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ABSTRACT
This article include a brief introduction of the history of the meaning behind the term transtextuality. Since the term
meaning is contested, this article will focus on discussing the consept of transtextuality and present theoretical point
of view of literary theorist such as Bakhtin, Allen, Barthes and Kristeva.
KEYWORDS
The concept of transtextuality, aspect of transtextuality, theoretical approaches, communication, relational meaning,
textual analysis.
INTRODUCTION
In order to understand transtextuality it it important to
understand the history behind the term and to clarify
exactly what it means. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de
Saussure is credited for being the first to divide the sign
into two part, namely the signified and the signifier; the
signified represents the concept while the signifier is
regarded as the sound-image. According to Saussure,
meaning is derived from the intersection of these two
Research Article
THE HISTORY OF TRANSTEXTUALITY AND THEORITICAL APPROACH TO
LITERARY ANALYSIS
Submission Date:
November 05, 2022,
Accepted Date:
November 15, 2022,
Published Date:
November 30, 2022
Crossref doi:
https://doi.org/10.37547/ajps/Volume02Issue11-17
Aziza Mirzaeva Shavkatovna
Bukhra State Medical Institute, Teacher Of English Language Department, Uzbekistan
Journal
Website:
https://theusajournals.
com/index.php/ajps
Copyright:
Original
content from this work
may be used under the
terms of the creative
commons
attributes
4.0 licence.
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parts, which is significant because it shows that: “Signs
are arbitrary, possessing meaning not because of a
referential function but because of their function
within a linguistic system as it exists at any one
moment in time” (Allen). This observation by Saussure
is critical in understanding one of the fundamental
principles within the concept of transtextuality
because it showed that the sign is non-referential,
which means that its meaning does not only stem from
the sign itself but from the sign’s placement within a
larger system. This system is dynamic as opposed to
static, which means that it changes over time and
though social constructions. This in turn implies that
transtextuality contains social elements in addition to
its linguistic ones. It is here the work of Russian literary
theorist M. M. Bathkin and his writings on the concepts
of dialogism and heteroglossia comes in. Dialogism
refers to the inherent referential nature of
communication, for which Bakhtin argued that all acts
of communication, written or other, exist an a
perpetual dialog with former acts of communication.
Hetroglossia was Bakhtin’s term for the differentiated
modes of discourse society layers onto communicative
acts, examples of which are numerous; suffice to say,
vernacular, vocabulary, dialects, etc., all play a part in
acts of communication, to the point where what is
negated from a communicative act can also be
analysed as part of the mode of discourse. If the
Bathkinian aspect of dialogism is important in
understanding
the
referential
nature
of
transtextuality,
heteroglossia
is
crucial
for
understanding the aspect of culture and social status
within the realm of transtextuality; heteroglossia can
be described as the social perspective from which one
sees the world, and this perspective perpetuates the
system which the social aspect of transtextuality stems
from. Julia Kristeva first coined the term intertextuality
when she during the 1960’s set out to unify and
elaborate upon the theoretical work of Bakhtin and
Saussure. Saussureian semiology and Bakhtinian
dialogism and heteroglossia became merged and re-
articulated in a way that, for Kristeva, replaced the
preexisting notion of intersubjectivity; this is because
meaning is not so much exchanged as it is decoded.
According to Kristeva, poetic language, her term for
language that express the duality often associated
with transtextual discourse, contain significance - a
way of representing and communicating that which is
not present in the text. Kristeva’s take on Bakhtin’s
work show that the referential nature of language
automatically subsume that the word or utterance is in
fact double-voices - possessing a meaning at the same
time as it possesses another meaning. This can be
illustrated by using the word healthy
–
someone who is
healthy is well and not suffering from any illness. Based
on this, the word healthy has two relational meaning,
namely someone who is well and someone who is not
sick.
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The relationship between linguistics and relational
meanings is well articulated within some of the work
by Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette. Furthermore,
they both serve as prime examples because they focus
on two different aspects of transtextuality in relation
to critical analysis. In 1967, Roland Barthes published
his highly influential essay The Death Of The Author
which arguably can be said to have given birth to the
concept of the reader, which it accomplished at the
detriment of authorial intent. By arguing for increased
agency on behalf of the reader, Barthes was able to
successfully argue the importance of the preexisting
notions and ideas a reader brings with them when
engaging with a text. As a consequence, Barthes’ essay
enabled a shift in emphasis from that of the long-
standing idea of authorial intent towards the more
contemporary idea of reader participation. Due to the
important nature of allusions within the realm of
intertextuality, reader-participation becomes a crucial
element in decoding transtextual references.
Additionally, this theory of transtextuality dictates that
texts lack independent meaning, i.e., all texts are
transtextual, and thus one must trace the transtextual
relations within a text in order to properly interpret the
text. Based on this, logically all texts contain at least
two relational meanings depending on whether or not
one views a text in isolation or in relation to all other
texts; the latter of which is actually a basic element of
linguistics. Barthes asserts that there are two types of
readers, namely consumers and readers, where the
latter also becomes a sort of writer.
