Authors use language to paint portraits for their readers’ to experience the world. These words color our surroundings with inherent meaning as the letters and formations of the syntax rise from the written page and are spoken into the silence. Their words label and categorize objects, people, animals, and society. The historical or geographical location informs the readers of the reasoning behind an argument’s text in a novel or article. With the advent of new media technology across a plethora of platforms there are new influxes of literature adaptations. These adaptations have brought new readers into established fandoms and raised questions about authorship as the works are re-mediated into new forms.  There are questions such as: Does the adaptation reflect the author’s intent or what other influences such as fandoms play a role in the adaptation?  How relevant is the source text to adaptations? What is the influence of the fandom on the signs and the adaptations? Does the adaptation textuality add or detract from the author’s original meaning? These meanings are lost in translation of the adaptations and as the adaptations themselves become the basis for new alterations of the original text.

Saussure Ferdinand (1916) foundational theoretical concept from his article, “Nature of the Linguistic Sign” (1916) provides insight into text and its inherent meaning.  Saussure argues language in its most fundamental form is naming signs. These “signs” represent both a concept and sound-image when the brain hears and processes them (Saussure 832). An example is when a word such as elephant is spoken then; a person will visualize the animal just by the word or seeing a picture of an elephant.  Ferdinand defines a sign as the “sound-image” that is referenced by a word or image (Saussure 832). This concept illustrates how readers imbue meanings into given text. So, a person reading text or signs, the established signifiers for the text are automatically processed. Additionally, Saussure discusses that a signifier is confined by a “linear span” (Saussure 835) .   This “linear span” confines the semantics of the text to the specific time period of its creation. As the “signs” are the author’s frameworks for their narrative within a defined meaning.   Here are two visual representations of Saussure’s concept with the “sign” and “signified”:

Image source credit: http://masonclifford.blogspot.com/2015/10/semiotics-semiology-is-study-of-signs.html

The author’s relationship to the text was clarified during structuralism’s critique in the 1960s. The clarification came from Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault laid the concepts of authorship in their essays, Barthes (1967), “Death of an Author,” and Foucault (1969) in “What is An Author.”  Their essays pose that a relationship exists between the author and his or her text. Barthes argues that readers need to divorce the author from the text and his biographical information.  Also, Barthes argues that an author’s historical life influences the text.  Barthes argues that an author disappears when the reader reads the text.  The text itself is configuration of “signs” that are an “imitation” of life (Barthes 147). A current example within Young Adult literature is how the Divergent book trilogy imitated The Hunger Games trilogy with the heroine, class divisions, and surrounding world. Barthes argument is  “…the reader is the very space in which are inscribed, without any being lost, all the citations a writing consists of; the unity of a text is not in its origin,” (Barthes 148) .  Thus, the reader not the author gives meaning to the text free from the author’s biographical history. The reader becomes an active participant while the author resigns to the role of the “scripter” of the semiotic signs. These signs are interpreted by the reader which creates a narrative within their mind.  Barthes envisions liberation of the reader by the author’s death and positions towards cultural text (Ray 41).   This “cultural text” analysis needs to involve language “social, interactive, and communicative purpose beyond an author’s “biography, psychology, and intentionality” (Ray 41).

On the other side and in response to Roland Barthes, Foucault’s argues the authorship-function illustrates how signs and signifiers meanings are embedded and informed by the time period in which the author wrote the text.  Foucault’s argument states that,”…the text always contains a certain number of signs referring to the author. These signs, well-known to grammarians, are personal pronouns, adverbs of time and place, and verb conjugation” (Foucault, pg. 9). An author writing in the twenty-first century will use “signs” and “signifiers” unique to their time period which will contrast with a Victorian or Edwardian author. The authorship function operates as a characteristic of society’s discourses (Foucault 382). Foucault argues the “text” condition mirrors the author’s discourse in which the author wrote the given text (Foucault 382) .  His author-function critique frames against the “juridical, political, and social institutions” discourses that shape the narratives and meaning (Ray 42). Therefore, applying Foucault’s authorship-function concept a Victorian author reflects their societal institutional discourse and media ecological environment. Through examining the Victorian author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s beloved character, Sherlock Holmes, is a representation of the Victorian era.

Works Cited

Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” 1969. www.tbook.constantvzw.org . web. 22 05 2015.

Foucault, Michel. “www.movementresearch.org/classesworkshop/melt/Foucault_WhatIsAnAuthor.pdf.” 1967. www.movementresearch.org . web. 01 05 2016.

Ray, Amit and Erhardt Graeff. “Reviewing the Author-Function in the Age of Wikipedia .” Eisner, Caroline and Martha Vicinus (Eds.). Originallity, Imitation, and Plagiarism: Teaching Writing in the Digital Age. The University of Michigan Press , 2011. web.

Saussure, Ferdinand. “Nature of the Linguistic Sign.” Richter, David H. (Eds.). In The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends. Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. 832-835. web .