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Intertextuality and the Discourse Community Author(s): James E. Porter Source: Rhetoric Review, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 34-47 Published by: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (Taylor & Francis Group) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466015 Accessed: 26/05/2009 15:51
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JAMES E. PORTER IndianaUniversity-Purdue University at FortWayne

Intertextuality and the Discourse Community

At the conclusion of Eco's The Name of the Rose, the monk Adso of Melk returnsto the burnedabbey,wherehe findsin the ruinsscrapsof parchment, the only remnantsfrom one of the great librariesin all Christendom.He spends a day collecting the charredfragments,hoping to discover some meaningin the scattered pieces of books. He assembles his own "lesser library . . . of fragments, quotations, unfinished sentences, amputatedstumps of books" (500). To Adso, these randomshardsare "an immense acrostic that says and repeats nothing"(501). Yet they are significantto him as an attemptto order experience. We might well derive our own orderfrom this scene. We might see Adso as the writer,andhis desperateactivityat the burnedabbeyas a modrepresenting el for the writingprocess. The writerin this image is a collectorof fragments,an archaeologistcreating an order,building a framework,from remnantsof the past. Insofaras the collected fragmentshelp Adso recall other, lost texts, his experience affirmsa principlehe learnedfrom his master,William of Baskerville: "Not infrequentlybooks speak of books" (286). Not infrequently,and perhapsever and always, texts refer to othertexts and in fact rely on them for We understand a text only insofar their meaning. All texts are interdependent: as we understandits precursors. This is the principlewe know as intertextuality, the principlethatall writing and speech-indeed, all signs-arise from a single network:what Vygotsky label Text or Writing called "the web of meaning";what poststructuralists (Barthes,ecriture);and whata moredistantage perhapsknew as logos. Exammeans looking for "traces,"the bits and pieces of ining texts "intertextually" Text which writers or speakers borrow and sew together to create new disof intertextuality is explicit citation, course.' The most mundanemanifestation but intertextuality animatesall discourseandgoes beyondmerecitation.Forthe intertextualcritics, Intertextis Text-a great seamless textual fabric. And, as they like to intone solemnly, no text escapes intertext. perspective,one currently Intertextuality providesrhetoricwith an important neglected, I believe. The prevailingcompositionpedagogiesby andlargecultivate the romanticimage of writeras free, uninhibitedspirit, as independent, creative genius. By identifying and stressing the intertextualnatureof discourse, however, we shift our attentionaway from the writeras individualand 34
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focus moreon the sourcesandsocial contextsfromwhich the writer'sdiscourse arises. Accordingto this view, authorialintentionis less significantthansocial context;the writeris simply a partof a discoursetradition,a memberof a team, and a participantin a communityof discourse that creates its own collective meaning. Thus the intertextconstrains writing. the significanceof this theoryto rhetoric,by My aim here is to demonstrate its connectionto the notion of "discoursecommuniexplaining intertextuality, ty," and its pedagogical implicationsfor composition. The Presence of Intertext and poststrucIntertextualityhas been associated with both structuralism turalism, with theoristslike Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, JacquesDerrida, Hayden White, HaroldBloom, Michel Foucault,and Michael Riffaterre.(Of course, the theory is most often applied in literaryanalysis.) The central assumptionof these critics has been describedby VincentLeitch:"Thetext is not an autonomousor unified object, but a set of relations with other texts. Its system of language, its grammar,its lexicon, drag along numerousbits and pieces-traces---of historyso thatthe text resemblesa CulturalSalvationArmy Outlet with unaccountablecollections of incompatible ideas, beliefs, and sources" (59). It is these "unaccountable collections" that intertextualcritics focus on, not the text as autonomousentity.In fact, these critics have redefined the notion of "text":Text is intertext,or simply Text. The traditional notion of the text as the single workof a given author,andeven the very notionsof author and reader,are regardedas simply convenient fictions for domesticatingdiscourse. The old bordersthat we used to rope off discourse, proclaim these critics, are no longer useful. We can distinguish between two types of intertextuality:iterability and presupposition. Iterability refers to the "repeatability"of certain textual fragments,to citationin its broadestsense to includenotonly explicit allusions, references, and quotationswithin a discourse, but also unannouncedsources and influences, cliches, phrasesin the air, and traditions.That is to say, every discourse is composed of "traces," pieces of othertexts thathelp constituteits in my analysisof the Decmeaning. (I will discuss this aspectof intertextuality larationof Independence.)Presupposition refers to assumptionsa text makes aboutits referent,its readers,and its context-to portionsof the text which are read, but which are not explicitly "there."For example, as JonathanCuller Fred'ssister"is an assertionthatlogically discusses, the phrase"Johnmarried presupposesthatJohnexists, thatFredexists, and thatFredhas a sister."Open the door"contains a practicalpresupposition,assumingthe presenceof a decoder who is capableof being addressedandwho is betterable to open the door