Monotheistic in this context is related to a notion of
absolute truth/meaning, which would imply that there
is a correct way to interpret a text. However, as the
theories of transtextuality along with the relational
aspect of language demonstrates, such a reading could
never hope to be comprehensive due to the plurality of
ways any given text can be read in relation to itself or
in relation to culture as a whole. A good example of this
type of formalistic approach can be seen in Russian
folklor
ist and scholar Vladimir Propp’s investigation of
the morphological composition of folktales.
Propp argued that one of the first steps in a
scientific investigation is correct classification. He
further insisted that such a classification should be
based on structure. Building on this premise, Propp
constructed the Morphology of the Folktale (1968). By
analysing the narrative of one hundred folktales, Propp
came up with a recipe for the folktale. According to
Propp, all fairytales follow the same narrative;
elements may be omitted or expanded upon, but the
sequence of events is always the same. The problem
with Propp’s morphological dissection of the Russian
folktale is that he made no attempt to unify his
morphology with Russian culture as a whole, as
pointed out by Alan Dundes in the introduction to the
second edition of Propp’s Morphology. Dundes is
arguably merely pointing out the closed-structuralist
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effect of Propp’s approach. Dundes does, however,
also point out that the type of tales Propp investigates
in his Morphology conform to what is termed Aarne-
Thompson tale types, and those tales are not
geographically limited to the former Soviet Union. By
doing this, Dundes illustrates the two main problem
with Propp’s morphology: Firstly, Propp as
sumed that
“fairy tales” existed as a special class of stories as an
essential working hypothesis, and secondly, the
morphology Propp comprised was supposed to
describe “the tale according to its components parts
and the relationship of these components to each
other and to the whole”. Dundes claims that form, i.e.,
the morphology of the folktale, “must ultimately be
related to the culture or cultures in which it is found”,
which Propp fails to do, and thus illustrates the
problem with closed-structuralism. Paradoxically, I
would argue that Propp’s morphology does exactly
what Barthes is advocating for; Propp became a reader
of the folktale, and thus also a writer. Propp, by way of
his morphology, thus illustrates the the difference
between Barthes’ consumer
and reader rather nicely.
Due to the plurality of potential meanings in a text,
most contemporary critics have move away from a
strictly formalistic approach to literary analysis. This is
because our contemporary view of the notions of
transtextuality would dictate that textual analysis is in
fact pluralist, a sentiment captured by Barthes in 1981
with the following statement: “There are no more
critics, only writers” (Theory of the Text).
The concept of transtextuality and Barthes’
idea
of differentiating between consumers and readers
disrupts any monotheistic meaning and thus also any
monotheistic reading. Transtextuality would not be so
disruptive to textual analysis if one insisted that the
text existed in a realm of its own. However, by
exploring the notion that multiple realms might exist
at the same time and that, more often than not, these
realms influence each other would introduce what
Barthes termed the “evil of plurality”. This can be
interpreted to mean that due to the relational nature
of all texts, transtextuality is inherently subjective. The
reason for this is the direct correlation between the
reader and their subjective memory or knowledge
base, of which the social aspect should not be ignored.
As a consequence, all textual analysis are rooted in a
subjective interpretation directly linked to the memory
or knowledge base of its reader. This interpretation is
echoed by Allen who wrote: “For Barthes, literary
meaning can never be fully stabilised by the reader,
since th
e literary work’s intertextual nature always
leads the reader on to new textual relations”. In
addition, structuralist analysis of literature has shown
how the codes of society modify and influence
literature. If one were to look at the lack of prolific
female writers thought-out the eighteen-century
without taking into consideration the way society
often has undermined the authorship of women, one
fails to see the correlation between literature and the
codes of society, and one need only look at the lack of
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female authors belonging to the Western literary
canon to see this point. In 1979, Barthes articulated
that texts “blend and clash,” by which he was referring
to the “multi
-dimensional space in which a variety of
writings, none of them original” are regu
rgitated by
the author, which make the text appear as a “tissue of
quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of
culture”. This is arguably the notion that Barthes was
referring to when he a decade earlier in his 1967 essay,
The Death of the Author, arg
ued that “the unity of a
text is not in its origin, it is in its destination”. This
means that one of the fundamental principles of
transtextuality would suggest that there is never a
single or correct way to interpret a text since every
reader brings with them a set of expectations,
interests, viewpoints, reading experiences, and varying
degrees of cultural exposure that they, willingly or
subconsciously, project onto the text.
CONCLUSION
The observation by Barthes differs from the long
standing tradition of formalism which focused on
analysing texts in a way that would sequence its
meaning so that it would conform to a monotheistic
reading. As a consequence, all textual analysis are
rooted in a subjective interpretation directly linked to
the memory or knowledge base of its reader.
Consequently, Propp’s Morphology should be read in
light of this fundamental principle of transtextuality,
which should then be enough to raise doubt about the
impact of morphology in the unsuspecting reader.
Logic would dictate that an unsuspecting reader, one
without previous knowledge regarding Propp and the
Morphology of the Folktale, would not recognise, and
thereby not read, any text in relation to such a
Morphology if (s)he was not aware of the existence of
such a system when first engaging with the text.
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