Abstract:
Meaning commands inexhaustible attention ever since critical consciousness manifested itself. Gearing up to a textual
engagement for meaning, the role of the author, text, and the reader
has alternately attracted attention. This paper focuses on a set of
reader-response theories where the reader’s role is foregrounded in
the negotiation of meaning. Accordingly, meaning has been proposed
as a product of an ongoing and inconclusive process with the
participation of the reader. The objective of this paper is to affirm the
non-closure of meaning by pointing up the preoccupation of twentieth
century theoretical propositions on reading such as Semiotics,
Phenomenology, and Hermeneutics; these theories throw insights on
the dynamics of meaning during the textual engagement, and make
the reader conscious of the meaning-making process; as such, the
propositions point out the possibly multiple semantic directions
characteristic of such processes in this enterprise; in addition, they
pinpoint the differences precipitated in meaning during a text’s travel
across space and time. This paper, at first, introduces these theories
and their preoccupations; secondly, it discusses each of them in
reference to their views on meaning; then, during the discussion, it
points out the rich semantic possibilities that transpire during the
triangular interaction among the author, text, and the reader. Finally, it
affirms the notion that meaning is ever-changing1.