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thanthe encoder."Onceupona time"is a tracerichin rhetorical presupposition, Texts signalingto even the youngestreaderthe openingof a fictionalnarrative. not only refer to but in fact contain other texts.2 An examinationof three sample texts will illustratethe various facets of of Independence,is popularlyviewed The first, the Declaration intertextuality. as the workof ThomasJefferson.Yet if we examinethe textclosely in its rhetorical milieu, we see thatJeffersonwas author only in the very loosest of senses. A numberof historians andat leasttwo compositionresearchers (Kinneavy,Theory 393-49; Maimon,Readings6-32) have analyzedthe Declaration,with interesting results. Their work suggests that Jeffersonwas by no means an original frameror a creativegenius, as some like to suppose.Jeffersonwas a skilled of traces. writer,to be sure, but chiefly because he was an effective borrower To produce his original draft of the Declaration,Jefferson seems to have borrowed,eitherconsciously or unconsciously,from his culture'sText. Much has been made of Jefferson's reliance on Locke's social contract theory (Becker). Locke'stheoryinfluencedcolonial politicalphilosophy,emergingin variouspamphletsand newspaperarticlesof the times, and servedas the foundation for the opening section of the Declaration.The Declarationcontains manytracesthatcan be foundin other,earlierdocuments.Therearetracesfrom a FirstContinentalCongressresolution,a Massachusetts Councildeclaration, a Mason's "Declaration of for George Rights Virginia," political pamphletof JamesOtis, and a varietyof othersources, includinga colonial play.The overall formof the Declaration(theoretical followed by list of grievances) argument the Bill of Rights of 1689, in which strongly resembles, ironically, English Parliament lists the abusesof JamesII anddeclaresnew powersfor itself. Several of the abuses in the Declarationseem to have been taken, more or less verbatim,from a PennsylvaniaEveningPost article. And the most memorable "Thatall menarecreated seem to be leastJefferson's: phrasesin the Declaration is a comsentiment from which Jefferson equal" copied in his literary Euripides of was a book as and the a "Life, monplace Liberty, boy; pursuit Happiness" cliche of the times, appearingin numerouspolitical documents(Dumbauld). ThoughJefferson'sdraftof the Declarationcan hardlybe consideredhis in still moreexproprithe documentunderwent any exclusive sense of authorship, ationat the handsof Congress,who madeeighty-sixchanges(Kinneavy,Theory 438). They cut the draftfrom211 lines to 147. They did considerable editing to temper what they saw as Jefferson's emotional style: For example, Jefferson'sphrase"sacred& undeniable" was changedto the more restrained "self-evident."Congress excised controversialpassages, such as Jefferson's to note, Jefferson's condemnation of slavery.Thus, we shouldfindit instructive few attemptsat original expression were those least acceptableto Congress.

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If Jeffersonsubmittedthe Declarationfor a college writingclass as his own The idea of Jeffersonas writing, he might well be chargedwith plagiarism.3 authoris but convenient shorthand.Actually, the Declarationarose out of a culturaland rhetoricalmilieu, was composed of traces-and was, in effect, team written. Jeffersondeserves credit for bringingdisparatetraces together, for helping to mold and articulatethe milieu, for creating the all-important draft.Jefferson'sskill as a writerwas his abilityto borrowtraceseffectively and to find appropriate contexts for them. As Michael Halliday says, does not consist in producingnew sentences. The newnessof a "[C]reativeness sentence is a quite unimportant-and unascertainable-propertyand 'creativity' in languagelies in the speaker's abilityto createnew meanings:to realizethe potentialityof languagefor the indefiniteextensionof its resourcesto new contexts of situation. . . . Our most 'creative' acts may be precisely among those

that are realized throughhighly repetitiveforms of behaviour"(Explorations 42). The creative writer is the creative borrower,in other words. can be seen working similarly in contemporary forums. ReIntertextuality call this scene from a recent Pepsi commercial:A young boy in jeans jacket, accompaniedby dog, stands in some desolate plains crossroadsnext to a gas station, next to which is a soft drinkmachine. An alien spacecraft,resembling
the one in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, appears overhead.

