The Text as Temporally Dispersed

Understanding a text means allowing oneself to become affected by the meaningfulness of what one perceives, when receiving the text’s sensible aspects. If the text consists of more than a single line or sentence, this happens in discrete, often sequential acts. The reader’s synthesis of this temporal dispersion is part of the way all text meaning becomes constituted. This chapter explores the nature of the meaning units involved, such as sentences or poetic lines. It examines the reader’s dynamic sense of the text in which unit meanings are non-deliberately interconnected. This build-up of a sense of the text is the largely latent or pre-conscious synthesis of meaning experiences. It does not consist of an additive preservation of linguistic signs or of pieces of verbal information. It can become partially reflected with hindsight.