Textual Analysis

as a Research Method

(By Catherine Belsey, Cardiff University)

Presented by Amna Tariq

What is a Research Method?

“Methodology” implies more than simply the methods you intend to use to collect data.

(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?

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)

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?

General Outlook

What Textual Analysis Is About?

It discusses what the text says?

To whom it says?

Why it says so?

What EFFECT it creates?

For Example look at this picture

*

Tarquin and Lucretia (1571 painting)

When We Look At The Following Picture What Do We Think At First

A Rape

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

What is A Research? (II)

A Glance At The Picture From Feminist Polictics

Images of women

Nature of rape

Lucretia’s honor

Emphasis of power relation

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

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

(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.

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

Text, Author and Reader

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

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?

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

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?

(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.

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

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.

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/

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)

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.

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

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.

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.

 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).

Evaluation, & Analysis of Text

(V)

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

Lets go back to the picture

Slide # 8

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

Isn’t this jewelry out of place?

Do people normally sleep in their portable property

in this way?

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

Text and Context

(VI)Historical and Social Background

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

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

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

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

Historically interpreted

(VII)

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

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

Minor level Analysis (VIII)

(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.

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

FAR Fetched Interpretations

(IX)

(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?

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.

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

(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?

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?

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.

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

Thank You