To the boy's joyful amazement,the spaceshiphoversover the vendingmachine andbegins suckingPepsi cans into the ship. It takesonly Pepsi's, theneventually takesthe entiremachine.The ad closes with a graphic:"Pepsi.The Choice of a New Generation." Clearly, the commercialpresupposesfamiliaritywith Spielberg'smovie or, at least, with his pacific vision of alien spacecraft.We see several American clich6s, well-worn signs from the Depressionera:the desolate plains, the general store, the pop machine, the country boy with dog. These distinctively American traces are juxtaposed against images from science fiction and the sixties catchphrase "newgeneration" in the coda. In this arrayof signs, we have traditionand counter-tradition harmonized.Pepsi squeezes itself in the middle, and thus becomes the great Americanconciliator.The ad's use of irony may serve to distractviewers momentarilyfrom noticing how Pepsi achieves its purpose by assigning itself an exalted role throughuse of the intertext. We find an interestingexample of practicalpresuppositionin John Kifner's New York Timesheadline articlereportingon the Kent State incidentof 1970: Four students at Kent State University, two of them women, were shot to death this afternoonby a volley of National Guard gunfire. At least 8 other studentswere wounded.

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The burstof gunfirecame about20 minutesafterthe guardsmen brokeup a noon rally on the Commons, a grassycampusgathering spot, by lobbing teargas at a crowd of about 1,000 young people. Fromone perspective,the phrase"twoof themwomen"is a simple statement of fact; however, it presupposes a certain attitude-that the event, horrible enough as it was, is more significantbecause two of the persons killed were women. It might be going too far to say that the phrasepresupposesa sexist attitude("womenaren'tsupposedto be killed in battles"),but can we imagine the phrase "two of them men" in this context? Though equally factual, this wordingwould have been consideredodd in 1970 (andprobablytodayas well) because it presupposesa culturalmindset alien from the one dominantat the time. "Twoof them women"is shocking(andhence it was reported) becauseit upsets the sense of orderof the readers, in this case the Americanpublic. Additionally(andmorethana little ironically),the text containsa numberof traces which have the effect of bluntingthe shock of the event. Notice thatthe studentswere not shot by NationalGuardsmen,but were shot "by a volley of . . . gunfire";the tear gas was "lobbed";and the event occurredat a "grassy campus gatheringspot." "Volley"and "lobbed"are military terms, but with connectionsto sportas well; "grassycampusgatheringspot"suggests a picnic; in "TheStar-Spangled "burst" can recall the glorious sight of bombs"bursting" Banner." This pasticheof signs casts the text into a certaincontext, makingit distinctively American. We might say that the turbulentmilieu of the sixties provided a distinctive array of signs from which John Kifner borrowed to produce his article. Each of the three texts examined contains phrasesor images familiarto its audienceor presupposescertainaudienceattitudes.Thusthe intertextexerts its influencepartlyin the formof audienceexpectation.We mightthensay thatthe audienceof each of these texts is as responsiblefor its productionas the writer. That, in essence, readers, not writers, create discourse. The Power of Discourse Community critics suggest, those who And, indeed, this is what some poststructuralist prefera broaderconceptionof intertextor who look beyond the intertextto the to what Michel Foucaultcalls social frameworkregulatingtextualproduction: communiwhat StanleyFish calls "theinterpretive "thediscursiveformation," ty," and what PatriciaBizzell calls "the discourse community." A "discoursecommunity"is a group of individualsbound by a common interestwho communicatethroughapprovedchannelsand whose discourse is

