textual analysis,by catherine belsey
TRANSCRIPT
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Textual Analysis
as a Research Method
(By Catherine Belsey, Cardiff University)
Presented by Amna Tariq
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What is a Research Method?
“Methodology” implies more than simply the methods you intend to use to collect data.
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(I) Objectives
In this presentation, we would be discussing textual analysis as a research tool
What textual analysis actually is ?
How important it is?
How is it done?
And what difference does it make?
How this method can be employed to analyse texts in detail?
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My contention will be that textual analysis is indispensible to research in cultural criticism, where cultural criticism include English, cultural history and cultural studies, as well as any other discipline that focuses on text, or seeks to understand the inscription of culture in its artefacts. (Belsey)
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For this session, we were urged to think about the following three questions
What features in a text do we look for when we want to analyse it
in detail?
‘Interpretation always involves extra-textual knowledge.’
What does Belsey mean by this?
How would you (as a reader) characterize your relation to Belsey’s
text?
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General Outlook
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What Textual Analysis Is About?
It discusses what the text says?
To whom it says?
Why it says so?
What EFFECT it creates?
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For Example look at this picture
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*
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Tarquin and Lucretia (1571 painting)
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When We Look At The Following Picture What Do We Think At First
A Rape
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Why do we think so?
Tarquin raised dagger His knee between the legs of Lucretius His muscular dominance White bedlinen draped over her thighs Her nakedness The bed point to the sexual nature of the assault She is also shown as defenceless
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What is A Research? (II)
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A Glance At The Picture From Feminist Polictics
Images of women
Nature of rape
Lucretia’s honor
Emphasis of power relation
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What effect does this picture create in our mind?
Invites us to imagine what might have happened
next?
Its duration of the horror
Although the picture is motionless but one’s mind
can easily think of the future act
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According to Belsey
People go for those known facts about things But research is expected to explore something
new out of the research Involve assembling ideas that have not been put
forward or brought in the same way as they have been earlier
Make difference to the topic whatever that topic might be
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(III) Our Practice With The Unfamiliar Text
The first impulse of many researchers when they come across something unfamiliar is to look it up on the internet or in another book, in the library, in bibliographies, from recommendations from other people and so on.
It may all be useful if it leads to further textual analysis of that particular text.
However, Belsey (2005) explains that we must not take other people’s word for it, and must consider their contribution carefully, with the pros and cons of each contribution.
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What is Research?
Research is expected to add something new to an academic field.
Expected to be original or to expand on another piece of research, to be independent.
However, despite this originality, it does not mean that research has be completely and totally different from other research.
It most likely expands on previous research, looking at something that may be missing or not fully explored
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Text, Author and Reader
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Way To Move Forward To A Text
You need not to agree with others but develop your own critical view point
Read the text yourself and develop the Questions Use secondary sources according to your own will Take consideration of the related matter must think about debating their own first
impressions in order to think about other multiple meanings
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1. What features in a text do we look for when we want to analyse it in detail?
What is going ‘on’ in the text/picture/film/transcript or whatever media you are analysing?
think literally and then expand on this to think about things that may be hidden or not as obvious
Who is the intended reader/viewer/listener? What effect is the author looking for – can this be
discerned from whether they are using first/second/third person (in a text or sound recording) or from what techniques they are using?
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Dos and Don’ts
Use your knowledge – whether academic, general or otherwise
be critical of our own knowledge as it may be rather subjective – although subjective knowledge can often be a positive thing
use instinct and then follow up these instincts with reading about them to find out if these instincts could be a possible reading
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Look For The Answers Of These
How does the text present the characters or subjects of the
piece?
Where are our sympathies invited to lie?
What does writer aim to point toward in his text?
What is the purpose of ‘I’ in his text?
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(IV) According to Belsey
Writings/paints/text are for the reader and viewer There is always a room for your own perception We can derive any meaning we want to (as we did
with the painting of Lucretia and Tarquin) The perception of reader can be different from the
writer The critic is to play a superior role.
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Belsey’s Recommendation;
it may be more conducive to textual analysis to use secondary sources sparingly
when analyzing a text, a researcher is trying to find something new or different, other people’s sources may hinder rather than help this
Researchers and text analyzers need to come to their own conclusions, first and foremost.
write hypotheses/questions and try to answer them yourself before looking at secondary readings
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Ferdinand de Saussure’s (1916) theory of semiotics, signs and signifiers
Language is made up of signs and every sign has two sides (like
a coin or a sheet of paper, both sides of which are inseparable
Saussure's understanding of sign is called the two-side model of
sign.
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Signifier
The signifier the "shape" of a word,
its phonic component, i.e. the sequence
of graphemes (letters), e.g., <"c">-<"a">-<"t">,
or phonemes (speech sounds), e.g. /kæt/
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Signified
the signified the idea, the concept or object that appears in our minds when we hear or read the signifier e.g. a small domesticated feline (The signified is not to be confused with the "referent". The former is a "mental concept", the latter the "actual object" in the world)
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For Example;
The ‘toilet’ would be the signified whilst the signs on the doors of the toilets would be the signifier (the sign for ‘men’s’ or ‘women’s’).
We all understand these signs and there are a number of ways to signify something, which therefore means that the relationship between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary.
