Intentions: Negotiated, Contested, and Ignored

Intentions: Negotiated, Contested, and Ignored
ISBN-10
0271076976
ISBN-13
9780271076973
Series
Intentions
Category
Language Arts & Disciplines
Pages
226
Language
English
Published
1998-09-08
Publisher
Penn State Press
Author
Arabella Lyon

Description

The relationship between an author's and an audience's intentions is complex but need not preclude mutual engagement. This philosophical investigation challenges existing literary and rhetorical perspectives on intention and offers a new framework for understanding the negotiation of meaning. It describes how an audience's intentions affect their interpretations, shows how audiences negotiate meaning when faced with a writer's undecipherable intentions, and defines the scope of understanding within rhetorical situations. Introducing a concept of intention into literary analysis that supersedes existing rhetorical theory, Arabella Lyon shows how the rhetorics of I. A. Richards, Wayne Booth, and Stanley Fish, as well as the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer, fail to account for the complex interactions of author and audience. Using Kenneth Burke's concepts of form, motive, and purpose, she builds a more complex notion of intention than those usually found in literary studies, then employs her theory to describe how philosophers read Wittgenstein's narratives, metaphors, and reversals in argument. Lyon argues that our differences in intention prevent consistency in interpretations but do not stop our discussions, deliberations, and actions. She seeks to acknowledge difference and the communicative problems it creates while demonstrating that difference is normal and does not end our engagement with each other. Intentions combines recent work in philosophy, literary criticism, hermeneutics, and rhetoric in a highly imaginative way to construct a theory of intention for a postmodern rhetoric. It recovers and renovates central concepts in rhetorical theory—not only intention but also deliberation, politics, and judgment.

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Other editions

Similar books

  • Verbs: Aspect and Causal Structure
    Verbs: Aspect and Causal Structure
    By William Croft

    A fourth type of phasal analysis is offered by Timberlake (1985). Timberlake assumes an interval temporal semantics like Woisetschlaeger, and focuses on ...

  • Linguistic Semantics
    Linguistic Semantics
    By William Frawley

    In some languages, this elemental opposition surfaces directly, asin the Austronesian (Chamorro: Chung and Timberlake 1985; Bikol: Givón 1984) and certain ...

  • Communication Law
    Communication Law
    By Dominic G Caristi, William R Davie, Michael Cavanaugh

    Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were performing during the halftime show when a “wardrobe malfunction” exposed for a fraction of a second the singer's ...

  • Communication Law: Practical Applications in the Digital Age
    Communication Law: Practical Applications in the Digital Age
    By William R Davie, Dom Caristi

    Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were performing during the halftime show when a “wardrobe malfunction” exposed for a fraction of a second the singer's ...

  • The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World
    The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World
    By Joan Bybee, Revere Perkins, William Pagliuca

    ... 70, 85,171,231 Thomson, Greg, xix Thomson, R. W, 231, 233 Timberlake, Alan, ... J. M., 225, 235 van Putte, E., 286, 294 Vermant, S., 61,62 Vincent, N., ...

  • The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English
    The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English
    By Clive Upton, William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.

    ... 'timbol, –Z timber BR 'timble(r), -oz, -(e)rin, -od AM 'timblor, -orz, -(e)rin, ... -s Timberlake BR 'timboleik AM 'timbor,eik timberland BR 'timbaland, ...

  • Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Communication
    Cross-Cultural and Intercultural Communication
    By William B. Gudykunst

    ... 237 St. George , R. , 38 Stilling , E. , 251 Stonequist , E. , 247 Stopka ... R. , 149 Tidwell , R. , 227 , 230 Timberlake , M. F. , 266 Ting - Toomey ...

  • The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers
    The Story Within: New Insights and Inspiration for Writers
    By Laura Oliver, M.F.A.

    ... line on Deck D. A baby squeals in the background cacophony ofthe airport. ... spirit in terms of matter, matter in terms ofspirit,” Robert Frost said.

  • Maintaining Long-Distance and Cross-Residential Relationships
    Maintaining Long-Distance and Cross-Residential Relationships
    By Laura Stafford

    ... 30, 31, 32, 34 Durand, D., 49 Dwyer, J. W., 78 E Egan, J., 93 Eisenberg, ... 102 Floyd, K., 85, 89, 91 Forsyth, C. J., 41, 42, 48, 5.1 Frost-Knappman, ...

  • Emergent Literacy: Lessons for Success
    Emergent Literacy: Lessons for Success
    By Sonia Q. Cabell, Laura M. Justice, Joan Kaderavek

    Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 4, 331–342. Freedman, D. (2007). Scribble. New York: Knopf Books for Young Readers. Frost, J. (2001).