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regulated.An individualmay belong to severalprofessional,public, or personal discourse communities. Examples would include the community of engineers whose researcharea is fluid mechanics;alumniof the Universityof Michigan; Magnavox employees; the members of the Porter family; and membersof the IndianaTeachersof Writing. The approvedchannels we can call "forums."Each forumhas a distincthistoryand rules governingappropriateness to which membersare obliged to adhere. These rules may be more or less apparent,more or less institutionalized,moreor less specific to each community. Examples of forums include professional publicationslike Rhetoric Review, English Journal, and Creative Computing; public media like Newsweek and Runner'sWorld;professionalconferences (the annualmeeting of fluid power engineers, the 4C's); company board meetings; family dinner tables; and the monthly meeting of the Indianachapterof the Izaak Walton League. A discoursecommunitysharesassumptionsaboutwhatobjectsareappropriate for examinationand discussion, whatoperatingfunctionsareperformed on those objects, whatconstitutes"evidence"and"validity," andwhatformalconventions are followed. A discourse communitymay have a well-established ethos; or it may have competingfactionsandindefiniteboundaries.It may be in a "pre-paradigm" state (Kuhn), thatis, having an ill-definedregulatingsystem and no clear leadership.Some discourse communitiesare firmly established, such as the scientific community,the medical profession, and the justice system, to cite a few from Foucault'slist. In these discourse communities, as Leitchsays, "aspeakermustbe 'qualified'to talk;he has to belongto a community of scholarship;and he is requiredto possess a prescribedbody of knowledge (doctrine). . . . [This system] operates to constrain discourse; it establishes limits and regularities.. . . who may speak, what may be spoken, and how it is to be said;in addition[rules]prescribewhatis trueandfalse, what is reasonableand what foolish, and what is meantand what not. Finally,they work to deny the materialexistence of discourse itself' (145). A text is "acceptable" withina forumonly insofaras it reflectsthe community episteme (to use Foucault'sterm). On a simple level, this means that for a to be acceptedfor publicationin theJournalof AppliedPsychology, manuscript it must follow certainformatting conventions:It musthave the expected social science sections (i.e., review of literature, methods,results,discussion), andit must use thejournal'sversionof APA documentation.However,these areonly superficialfeatures of the forum. On a more essential level, the manuscript must reveal certain characteristics,have an ethos (in the broadestpossible of the discoursecommunity:It mustdemonsense) conformingto the standards strate(or at least claim) thatit contributes knowledgeto the field, it mustdem-

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onstratefamiliaritywith the work of previousresearchersin the field, it must use a scientificmethodin analyzingits results(showingacceptanceof the truthfor test design and value of statisticaldemonstration),it must meet standards degreeof accuracy. analysisof results, it mustadhereto standards determining of this discoursecommunity-the The expectations,conventions,andattitudes readers,writers,and publishersof Journal of AppliedPsychology-will influence aspiringpsychology researchers, shapingnot only how they writebut also their characterwithin that discourse community. thatwritingis The poststructuralist view challengesthe classical assumption a simple linear,one-way movement:The writercreatesa text which produces rhetoricexamines how audisome change in an audience. A poststructuralist influencestextual ence (in the formof communityexpectationsand standards) of the writer. in so the and, production doing, guides development This view is of course open to criticism for its apparentdeterminism,for of individualwritersandmakingthemappearmeredevaluingthe contribution of discourse tools the community ly (chargeswhich Foucaultanswersin "Discourseon Language").If these regulatingsystemsareso constraining,how can an individualmerge?Whathappensto the idea of the lone inspiredwriterand the sacred autonomoustext? Both notionstake a prettyhardknock. Genuineoriginalityis difficultwithin the confines of a well-regulatedsystem. Genius is possible, but it may be constrained. Foucaultcites the example of Gregor Mendel, whose work in the nineteenthcenturywas excluded from the prevailingcommunityof biologists because he "spokeof objects, employed methodsand placed himself within a theoreticalperspective totally alien to the biology of his time. ... Mendel spoke the truth, but he was not dans le vrai (within the true)"(224). Frank Lentricchiacites a similarexample from the literarycommunity:RobertFrost "achievedmagazinepublicationonly five times between 1895 and 1912, a period duringwhich he wrotea numberof poems lateracclaimed. . . [because]in orderto writewithinthe dominantsense of the poetic in the UnitedStatesin the last decade of the nineteenthcenturyand the firstdecade of the twentieth,one had to employ a diction, syntax, and prosody heavily favoring Shelley and Tennyson. One also had to assume a certain stance, a certain world-weary idealism which took care not to refertoo concretelyto the world of which one was weary" (197, 199). Both examples point to the exclusionarypower of discourse communities and raise serious questions about the freedom of the writer:chiefly, does the Can any text be saidto be writerhave any?Is any writerdoomedto plagiarism? new? Are creativityandgenius actuallypossible?WasJeffersona creativegenius or a blatantplagiarist?

