Telling how texts talk : from readings of Wittgenstein, Schutz, ethnomethodology and the sociology of literature to the analysis of readings

Abstract

Considering the possibility of its employment in the production of a linguistic sociology of literature, an argument for the theory of 'meaning­ as-use' (associated with the later Wittgenstein) is presented in Part One by contrasting it with the theory o 'meaning-as-object-referred-to'(associated with the early Wittgenstein) and the theory of 'meaning-as-mental-process' (associated with Alfred Schutz).

Part Two examines the ways in which ethnomethodology has already taken up the preferred theory of Part One and some of ethnomethodology's central concerns are used as guidelines for what has become by then a proposed sociology of the uses of texts. The second part concludes by considering the differences between this nascent sociology and previous forms of socio­ literary study.

Initially by experimental methods derived from Garfinkel, analyses of aspects of readers' practical sense-making strategies are reported in Part Three. By turning once again to the ethnomethodological corpus in conjunction with recent work on scientific practice, the experimental method is dispensed with in favour of a form of reflexive analysis. An initial example of this is then presented.