselle offers:
> > > >  that is, a text is words or wording, and hence essentially
> > > > conceptual; a book or document is an object on which a
> > > version of the
> > > > text is inscribed.  Generally, speaking texts  are not
> > > objects; they
> > > > are separate from the material  documents upon which they
> > > appear, or
> > > > even the ink or medium  in which they are inscribed or printed.  At
> > > > least that is a  good place to start.
> > >
> > >
> > > Wim replied:
> > > >
> > > >1) Perhaps "texts" and "books" are indeed two separate
> > > things, as John
> > > >says, the one slightly more immaterial, the other material. Yet one
> > > >cannot have "text" without the physical object in/on which it is
> > > >inscribed. Where "text" would exist independently, it would
> > > have to be
> > > >in the "work" (using Tanselle's distinction between the two).
> > >
> > > So the idea of text as a cultural 'object' runs  two
> > > dimensions of its existence together in an initially
> > > satisfying formulation that becomes, when looked at more
> > > carefully, an obfuscation.
> > >
> > > At least, as here, bibliographical thinking forces us  to
> > > think harder about the conceptual basis of what we study than
> > > a book history that is not so assisted necessarily does.
> > >
> > > An all-encompassing, inclusive book history can be a
> > > conceptually lazy book history. Some book historians, for
> > > instance, seem unaware of the contribution that the theory
> > > associated with scholarly editing made in the late 1980s and
> > > into the 1990s, particularly in relation to the documentation
> > > of textual 'process' and the 'life' of works.
> > > This forgetting perhaps comes from the fact that work-based
> > > book history (as opposed to methodologies of the larger
> > > sweep) is  not an especially popular approach, although I am
> > > attracted to it.
> > >
> > > Going back to Wim's observation: it  still leaves unanswered
> > > the nature of the relationship between the material and the
> > > conceptual dimensions of text and how (if at all) text may be
> > > said to exist 'independently'.
> > >
> > > I don't think it does.
> > >
> > > John B's examples in his more recent mailing (excerpted
> > > below) show that it doesn't in the actual practice of
> > > inscription.  We can (if we
> > > wish) only conspire to believe that it does.
> > > Paul Eggert
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > >Let me respond to Wim's two, well-articulated, totally sensible, and
> > > >very useful points.
> > > >
> > > >1).  I'm not sure how something is "slightly more immaterial."  It
> > > seems
> > > >to me either it is or it isn't, and if it isn't immaterial
> > > then it is
> > > >something other than text; it is a witness, or a physical
> > > >representation, or an embodiment of text.  Tanselle is good on these
> > > >matters of the tangible and intangible, or material and
> > > immaterial, in
> > > >discussing text, and Wim is right I think in suggesting that
> > > Tanselle
> > > >places text along with his notion of work, in the realm of the
> > > >conceptual, immaterial, intangible.  One thought game on this is the
> > > >following:  I am thinking right now a line of words: Mickey Mouse is
> > > >dead.  I haven't written it: oops I just wrote it, but you
> > > know what I
> > > >mean.  The wording is there in my mind; it exists in thought and as
> > > >thought.  When I get around to inscribing that string of words, it
> > > might
> > > >actually come out differently:  Mickey, he's dead.  The
> > > former wording
> > > >banging around in my brain is immaterial and the text of
> > > what I hope to
> > > >inscribe; the latter is material and what I actually inscribed.
> > > Another
> > > >thought game is this.  I have two material words to give
> > > you:  text and
> > > >TEXT.  These are the same word but presented differently, and with
> > > >different impact on the reader; they are coded differently.  As
> > > >differently coded witnesses, they represent something a concept of
> > > Text,
> > > >call it.  It's an immaterial wording that has some kind of real
> > > >existence in mind and concept that is different from those
> > > two printed
> > > >witnesses to the concept.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Paul Eggert  |  Professor of English  |  Director, Australian
> > > Scholarly Editions Centre Projects  | School of Humanities &
> > > Social Sciences  |  University of New South
> > > Wales at ADFA   |  Canberra ACT 2600  |  AUSTRALIA  |
> > >   +61 (0)2 6268 8900     +61 (0)2 6268 8899  (fax)
> > > http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/ASEC
> > >
> >
> 
> 
-- 
Daniel Paul O'Donnell, PhD
Chair, Text Encoding Initiative <http://www.tei-c.org/>
Director, Digital Medievalist Project <http://www.digitalmedievalist.org/>
Associate Professor and Chair of English
University of Lethbridge
Lethbridge AB T1K 3M4
Vox: +1 403 329 2378
Fax: +1 403 382-7191
Homepage: http://people.uleth.ca/~daniel.odonnell/