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Certainlywe wantto avoid both extremes. Even if the writeris locked into a culturalmatrixand is constrainedby the intertextof the discoursecommunity, the writerhas freedomwithin the immediaterhetoricalcontext.4Furthermore, successful writinghelps to redefinethe matrix-and in thatway becomes creative. (Jefferson'sDeclarationcontributed to definingthe notionof Americafor its discoursecommunity.)Every new text has the potentialto alterthe Text in some way; in fact, every text admittedinto a discoursecommunitychangesthe constitutionof the community-and discourse communitiescan revise their discursive practices, as the Mendel and Frost examples suggest. Writingis an attemptto exercise the will, to identifythe self withinthe constraintsof some discoursecommunity.We are constrainedinsofaras we must inevitablyborrowthe traces, codes, and signs which we inheritand which our discourse communityimposes. We are free insofar as we do what we can to encounterand learnnew codes, to intertwine codes in new ways, andto expand our semiotic potential-with our goal being to effect change and establishour identities within the discourse communitieswe choose to enter. The Pedagogy of Intertextuality is not new. It may remindsome of Eliot's notion of tradition, Intertextuality the It is an important arecertainlybroader. though parameters concept, though. It counterswhat I see as one prevailingcompositionpedagogy, one favoringa romanticimage of the writer,offering as role models the creativeessayists, the Sunday Supplement freelancers, the Joan Didions, E. B. Whites, Calvin Trillins, and Russell Bakers. This dashing image appealsto our need for intellectualheroes;but underlyingit may be an anti-rhetorical view: thatwritersare born, not made;thatwritingis individual,isolated, and internal;not social but
eccentric.

This view is firmly set in the intertextof our discipline. Our anthologies glorify the individualessayists, whose work is valued for its timelessness and creativity. Freshmanrhetoricsannounceas the writer'spropergoals personal insight, originality, and personal voice, or tell students that motivations for writing come from "within."Generally, this pedagogy assumes that such a thing as the writer actually exists-an autonomouswriter exercising a free, creative will throughthe writing act-and that the writing process proceeds linearlyfrom writerto text to reader.This partialpictureof the process can all too readily become the picture, and our studentscan all too readily learn to overlook vital facets of discourse production. When we romanticizecompositionby overemphasizing the autonomyof the writer,important questions are overlooked, the same questions an intertextual

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view of writing would provoke:To what extent is the writer'sproductitself a partof a largercommunitywritingprocess?How does the discoursecommunity influencewritersandreaderswithinit? These areessentialquestions,but are perhaps outside the prevailing episteme of composition pedagogy, which cogito. Talking presupposesthe autonomousstatusof the writeras independent aboutwritingin termsof "socialforces influencingthe writer" raisesthe specter of determinism,and so is anathema. David Bartholomaesummarizesthis issue very nicely: "The struggleof the student writer is not the struggle to bring out that which is within; it is the struggleto carryout those ritualactivities thatgrantour entranceinto a closed society" (300). When we teach writingonly as the act of "bringingout what is our own efforts. Intertextuality remindsus that within," we risk undermining "carryingout ritual activities" is also part of the writing process. Barthes remindsus that"the 'I' which approaches the text is alreadyitself a pluralityof other texts, of codes which are infinite"(10). Intertextuality suggeststhatour goal shouldbe to help studentslearnto write for the discoursecommunitiesthey choose to join. Studentsneed help developing out of what Joseph Williams calls their "pre-socializedcognitive states." Accordingto Williams, pre-socializedwritersare not sufficientlyimmersedin theirdiscoursecommunityto producecompetentdiscourse:They do not know of what can be presupposed,are not conscious of the distinctiveintertextuality the community,maybe only superficially with conventions. explicit acquainted (Williamscites the exampleof the freshmanwhose paperfor the Englishteacher begins "Shakespeareis a famous Elizabethandramatist.") Our immediate is members of their to "socialized who are writers," goal full-fledged produce discoursecommunity,producingcompetent,useful discoursewithinthatcommunity. Our long-range goal might be "post-socializedwriters,"those who have achievedsuch a degreeof confidence, authority, power,or achievementin the discoursecommunityso as to become partof the regulatingbody. They are able to vary conventions and question assumptions-i.e., effect change in communities-without fear of exclusion. has the potentialto affect all facets of our compositionpedaIntertextuality gogy. Certainlyit supportswriting across the curriculumas a mechanismfor introducingstudents to the regulating systems of discourse communities. It raises questions about heuristics: Do different discourse communities apply different heuristics?It asserts the value of critical readingin the composition classroom. It requiresthat we rethinkour ideas about plagiarism:Certainly imitatio is an importantstage in the linguistic developmentof the writer. The most significantapplicationmight be in the area of audienceanalysis. Currentpedagogies assume that when writers analyze audiences they should

