The Study Of Intertextuality

Bakhtin thinks that all utterances depend on or call to other utterances. Actually this is the intertextual or dialogical nature of language. Kristeva uses the term "intertextuality" to catch Bakhtin's insight. This thesis attempts to present an analysis of genealogy and theory on intertextuality, which is one of the most important key words of literary field and cultural study, and also to demonstrate its function and significance in literary and non-literary study (such as mass media). This thesis consists of six chapters plus an introduction and a conclusion. Chapter I points out the origin of the theory of intertextuality. It begins with Saussure's structuralist linguistics. Bakhtin's theories of dialogism and polyphony are also crucial. Saussure's structuralist linguistics and Bakhtin's dialogism are the most direct academic sources of intertextual theory and directly lead to Kristeva's coining of "intertextuality". ChapterⅡ makes a brief introduction to poststructuralism, distinguishing different viewpoints on text between structuralism and poststructuralism. This chapter, from the view of Kristeva's semiotics to Halliday's social semiotics, discusses that text is regarded as one of the elements of a socio-semiotic of language. Julia Kristeva combines Saussurean and Bakhtinian theories of language and literature to produce the first articulation of intertextual theory. When Kristeva introduced Bakhtin's academic thoughts to her French audience in some of her works in 1960s, she coined "intertextuality" and expressed her textual and intertextual theories from the perspective of poststructuralism. Chapter Ⅲ demonstrates many French cristics' views about intertextuality from the aspect of narrow and broad intertextuality. Besides Kristeva, there are Barthes, Derrida, Genette and Riffaterre. From the perspective of poststructuralism, Kriteva, Barthes and Derrida define intertextuality in a broad way. They consider the whole world as a text and there is a reciprocally referential relationship between each text and its signifying practice—such as language system, knowledge codes and culture—which gives the text meaning. However, Genette and Riffaterre define it in a narrow way. From structuralist point of view, they think intertextuality is just a relationship between a text and other texts that exist in this text. ChapterⅣ discusses mainly about Barthes's theory of intertextual reading. Barthes employs intertextural theory to challenge long-held assumptions concerning the role of the author in the production of meaning and the nature of literary meaning itself. For Barthes, literary meaning can never be fully stabilized by the reader, since the literary works' intertextual nature always leads readers on to new textual relations. Intertextual reading encourages us to resist a passive reading of texts from cover to cover. There is never a single or correct way to read a text, since every reader brings with him or her different expectations, interests, viewpoints and prior reading experiences. Each reader of this study is encouraged to read it in whatever order best suits his or her purpose. Barthes divides texts into two kinds. One is lisible or readerly text and the other is scriptable or writerly text. Readerly text requires passive reading while writerly text requires active reading which needs write during reading. Therefore, the text can be rewritten through the process of reading. Barthes pays much attention to writerly text. According to Barthes, the role of author is reduced to zero, as Barthes says that "the death of the author" announces "the birth of readers". During the intertextual reading,readers can experience "bliss". Chapter Ⅴ puts intertextuality into application and presents an intertextual interpretation of T.S. Eliot's poem the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Bakhtin's polyphony, dialogism and double-voiced discourse are mostly used to analyze novels. This poem was said to be a dramaticmonologic discourse with one voice only. In a monologic discourse, the...