~~d rthat ~hete is ~ ~hole traditio:n of chivalric romances displaying ccnain p I! After having read this passage, whoever approac~es Waverley (e'en one century later and even_if the book has been translated int o anOt~er om thc point of view of a different intertextual com_ petence) is asked fO assume that cenain epithets arc meaning. nouri~ed on a whole chapter of inter_ tex lu al encyclopedia:īut at he same time text (I) creates the competence of ils Model Reader. For in_ stance, the aulhor of Waverley opens his story by clearly :alling for a very specialized kind of reader. Many texIS make evident their Model Readers by implicitly ~rcsupposing a specific encyclopedic competence. Other texts give e~plicit information about the sort of readers they presuppose (for example, children's books, not only by typographical signals, but also by direct appeals in Other cases a specific category of addressee is named: / Friends, Romans, COllll1rymcn. f immediately excludes any reader who dces not know th e technical jargon of text semiotics). Al the minimal level, every type of text explicitly selects a very general model of possible reader through the choice (i) of a specific linguistic code, (ii) of a certain literary style, and (iii) of specific spedalizalionindices (a text beginning with /According to the last de\'clopments of the TeSWeS"T. J ~ posedly able to deal interpretatively with the expressions in the same way as the author deals generatively with them. The author has thus to ~ foresee a model of the possible reader (hereafter Model Re ader). the author has to assume that the ensemble of todes he relies upon is the same as tha t shared by his possible reader. lIS author has to rely upon a senes of cod~s that assIgn given contents 10 Ihe expressions he uses.
This semantic affinity does not lie in the text as an explicit linear linguistic manifestation it is the result of a rather complex operation of texlllal inference bfl'''', appro.ached in L'le course of the earlier e. '"The Rol e of the Ru.der." Here the texwal problem. To make clear (to myself as well as to my readers) the eonSlan,y of the theme of interpretati~ cooperation in the essays collected here. conneCt the modalities of textual imerp'ctatiDn with the problem Df pouible worlds. In "uctor in Fabllla: PUlmatic Strategy in a Metanarra tive Text" (Chapter 8), written a: the end of 1977 fnr Ihis book, 1 try to. offers many clues for establishing a richer theordical back,round for the conupl Df interpretative cooperatiDn. From such a perspective the essay in Peirce and contemporary ICmantics (Chapter 7). However I realize today, after ha~ing developed a general semiotic framework in my book A Thtory of Stroiolla (1976), that even these essays art dominated by tbe problem of the role of the reader in in terpreting texts. um not 10 call for cooperadve actiyity on Ihe p.art of the reader. "Rhetoric and Ideology in Sue" LtJ Myslhts dt Pads" (Chapter S) and "Narrative Struclures in Fleminf' (Chapler 6) - OOth of ]96S-deal, a$ don the essay on Superman, with texu which aim at producing univocal effecu and which. 'The Semantics of Mdaphor" (Chapter 2) and "On the Possibility of Generatina Aesthdic Messages in an Edenic La~guage" (Chapter 3)-both of 1971-e.umine how the procedures of actthctic manipulation of language produce the interpreLve coop but all the olher essays collected here concern verbal texts. 'The Poetics of the Open Work" deals with various sorts of tell.l5. ity and now 1 $ft it as a special case of a more general semiotic phenomenon: the cooperative 'ole of the add reuec in interpretin, meuaa:es. The introductory essay of this bock makes c]ur what I mean todD.Y by such a ~ate80rial polar. '"The P~tics of the Open Work" (Chapter ]) and "Tlle Myth of Superman" (Chlpter 4)-writtcn rapectivcly in 1959 and in 1962, be-fore I fully developed my ICmiotic approach-repR:Knl two opposina alpects of my interl:$t in the dialectic be-tween 'open' and 'closed'IUIS. Six of Ihe nine esuys published in Ihis book were wri1\en between : 9. L ector if! Fllbu/a: Pragmatic Strategy in a Metanarrative Text Peirce and the Semiotic Foundations of Openness Signs as Tell ts and Tellts as Signs 8. Rheloric and Ideology in Sue's L es Mysteres de Paris 6. Manuhcturcd in the United SlateS of Ame, ca Preface Introduction: The Role of th e Reade r On the Possibility of Generating Aesthetic Messages in an Edenic Language ltS lhe only uception 10 Ihis prohibition. mcric.n Univcnny P,cu.' Resolution on Permi. or by any information StOrace.nd renieval s)'Stem, " thoul permIssion in " "iting hom th.
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