| Summary: | The occurrence of meaning production ("betekenisvorming") in the poststructuralistic
literary situation will be studied in this dissertation. This is not merely an investigation of the meaning of a literary text, but also how the production of meaning is viewed in different theories after the paradigm shift from foundationalism to anti-foundationalism. An understanding of how the meaning is produced in the text, in turn leads to an insight into the text itself. New schools of thought will be accommodated in this study, especially those developed within the theory of literature. Meaning production no longer only takes place in the interdependent unity of the text or the intention of the author, but also within the whole intertextual situation where the text is "written" by the reader and where trans linguistic voices are also a contributory factor. The post-structuralist thus moves away from this "closed unity" of the text, to areas beyond the mere text, such as psychology, history, politics, philosophy, and the experience of the reader. As a result of this, the meaning production of the text also occurs in an expanding way. Meaning production in
poststructuralist literary theories is no longer viewed as if occurring within a unity,
totality or a universal truth. It rather takes place in heterogeneity, fragmentation, the
plurality of the play of language, the sub-consciousness, the irrational and the local
character of truth and meaning. It is closely interwoven with the current criticism of
foundationalism in its transcendental or metaphysical form. The following theories of meaning production are addressed in this study: The deconstructive meaning production of Derrida; the meaning production through blindness and insight of De Man; the lateral meaning production of Miller; the expanding dialectic meaning production of Jameson; meaning production in the transfer situation in Lacan, as well as in Kristeva; the schizoanalytic meaning production of Deleuze and Guattari; Bakhtin's heteroglottic meaning production and Fish's pragmatic meaning production. These meaning productions are demonstrated by an analysis of the contemporary Afrikaans texts by Strachan (Die Jakkalsjagter); Stockenstrom (Abjater wat so lag); Peiser (Soveel nagte
plotseling); Viljoen (Belemmering); Phillips (Herfsverhale); Brink (lnteendeel); Vander Vyver (Griet skryf 'n sprokie) and Goosen (Ons is nie almal so nie). In the concluding chapter the poststructuralistic meaning production is evaluated. The issues of openness and restriction are discussed, the role of the reader is addressed and the theories of meaning production are subjected to Armstrong's validity tests. Flowing from the gains of poststructuralism, a conjunctural theory as alternative approach to the literary text is proposed. A short discussion of Triomf by Marlene van Niekerk is used to illustrate the applicability of this conjunctural theory. === Proefskrif (PhD (Algemene Taal- en Literatuurwetenskap)--PU vir CHO, 1995.
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