In Porter's paper he discusses a very interesting point on that all forms of discourse are "composed of "traces," pieces of other text that help constitute it's meaning" (Porter, 3). That is to say that even the very words that I type right now
are have been influenced, shaped, and molded from other pieces of discourse that I have encountered and that have influenced me consciously (or unconsciously). In his example of the Pepsi commercial, his breakdown of the different representational images and phrases that are used to connect the audience and the commercial, are easily transferrable to other product commercials. For instance... I heard if you buy Axe Body Spray, you will be nearly molested by beautiful women (why isn't every guy getting fresh with this stuff?!?!). Or how about if you use Dove soap, you will lose all your wrinkles, excessive weight, and feel like a shining golden god... thanks commercials, thanks.
But it doesn't stop there, Porter goes on to point out the emphasis and applause for the "original" writer that is shared by many but yet there is no such thing as an "original" writer. Many of us
seemingly creative types sputter and fuss at such a bold accusation, why else did we spend infinite hours under the duress of a term paper than to develop a new and creative view on what we wrote about...damn. I guess we can be proud that we offered a new discourse pertaining to (said) subject. I suppose you could consider the blogs that we are all writing for this class, they are all on both or either of the two articles assigned to us....we will surely use these articles to discuss in our blogs (since I assume we all want a decent grade in class), yet no blog will be the same. And it would be mightily weird if two were the same...cheaters? parallel universes? telekinesis? Yet we, the voice of the future, all savvy literary students with similar course backgrounds will find different shades of discourse on the aforementioned articles.
And where do we even get started on Fisher's simple and un-verbose discussion of the narrative paradigm and how it breaks down to the argumentative, persuasive theme and the literary, aesthetic theme which does "not deny reason and rationality; it reconstitutes them and makes them amenable to all forms of human communication" (Fisher, 376). In short, what I garnered from Fisher's article is that every form of communication is a narrative of sorts, and the narrative paradigm is designed to function within the pedagogy of narrative influence, with Fisher describing narrative as a "theory of symbolic actions and/or deeds
-- that have sequence and meaning for those who live, create, and interpret them"(Fisher, 375). Translated I believe that to mean that every event recorded in history is then relived in the recorders own words, say for instance the bible...?
Very interesting, Cavin...Now that I think about it, these very words that I'm writing have been irreducibly influenced by the insights in your blog, which have been irreducibly influenced by the Fisher article, which have been irreducibly influenced by his own discourse community. Because I'm in English Ed., this makes me think a lot about the nature of teacher feedback. Honestly, because teachers and students are all part of an interrelated intertextual web, who are teachers to assume more authority and assign a grade to what is only an honest iteration of a student's discourse community and particular location in an intertextual web? I certainly wouldn't attempt to, for instance, grade this blog! (Although if I did, I'd give it an A. So interesting! Thanks for making me think).
ReplyDeleteI don't want to accept that there is no "original" writer, even though within my brain of brains, I know this to be true. I do like Carla's point that we may not write original content, but there is some originality in how we write it, right? I think that's the conclusion you come to in your second paragraph, but in a different way. :)
ReplyDeleteI would add to your translation of Fisher, "and relived again by the reader and re-recorded within their own narrative..." I like to think of the driest, scientific journal-type publications as an example. You know, the ones that study a topic that is really really boring and only interesting to the five people doing the work. They write a 25+ page report, taking great care to remove any sort of literary device (metaphor, simile... adjectives) so that only the facts are present. Even they cannot escape the Narrative Paradigm. They tell the story of their research. Journalists put it back together using literary devices and then we read those articles and talk excitedly about them (ha! Narrative intertextuality)