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focus on the expected flesh-and-bloodreaders.Intertextuality suggests thatthe properfocus of audienceanalysisis not the audienceas receiversper se, butthe intertextof the discourse community.Insteadof collecting demographicdata about age, educational level, and social status, the writer might instead ask of this Whatare the conventionalpresuppositions questionsaboutthe intertext: community?In what forums do they assemble? What are the methodological and "proof'? assumptions?What is considered"evidence,""validargument," A sample heuristic for such an analysis-what I term "forum analysis"-is included as an appendix. A critical readingof the discourse of a communitymay be the best way to understandit. (We see a version of this message in the advice to examine a anthologies journal before submittingarticles for publication.)Traditionally, have providedstudentswithreadingmaterial.However,the typicalanthologies have two serious problems:(1) limited range-generally they overemphasize literaryor expressive discourse;(2) unclearcontext-they frequentlyremove nature. readingsfrom theiroriginalcontexts, thus disguising theirintertextual Several recently publishedreadershave attemptedto providea broaderselection of readings in various forums, and actually discuss intertextuality. Maimon'sReadingsin theArtsand Sciences, Kinneavy'sWritingin theLiberal ArtsTradition,andBazerman's TheInformedWriter areespeciallynoteworthy. If we regardeach writshould be intertextual. explicitly Writingassignments ten productas a stage in a largerprocess-the dialectic process within a discourse community-then the individualwriter'swork is partof a web, partof a communitysearchfor truthand meaning. Writingassignmentsmight take the formof dialoguewith otherwriters:Writinglettersin responseto articlesis one kind of dialectic (e.g., letters responding to Atlantic Monthly or Science than articles). Researchassignmentsmightbe morecommunityorientedrather topic oriented;studentsmight be askedto become involved in communitiesof researchers(e.g., the sociologists examining changing religious attitudesin Americancollege students).The assignmentsin Maimon'sWritingin the Arts and Sciences are excellent in this regard. Intertextual theorysuggeststhatthe key criteriafor evaluatingwritingshould be "acceptability"within some discourse community. "Acceptability"includes, but goes well beyond, adherenceto formal conventions. It includes critical methodology,adchoosing the "right" topic, applyingthe appropriate hering to standardsfor evidence and validity, and in general adopting the community's discourse values-and of course borrowing the appropriate traces. Success is measuredby the writer'sabilityto know whatcan be presupposed and to borrowthat community'straces effectively to create a text that contributesto the maintenanceor, possibly, the definitionof the community.

