A paradigm shift occurred in the 1970’s that affected the scientific view of humans’ relationships with nature. Previously, experts believed that people were separate from the objects they studied. However, “Einstein’s theory and the developments in subatomic physics revealed the need to acknowledge that, as Neils Bohr (1959) explained, the observer is part of the observation—human beings are part of nature.” (Cobb & Kallus, 2011, p.124) John Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley (1949) labeled this new view of the relationship between subjects and objects as a “transaction” to describe how the humans and their environments condition each other as parts of one system versus being isolated entities.

Louise M. Rosenblatt applied the theory of transaction to the reading process by describing how readers transact with text instead of interacting with it. Rosenblatt’s view is that a text’s meaning doesn’t lie within the text waiting for a reader to come and interact with it, but meaning is created when the reader and text come together in a relationship. The circumstances surrounding the transaction between reader and text, such as the reader’s goal and expectations, affect what meaning is gained. In addition, William James’ idea of “selective attention” factors into the reader’s relationship with text. Selective attention refers to the idea that humans are continually determining where to focus our attention by choosing to bring some of the input received by our senses to the forefront for closer contact with it and push others further away, kind of like putting a pot on the back burner of a stove.

As readers approach text, their previous experiences and knowledge as well as their current interests affect where they place their attention and how they transact with the text. The reader’s relationship with the text is ever-changing and ongoing while he reads. He is constantly evaluating the new information against meaning that has already been constructed, then determining which aspects of it should be integrated into the established meaning and which can be abandoned because they’re not needed. Rosenblatt states, “From a to-and-fro interplay between reader, text, and context emerges a synthesis or organization, more or less coherent and complete” (Cobb & Kallus, 2011, p.131).

Rosenblatt termed “stance” as the reader’s purpose which guides his selective attention. This stance affects which aspects of the text are pulled closer for further analysis by the reader or pushed away, out of consciousness. In the efferent stance, a reader focuses on information, such as directions, that must be remembered and used after the reading of the text ends. She gives an example of a man ingesting a dangerous liquid, then quickly searching on the bottle for the directions to guide him in saving himself (Cobb & Kallus, 2011, p.133). If the reader is using the aesthetic stance, he notices or even revels in “the qualities of the feelings, ideas, situations, scenes, personalities, and emotions that are called forth and participates in the tensions, conflicts, and resolutions of the images, ideas, and scenes as they unfold” (p. 133) Rosenblatt contends that readers don’t always take an efferent stance or an aesthetic stance, but that there is a continuum on which a reader’s stance falls depending on the circumstances of the transaction with the text on that particular day and time. Just as two readers will have different interpretations of text, the same reader may interpret the text in a different way if the relationship with the text is experienced under a different set of circumstances.

In closing, Rosenblatt’s view of reading as a transaction between the reader and the text differs from the interaction view in that the reader develops a relationship with the text. Meaning is believed to be construed through the reader’s choosing where to place attention, the reader’s stance and the reader’s interpretation of the text. The view of reading as an interaction between the reader and text suggests that the reader and text exist separate from each other, with the reader extracting the meaning from the text that has been there from the time it was written.

References:

Cobb & Kallus (2011). Historical, Theoretical, and Sociological Foundations of Reading in the United States. Pearson Education, Inc., Boston, MA.