Intertextuality, as Charles Bazerman
explains, is "the explicit and implicit relations that a text or
utterance has to prior, contemporary and potential future texts."
That is to say that as an example, coincidentally, 1) my reference of
Bazerman in this blog post and 2) the likely reference of this blog
post in class discussion are intertextual relations between the texts
of 1) Bazerman's chapter on Intertexuality and this post, and 2) this
post and the classroom dialectic for the upcoming Advanced Writing
and Editing class session. Edward P.J. Corbett and Rosa A. Eberly, in
chapter 8 of The Elements of Reasoning, describe “citizen critics”
as authors of what appear to be primary examples of intertextual
relationships: op-eds.
The op-ed, according to Corbett and
Eberly, is the democratic invocation of an audience (132). Within
these texts, authors more often than not reference preexisting
works—knowingly or not. Bazerman lists six distinct levels of
intertextuality within the range of overtness to unconsciousness,
varying from a direct quotation with citation to the simple usage of
colloquial terminology. Gathering from my personal experience as an
employee of the FSView & Florida Flambeau, op-eds typically pull
from all six levels.
The first level, as applied to op-eds,
is the reference of texts with assumed authority or those understood
to be correct by whatever means (e.g. citing The U.S. Constitution,
using common phrases based in logic). Second, explicit social drama
refers to the application of typically dichotomous debating in realms
similar to politics. The third—and likely most obvious—level is
the direct reference of sources as “background, support, and
contrast.”
The final two are more “meta” than
the initial four, in that both operate in understood manners; these
two levels operate implicitly. The fifth overall level, and first of
the implicit levels, is the use of applicable language—a
peer-reviewed article typically uses specific language specially
reserved for academic writing, whereas a letter to a newspaper editor
is clearly different in both vocabulary and syntax. Sixth, and
finally, colloquial phrases and time-relevant language implicitly act
as intertextual relation (86-88).
Corbett and Eberly warn of the use of
logical fallacies in writing, referring to them as “diversions of
reasoning (124-130).” There is no mutual exclusivity between the
use of intertextual relation and the potential for diversions of
reasoning. It is wholly possible for a text to reference other texts
while in turn making illogical arguments. In fact, it would seem
impossible to attempt any fallacious argument without utilizing the
at least fifth and/or sixth levels.
In tying these two texts together, it
seems that the analysis of writing consists of many parts. The
dissection of texts includes the breakdown of verbiage from its most
basic form as a string of words to its underlying causation and
meaning. Textual scrutiny necessitates numerous resources and
understandings of both explicit and implicit text construction.
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