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The writeris constrained by the community,and by its intertextual preferences and prejudices, but the effective writerworks to assertthe will againstthose community constraintsto effect change. The Pepsi commercialandthe KentStatenews articleshow effective uses of the intertext. In the Kent State piece, John Kifner mixes picnic imagery ("grassycampusgatheringspot,""youngpeople")with violent imagery("burst of gunfire")to dramatize the event. The Pepsi ad writerscombinetwo unlikely sets of traces, linking folksy depression-era Americanimagerywith sci-fi imagery "stolen"from Spielberg. For this creative intertwiningof traces, both discourses can probablybe measuredsuccessful in their respective forums. Coda Clearly much of what intertextualitysupportsis already institutionalized (e.g., writing-across-the-curriculum programs).And yet, in freshmancomp texts andanthologiesespecially, thereis this tendencyto see writingas individual, as isolated, as heroic. Even afterdemonstrating quiteconvincinglythatthe Declarationwas writtenby a team freely borrowingfrom a culturalintertext, Elaine Maimoninsists, againstall the evidence she herself has collected, that "Despitethe additions,deletions, andchanges in wordingthatit wentthrough, the Declaration is still Jefferson's writing" (Readings 26). Her saying this presupposesthat the readerhas just concluded the opposite. When we give our students romanticrole models like E. B. White, Joan Didion, and Lewis Thomas, we create unrealisticexpectations. This type of writerhas often achievedpost-socializedstatuswithinsome discoursecommunity (Thomas in the scientific community,for instance). Can we realistically expect our studentsto achievethis statewithoutfirstbecomingsocialized, without learning first what it means to write within a social context? Their role models ought not be only romanticheroes but also community writers like Jefferson, the anonymouswritersof the Pepsi commercial-the Adsos of the aremore world, notjust the Aristotles.They needto see writerswhose products evidently partof a largerprocessandwhose workmoreclearlyproducesmeaning in social contexts.

Notes 'The dangers of defining intertextualitytoo simplistically are discussed by Owen Miller in "Intertextual Identityof the LiteraryText,ed. MarioJ. Vald6sandOwen Miller(Toronto: Identity," U of TorontoP, 1985), 19-40. Millerpointsout thatintertextuality itself to a pluralityof "addresses concepts" (19).

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2Forfuller discussion see JonathanCuller, The Pursuit of Signs (Ithaca:Cornell UP, 1981), 100-16. MichaelHallidayelaborateson the theoryof presupposition somewhat,too, differentiating The meaningof any text at least partlyrelies on betweenexophoricandendophoricpresupposition. referencesin the formof cohesive exophoricreferences,i.e., externalpresuppositions. Endophoric devices andconnectionswithina text also affect meaning,butcohesion in a text dependsultimately on the audiencemakingexophoricconnectionsto priortexts, connectionsthatmay not be cued by explicit cohesive devices. See M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan, Cohesion in English (London: Longman, 1976). and post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning. All we can 3Millercautions us about intertextuality or not safely note is thatphrasesin the Declarationalso appearin other,earlierdocuments.Whether the borrowingwas intentionalon Jefferson'spart or whetherthe prior documents"caused"the Declaration(in any sense of the word) is not ascertainable. 4RobertScholes puts it this way: "If you play chess, you can only do certain things with the do not in themselvestell you what pieces, otherwiseyou arenot playingchess. Butthoseconstraints moves to make." See TextualPower (New Haven: Yale UP, 1985), 153.