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Ferdinand de Saussure (1916) said what is important is what underlies language and
vocabularies language is a signs system in which the sign is
made up of the signifier and what is signified This theory is important because it underpins the
idea of textual analysis, indeed, any analysis If a sign did not have an underlying meaning,
there would be no need to analyze something to find what underlies it
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Levi-Strauss theory of semiotics
Developed this theory by viewing language as a sign system through inclusion and exclusion.
In some cultures you do not use words in the way that other cultures do.
All languages, however, have a structure of sentences; the point at which we get from sentences to meaning is about genre.
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Text as a sign system
Text is anything that you can read and it is possible to read any sign system (such as film, text or art).
A text means nothing to you if you are not familiar with the medium in some way – for example, someone who has never played music before will find that a music scale will not mean anything.
‘Artefacts’ can include literature, paintings, interviews (transcripts/notes/recordings), photos, and so on.
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All these artefacts are sign-systems that we can interpret.
They can also tell you a lot about a culture, in the way that they employ signs (for example, the sign for men's/women’s toilets are different in other cultures).
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Evaluation, & Analysis of Text
(V)
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Worth of analysis
textual analysis made at a particular historical moment and from within a specific culture
The analysis of any text remain incomplete in past and future
Because it always has something new
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Lets go back to the picture
Slide # 8
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Is there something odd in the picture?
Evidently she’s on bed but
She’s wearing at least an earing
A pearl necklace
Two quite substantial bracelets
And a wedding ring
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Isn’t this jewelry out of place?
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Do people normally sleep in their portable property
in this way?
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Evaluation
Always look for minute details in the text Firstly it signifies the body is decorated and
adorned as an object of gaze Secondly the jewels indicate her wealth The bedlinen is also very fine and translucent Edge of the pillow is also embroidered Looped curtains also show the propriety and taste
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Text and Context
(VI)Historical and Social Background
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Importance of background
Textual analysis always poses questions And since the purpose of cultural criticism is to
understand the texts- or rather, to read the culture in the texts- or in the other words the inscription of culture, the appropriation in the text
Inquire the relationship of culture to the text Once you get the context of the text, its sets your
mind while reading the text
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Let once again go back to the picture
Tarquin is fully dressed
His clothes are rich and coloured
Oil painting highlights the folds of the fabric
Presents a contrast with the nakedness of Lucretia’s pale, half
spine body
Shows tarquin’s dominance and vulnerability of Lucretia
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Meanings presented by the painting
Painting doesn’t confine only to sexual politics or state politics
But contributes to its meanings and the contest it depicts is only
between a man and a woman, but also between a class and its
oppressor (plurality of meanings)
The textual details may be over determined, may signify in more
than one way
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So, by raising one question in a text, we are not done with it in fact its just one strain picked by us in the
layers of meaning given by the textLucretia’s jewelry expresses her richness, thus it
arises more questions
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Historically interpreted
(VII)
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Textual analysis
It’s a formal method
To answer the Question of the text is the task of a researcher
Historical background is needed to understand the text and
appreciate it
The painting also invites us to look it from the perspective of
history of Romans
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How does it take us back to history
We can see a slave in the picture to
What implication does it have here?
Infront of Tarquin there is a defenseless woman
And behind him there is a slave who has no control
over his body
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Minor level Analysis (VIII)
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(VIII) How text analysis works?Belsey suggested in each instance:
Address a question posed by the text
Where are its sympathies?
What historical differences does it present?
In other words we start from a problem.
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Duty of the researcher
Pose a new question and find the answer
Tarquin and Lucretia also have one element that does not fit the
obvious narrative
The angle of Lucretia’s left arm does not put any force
Is this angle a mistake? Or done deleberatly
The researcher has to find the answer to the following Qs
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FAR Fetched Interpretations
(IX)
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(IX) Far Fetched idea
We might see Lucretia’s bend of elbow as indicating another
turning point
The gesture of her hand on his chest is of caress
Could the transition in the question be from resistance to
pleasure?
And is it a capture of a moment in the struggle?
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The City Of God
The City of God is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century.
The book was in response to allegations that Christianity brought about the decline of Rome and is considered one of Augustine's most important works
The City of God is a cornerstone of Western thought, expounding on many profound questions of theology, such as the suffering of the righteous, the existence of evil, the conflict between free will and divine omniscience, and the doctrine of original sin.
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Textual question and its answer
The disobedience of ours to our sexual organ was a proper punishment for the disobedience of Adam and Eve
Augustine was not at all convinced that Lucretia was chaste, and was able to escape the effects of this sexual reflex than other mortals
And if she was innocent then why did she commit suicide?
Perhaps undecidability goes to the heart of the painting’s appeal as it offers an enigma to the viewers
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(X) What does this painting show?
Rape or resistance?
Rape and consent under duress
Or a consent of the body which issues in adultery,
not rape?
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Its not a secret but many interpretation
It could be what Titan had in his mind
But we believe his account to be exhaustive, if the
painting itself seemed to give many options
If meaning is not at the disposal of the individual, can the
artist ever have the last word?
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So,
A text is made up of multiple writings … entering into mutual
relations
There cannot be final signified :no one true meaning can
ever come to light
No definite truth is available - now or at any time.
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meaning is not anchored in any thing outside signification itself; and signifying process supplants it. All can be sure of, in other words, is the signifier, and this cannot be tied to any unique reading-to-end-all readings.
On the contrary the meaning are always ultimate undecidable.
There is literally no end to it. But there is a great deal of work to be done to explore all the possible avenues
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Thank You