October 26, 2012

Heteroglossia: Different Voices and our Perception

Before reading this piece I had understood heteroglossia to be different voices created by one narrator. But Daniel had made me feel that perhaps we can extend that perception our of just literature and see how different voices work in other pieces. The introduction to Daniels work that it has an "algorithmic structure," calling to our attention the "fine lines" between the ideas of "inside and outside, incarceration and freedom, oppression and resistance  and despair and hope." By reading about these different women and seeing how they think as we shift from one view to the next we see all these different voices with different views that put to question our own ideas, complicating what once may have seemed more black and white.

And yet, there is still a narrator that chooses these voices, though they are real, as much as in any form of journalism the author chooses what to add out of what a person said and what to not. Thus even without adding personal bias the author has in a way still formed the way in which we are going to read this text. Thus the voices really do create an algorithm, where the author takes us from one viewpoint to the next, perhaps making some seem to contrast more on purpose and vice versa. Therefore I ask a new question, as we take in the multiple voices within a text, fictional or real, how does the author frame the way in which we perceive these voices?

6 comments:

Michelle Macchio said...

I appreciate your interpretation of the reader's perception of the various voices delivered through Daniel's text. Thinking about the author's intent as it is framed and presented through her work allows us to consider why she chose to do so in the way she did, as opposed to any alternative way. Is this the best possible way to communicate the message? I think in addition to your question, we may ask how the framing contributes to our interpretation in ways that are unique from other potential framings. Would a solely written text enable the audience to have the same or different interpretation of the story presented? What about an entirely visual text? How does the author's statement presented separately from the hypertext aid our understanding of the material? How might we be limited by constraints of this medium?

Unknown said...

Although I feel like the author cannot touch too much on how we perceive the voices Daniel still has power over how we perceive the message with the addition of the voices. We could have very well just read all the transcripts but instead the voices give life to a medium where we usually feel there isn't any, a computer. I was moved by your idea showing the gray area in something that seems so black and white and the use of so many other terms that are difficult to meet halfway, such as incarceration and freedom, oppression and resistance and despair and hope.

Shanae Simon said...

When I think of heteroglossia I think of different ways of speaking and multiple voices. With that being my way of looking at it, I feel this project did exactly that because it looking from the outside in is two different viewpoints and there are multiple people addressing the issues in the prison system. I never thought about the fact that the author can dictate what they choose to be said. I was thinking they included everything so that they wouldn't seem biased.

Shanae Simon said...

When I think of heteroglossia I think of different ways of speaking and multiple voices. With that being my way of looking at it, I feel this project did exactly that because it looking from the outside in is two different viewpoints and there are multiple people addressing the issues in the prison system. I never thought about the fact that the author can dictate what they choose to be said. I was thinking they included everything so that they wouldn't seem biased.

John Smith said...

While Daniel has control over arrangement, I don't think she actually creates the voices themselves. Heteroglossia does not a tool of "creation" by the Author, it is closer to appropriation. However, your question of how this project is arranged is very valid. What effect does this have on us? From one standpoint, I can't help but be fatalistic; the format, while algorithmic and "deep" is also purely based in audience control. I can look at only one side of the coin if I want to, and come away with very different, and most likely, one sided conclusions. As you also pointed out, it constrains us, not by what is there, but what isn't there. We simply cannot explore every aspect of the prison system that we want to.

Will said...

I thought it was very interesting how you brought up the subject of authorial intent in this piece because I noticed something similar. While we are hearing the inmate's stories in their own voices, the way that the author arranges, edits, and mixes the responses together on the digital page, creates a narrative that probably does not entirely sync up with what the subjects had in mind.

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