How texts can be read in different ways

Composer’s context

Many factors – social, economic, cultural, historical, educational, political and so on – impact on a composer and inevitably become embedded (consciously or unconsciously) in their work.

Context within the text

As a part of its setting, every text has its own created internal context in terms of time and place.

Responder’s context

Like the composer, each individual responder will have many factors – social, economic, cultural, historical, educational, political and so on that impact on her/his reading of a text.     

Reading a text involves engaging in a dialogue with the composer. Both composers and responders make meaning of the text according to personal contexts.

Composers make choices about what they want to communicate and how they want to communicate their ideas. Usually composers have an intended reader in mind. Thus the discourses, whether in written or visual text, will attempt to position the reader in relation to a particular dominant reading of the text. That is, certain ideologies related to aspects such as:

• Gender
• Race
• Culture
• Age
• Socio-economic background
• Spiritual beliefs
• Ethical values … and so on will be dominant or privileged.

A dominant reading positions a reader to accept the values and beliefs of the mainstream culture. Alternative readings and resistant readings are affected by the socio-economic background, sex, gender or ethnicity of the reader or by the way the author positions the reader by using particular features that reflect a particular set of values and attitudes.

In recent times there has been greater focus on different readings leading to varied and interesting interpretations of the same text.
Alternate readings may include a:

• feminist perspective
• post-colonial perspective
• Marxist perspective
• psychoanalytic perspective

With graphic texts it is important to critique both visual and written elements in terms of dominant, alternative and resistant readings. Interrogate the visual and written elements to understand how the composer(s) is positioning you in relation to the text. Do you approve of this positioning or not? Why?

Clip art by kind permission Jeff Bucchino, The Wizard of Draws
<www.wizardofdraws.com>