Part I.The theory explained
1.The ordinary conception of a text and the cluster conception
11
Two conceptions of what a text is
12
The ordinary conception of the text in practical use
14
Reddy on the metaphors structuring the ordinary understanding of communication
16
Cruse on words that allow for facets
19
The complementarity of the ordinary conception of the text and the cluster conception
21
Ontological considerations and the question of how texts exist
23
Rudner and Cameron on what a text is
26
Concluding remarks
29
2.Exemplars of texts and complexes of signs
31
Physical utterances and physical exemplars of texts
31
Sounds, marks, and signs
34
The cryptomental nature of linguistic entities
38
The complex of signs associated with a text
39
Concluding remarks
42
3.Textual meaning
45
Sender’s textual meaning, receiver’s textual meaning, and the question of a higher court of appeal
46
Sender’s textual meaning
49
Receiver’s textual meaning
52
Commentator’s textual meaning
54
Concluding remarks
56
4.A news story and a work of electronic literature
59
Soble’s “Japan Quake Victims ‘Tour’ Damaged Homes via Google”
59
Chemical Landscapes Digital Tales by Falco and associates
66
5.A poem: “Dickinson 591”
71
The sender’s meaning of “Dickinson 591”
71
“Dickinson 591” and receivers’ meanings
76
Receivers’ meanings in literary contexts
77
Critics on the theme of “Dickinson 591”
80
Two critical cruxes in “Dickinson 591”
82
On commentators’ meanings
85
“Dickinson 591” and the nature of texts
87
Part II.The theory compared with other theories
6.The standard linguistic perspective on text and textual meaning
93
The idea that textual meaning is sender’s meaning
94
The idea that meaning cannot be something mental
96
Standard linguistics and language in use
100
Limitations in the standard linguistic approach to textual meaning
103
Texts as conceived by linguists
106
The idea that physical utterances are also linguistic expressions
107
Concluding remarks
110
7.Analytic-aesthetic views of textual meaning
113
Beardsley’s conventionalism
114
Hirsch’s intentionalism
117
Tolhurst on textual meaning
119
Levinson on textual meaning
121
Stecker on textual meaning
124
Stecker on what a text does mean
125
Levinson and Livingston on truth about what texts mean
127
Concluding remarks
130
8.Text and textual meaning as conceived by standard literary theory
133
The poststructuralist view of textual meaning
134
The idea that language generates meaning
137
The idea that context co-determines meaning
142
On references to psychological states and human agency
144
Derrida on the iterability of signs
145
The idea that in language there are only differences
150
Standard literary theory on what a text is
152
Concluding remarks
156
9.The idea that texts are unitary objects
159
The fundamental problem with realism about texts
160
The idea that a text is an abstract object
163
Levinson on the creation of texts
165
Wolterstorff on the physical attributes of abstract objects
167
On the realists’ deeper motives for realism about texts
168
Wetzel’s principal arguments against eliminativism
171
Allegedly non-eliminable references to texts as unitary objects
174