Works Cited Barthes, Roland. S/Z. Trans. RichardMiller. New York:Hill and Wang, 1974. Bartholomae, David. "WritingAssignments: Where Writing Begins." fforum. Ed. Patricia L. Stock. Upper Montclair,NJ: Boynton/Cook, 1983. Bazerman, Charles. The InformedWriter.2nd ed. Boston: HoughtonMifflin, 1985. Becker, Carl. The Declaration of Independence.2nd ed. New York:Random, Vintage, 1942. WhatWe Need to Know aboutWriting." Bizzell, Patricia."Cognition,Convention,andCertainty: PRE/TEXT 3 (1982): 213-43. Culler, Jonathan.The Pursuit of Signs. Ithaca:Cornell UP, 1981. Dumbauld,Edward.TheDeclarationof Independence.2nd ed. Norman:U of OklahomaP, 1968. BraceJovanoEco, Umberto.TheName of theRose. Trans.WilliamWeaver.San Diego: Harcourt vich, 1983. Fish, Stanley. Is There a Textin This Class? Cambridge:HarvardUP, 1980. Foucault,Michel. TheArchaeologyof Knowledgeand the Discourse on Language. Trans.A. M. SheridanSmith. New York:Harper& Row, 1972. Halliday, M. A. K. Explorationsin the Functions of Language. New York:Elsevier, 1973. Halliday, M. A. K., and RuqaiyaHasan. Cohesion in English. London:Longman, 1976. Kifner, John. "4 Kent State StudentsKilled by Troops."New YorkTimes 5 May 1970: 1. Kinneavy, James L. A Theoryof Discourse. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971. ---, et al. Writingin the Liberal Arts Tradition.New York:Harper& Row, 1985. Kuhn, ThomasS. TheStructureof ScientificRevolutions.2nd ed. Chicago:U of ChicagoP, 1970. Leitch, Vincent B. DeconstructiveCriticism. New York:Cornell UP, 1983. Lentricchia,Frank.After the New Criticism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1980. Maimon, Elaine P, et al. Readings in the Arts and Sciences. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984. ---. Writingin the Arts and Sciences. Cambridge:Winthrop, 1981. Identityof the LiteraryText.Ed. MarioJ. Valdesand Owen Miller, Owen. "Intertextual Identity." Miller. Toronto:U of TorontoP, 1985, 19-40. Scholes, Robert. TextualPower. New Haven: Yale UP, 1985. Williams, Joseph. "Cognitive Development, Critical Thinking, and the Teaching of Writing." Conference on Writing, Meaning, and Higher OrderReasoning, Universityof Chicago, 15 May 1984.

46 APPENDIX Forum Analysis Background

Rhetoric Review

-Identify the forum by name and organizationalaffiliation. -Is therean expressededitorialpolicy, philosophy,or expressionof belief? What purposedoes the forum serve? Why does it exist? -What is the disciplinaryorientation? -How large is the forum?Who are its members?Its leaders?Its readership? -In what mannerdoes the forumassemble (e.g., newsletter,journal,conference, weekly meeting)? How frequently? -What is the origin of the forum?Why did it come into existence? What is its Its traditions? history? Its political background? -What reputation does the forumhave amongits own members? How is it regarded by others? Discourse Conventions Who Speaks/Writes? Who decides who speaks/writesin the -Who is grantedstatusas speaker/writer? forum? By what criteriaare speakers/writers selected? -What kindof peoplespeak/writein this forum?Credentials? orientaDisciplinary tion? Academic or professionalbackground? -Who are the important figuresin this forum?Whose workor experienceis most frequentlycited? -What are the importantsources cited in the forum? What are the key works, events, experiences that it is assumed membersof the forum know? To WhomDo They Speak/Write? -Who is addressedin the forum? What are the characteristicsof the assumed audience? -What are the audience'sneeds assumed to be? To what use(s) is the audience expected to put the information? -What is the audience'sbackground assumedto be? Level of proficiency,experience, and knowledge of subject matter?Credentials? -What are the beliefs, attitudes,values, prejudicesof the addressedaudience? About? WhatDo They Speak/Write -What topics or issues does the forum consider? What are allowable subjects? What topics are valued? -What methodologyor methodologiesare accepted?Which theoreticalapproach or induction(evidence)? is preferred: deduction(theoreticalargumentation) -What constitutes"validity," "evidence,"and"proof' in the forum(e.g., personal experience/observation, testing and measurement, theoretical or statistical analysis)? How Do They Say/WriteIt? Form -What types of discoursedoes the forumadmit(e.g., articles,reviews, speeches, poems)? How long are the discourses? -What are the dominantmodes of organization?

Intertextuality and the Discourse Community -What formattingconventions are present:headings, tables and graphs, illustra-' tions, abstracts? Style -What documentationform(s) is used? -Syntactic characteristics? -Technical or specializedjargon? Abbreviations? -Tone? What stance do writers/speakers take relative to audience? -Manuscript mechanics? Other Considerations?

47

JamesE. Porteris AssistantProfessorof Englishat IndianaUniversity-Purdue Universityat Fort Wayne, where he teaches freshmancomposition, technical writing, and graduaterhetoric. His critical theory, historicalrhetoric, researchfocuses on the connections between poststructuralist and contemporarynotions of audience and audience analysis. He has published in Journal of Teaching Writing, in Rhetoric Review, and in the Rhetoric Society publication Oldspeakl He is currently completinga book entitledContemporary Newspeak:RhetoricalTransformations. Theories of Audience.