Reading 3.4-Speech and speaker

The information that I found it interesting is about how texts construct particular identities for their readers through a process called ‘positioning’. In this reading, Kress starts by stating that ‘our experience of language is the experience of text’ which means that our ability to use and understand language reflects how texts have shaped us as people, including our understandings of who we are , and our attitude to other people, and the world in general. Other than that, Kress’s also state his argument is that texts shape the behavior and attitude both of participants within them and of the readers who access them. In the section “Discourse and readers”, Kress use the notion of ‘discourse’ to explain how texts shape people’s identities. ‘Discourse’, which refers to ways of speaking or writing which promote a particular view of world and how it should be. By other words, a particular perspective or stance. Additionally, when we speak or write, the discourses we can draw on and are competent to use will vary. It is depending on the purpose of our speaking and writing as well as other social factors such as the discourses we have learnt to use in our family life, education and work. Besides, we should think of the ways in which your use of language reflects your different assumptions about how different people in different setting should behave. The writer shows these in reading book, which is about ‘Miss Seductress’ and ‘Miss Winner’ in a Cleo magazine. Kress describe readers who share this ideal reader’s view of the world as occupying the ‘reading position’ of the ideal reader. The readers who are most likely to occupy this position are those who accept the views expressed in a text as ‘natural’ and common sense. These woman think of themselves as feminists but at the same time want to conform to men’s expectations of women. It may not be easy because these texts may have already shaped how we think about the world. In order to examine how these texts position us, we also need to examine how we view the world. Only then can we make freer, more critical decision about how we want to lead our lives.