Confusing Interpretations (Readings) With Attitudinal Orientations

Martin & Rose (2007: 310-1):

We’ve added reading to the cline to take into account the fact that texts invariably afford a range of interpretations, which we can generalise provisionally under the three headings of ‘tactical', ‘resistant’ and ‘compliant’ (pace de Certeau 1984). 

Compliant readings take up the reading position which is naturalised by the overall trajectory of meanings in a text. We’ve worked very hard in this book to show how the co-articulation of meanings in a text naturalises a reading position: how Tutu works hard at getting us to agree with him, Helena works to get our sympathy for her man, and Mandela strives to guide us on side. 

Resistant readings work against the grain of this naturalisation process; we might want to argue that amnesty was a bad idea, for example, or that freedom with responsibilities is not really freedom at all. Resistant reading positions are generally associated on a culture-specific basis with non-mainstream readings. (In the west, these may include readings that don’t enact the discursive power of white, Anglo, middle class, mature, capable, social subjects.) 

Tactical readings are readings that take up some aspect of the meaning a text affords, and rework it obliquely in the direction of specific interests. For example, if we as linguists had taken Helena’s story out of context and analysed it simply as an exemplar of one or another linguistic system, then we would have been responding to both Tutu and Helena tactically; we would be neither complying with nor resisting their discourse but simply using it to further our own professional interests.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This misunderstands the cline of instantiation, not least because it unwittingly misconstrues a text as a "reading type".

[2] To be clear, this confuses readers' interpretations of the meaning of a text with readers' attitudinal orientations towards the meaning of a text.

[3] This is potentially misleading, because here Martin & Rose frame the source of their ideas, de Certeau, as merely someone they disagree with.

[4] Amusingly, this might be read as an involuntary self-disclosure on the part of the authors, along the lines of:

We’ve worked very hard in this book at getting readers to agree with us, to get readers' sympathy for us, and to guide readers on side.

[5] To be clear, Martin & Rose are "white, Anglo, middle class, mature, capable, social subjects".

[6] Amusingly, this too might be read as an involuntary self-disclosure on the part of the authors, along the lines of:

we as linguists have analysed Helena’s story as an exemplar of one or another linguistic system, using both Tutu and Helena tactically to further our own professional interests.