Postkiwi

Textual analysis is a crucial process of engagement with generational culture. But to get our heads around working with generational text, we need to unpack what we mean by ‘text’.

Text Defined

From Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia we’re given different meanings relating to different contexts:

Language
Text is a broad term for something that contains words to express something.

Linguistics
Text is a communicative act, fulfilling the seven constitutive and the three regulative principles of textuality. Both speech and written language, or language in other media can be seen as a text within linguistics.

Literary Theory
A text is the object being studied, whether it be a novel, a poem, a film, an advertisement, or anything else with a linguistic component. The broad use of the term derives from the rise of semiotics in the 1960s and was solidified by the later cultural studies of the 1980s, which brought a corresponding broadening of what it was one could talk about when talking about literature.

Mobile Phone Communication
A text is a short digital message between devices. Also known as short message service (SMS)

Computing
Text refers to character data, or to one of the segments of a program in memory.

Text as Authority?
Note that none of these definitions assumes that the text is authoritative or to be given equal weight in decision making. Textbooks in academic study are seen as foundational material but in most disciplines are used alongside other sources. Academic rigour is measured in the capacity of a scholar to engage with a number of texts, forming opinions with discernment.

Biblical Text Only?
A complication when working in a conservative Evangelical framework is the anxiety about the place of holy scripture. “Sola Scriptura” was one of the rallying cries of the Protestant reformation. The recognition of personal and shared experience, along with the consideration of forms of popular culture, threatens a perception that world views are shaped only by the ‘Biblical worldview’.

Reading the Bible requires the skills of textual analysis. The Bible is made up of a number of texts. The Old Testament and New Testament as we know them now, are made up of collections of texts. As we read through those texts we place more weight on some than others. We interpret them in the light of the authors’ contexts as well as our own context.

Text Recognition
Despite the rhetoric of the Reformation, in reality we all make decisions daily on the basis of texts that have little connection with Holy Scripture. We develop our perception of the world around us as we choose and engage with newspapers, magazines, television channels and radio stations. We communicate with one another using an amazing variety of media, including mobile phones and the internet.

What makes some of us nervous is when we realise that we have always been applying our culturally-biased perception of the world to our understanding of God and the world in general. Paying attention to the texts that form and express the values of a generational cohort helps us recognise and discern the impact of those texts. In some cases we will discover perspectives that have been overshadowed by the texts of previous or later generations.

Generational Text
How would one would decide on a generational text? I would start with a means of communication that has came of age with a generational cohort. It’s for this reason that the rise of television show is associated with Baby Boomers, and music video with Gen Xers. It would be almost impossible to find texts that have had universal appeal throughout a generation. When considering a generational text one of the first tasks is to identify the particular context in which it has arisen and the more general context in which it has been accessed.

One hazard of working with generational text is absolutism. As we recognise cultural patterns expressed in the text we are tempted to make sweeping generalisations about a whole generation without taking into account the particularities of generational sub cultures.