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American Journal Of Philological Sciences   
(ISSN – 2771-2273) 
VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

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ABSTRACT 

This article include a brief introduction of the history of the meaning behind the term transtextuality. Since the term 

meaning is contested, this article will focus on discussing the consept of transtextuality and present theoretical point 

of view of  literary theorist such as Bakhtin, Allen, Barthes and Kristeva. 

 

KEYWORDS 

The concept of transtextuality, aspect of transtextuality, theoretical approaches, communication, relational meaning, 

textual analysis. 

INTRODUCTION

In order to understand transtextuality it it important to 

understand the history behind the term and to clarify 

exactly what it means. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de 

Saussure is credited for being the first to divide the sign 

into two part, namely the signified and the signifier; the 

signified represents the concept while the signifier is 

regarded as the sound-image. According to Saussure, 

meaning is derived from the intersection of these two 

  Research Article 

 

THE HISTORY OF TRANSTEXTUALITY AND THEORITICAL APPROACH TO 

LITERARY ANALYSIS 
 

Submission Date: November 05, 2022, Accepted Date:  November 15, 2022,  

Published Date: November 30, 2022  

Crossref doi: https://doi.org/10.37547/ajps/Volume02Issue11-17 

 

 

Aziza Mirzaeva Shavkatovna 
Bukhra State Medical Institute, Teacher Of English Language Department, Uzbekistan 

  

 

Journal Website: 

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Copyright: Original 

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may be used under the 

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American Journal Of Philological Sciences   
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VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

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parts, which is significant because it shows that: “Signs 

are arbitrary, possessing meaning not because of a 

referential function but because of their function 

within a linguistic system as it exists at any one 

moment in time” (Allen). This observation by Saussure 

is critical in understanding one of the fundamental 

principles within the concept of transtextuality 

because it showed that the sign is non-referential, 

which means that its meaning does not only stem from 

the sign itself but from the sign’s placement within a 

larger system. This system is dynamic as opposed to 

static, which means that it changes over time and 

though social constructions. This in turn implies that 

transtextuality contains social elements in addition to 

its linguistic ones. It is here the work of Russian literary 

theorist M. M. Bathkin and his writings on the concepts 

of dialogism and heteroglossia comes in. Dialogism 

refers to the inherent referential nature of 

communication, for which Bakhtin argued that all acts 

of communication, written or other, exist an a 

perpetual dialog with former acts of communication. 

Hetroglossia was Bakhtin’s term for the differentiated 

modes of discourse society layers onto communicative 

acts, examples of which are numerous; suffice to say, 

vernacular, vocabulary, dialects, etc., all play a part in 

acts of communication, to the point where what is 

negated from a communicative act can also be 

analysed as part of the mode of discourse. If the 

Bathkinian aspect of dialogism is important in 

understanding the referential nature of 

transtextuality, heteroglossia is crucial for 

understanding the aspect of culture and social status 

within the realm of transtextuality; heteroglossia can 

be described as the social perspective from which one 

sees the world, and this perspective perpetuates the 

system which the social aspect of transtextuality stems 

from. Julia Kristeva first coined the term intertextuality 

when she during the 1960’s set out to unify and 

elaborate upon the theoretical work of Bakhtin and 

Saussure. Saussureian semiology and Bakhtinian 

dialogism and heteroglossia became merged and re-

articulated in a way that, for Kristeva, replaced the 

preexisting notion of intersubjectivity; this is because 

meaning is not so much exchanged as it is decoded.          

According to Kristeva, poetic language, her term for 

language that express the duality often associated 

with transtextual discourse, contain significance - a 

way of representing and communicating that which is 

not present in the text. Kristeva’s take on Bakhtin’s 

work show that the referential nature of language 

automatically subsume that the word or utterance is in 

fact double-voices - possessing a meaning at the same 

time as it possesses another meaning. This can be 

illustrated by using the word healthy – someone who is 

healthy is well and not suffering from any illness. Based 

on this, the word healthy has two relational meaning, 

namely someone who is well  and someone who is not 

sick.  

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Volume 02 Issue 11-2022 122 

                 

 
 

   
  
 

American Journal Of Philological Sciences   
(ISSN – 2771-2273) 
VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

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The relationship between linguistics and relational 

meanings is well articulated within some of the work 

by Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette. Furthermore, 

they both serve as prime examples because they focus 

on two different aspects of transtextuality in relation 

to critical analysis. In 1967, Roland Barthes published 

his highly influential essay The Death Of The Author 

which arguably can be said to have given birth to the 

concept of the reader, which it accomplished at the 

detriment of authorial intent. By arguing for increased 

agency on behalf of the reader, Barthes was able to 

successfully argue the importance of the preexisting 

notions and ideas a reader brings with them when 

engaging with a text. As a consequence, Barthes’ essay 

enabled a shift in emphasis from that of the long-

standing idea of authorial intent towards the more 

contemporary idea of reader participation. Due to the 

important nature of allusions within the realm of 

intertextuality, reader-participation becomes a crucial 

element in decoding transtextual references. 

Additionally, this theory of transtextuality dictates that 

texts lack independent meaning, i.e., all texts are 

transtextual, and thus one must trace the transtextual 

relations within a text in order to properly interpret the 

text. Based on this, logically all texts contain at least 

two relational meanings depending on whether or not 

one views a text in isolation or in relation to all other 

texts; the latter of which is actually a basic element of 

linguistics. Barthes asserts that there are two types of 

readers, namely consumers and readers, where the 

latter also becomes a sort of writer. 

Monotheistic in this context is related to a notion of 

absolute truth/meaning, which would imply that there 

is a correct way to interpret a text. However, as the 

theories of transtextuality along with the relational 

aspect of language demonstrates, such a reading could 

never hope to be comprehensive due to the plurality of 

ways any given text can be read in relation to itself or 

in relation to culture as a whole. A good example of this 

type of formalistic approach can be seen in Russian 

folklorist and scholar Vladimir Propp’s investigation of 

the morphological composition of folktales. 

           Propp argued that one of the first steps in a 

scientific investigation is correct classification. He 

further insisted that such a classification should be 

based on structure. Building on this premise, Propp 

constructed the Morphology of the Folktale (1968). By 

analysing the narrative of one hundred folktales, Propp 

came up with a recipe for the folktale. According to 

Propp, all fairytales follow the same narrative; 

elements may be omitted or expanded upon, but the 

sequence of events is always the same. The problem 

with Propp’s morphological dissection of the Russian 

folktale is that he made no attempt to unify his 

morphology with Russian culture as a whole, as 

pointed out by Alan Dundes in the introduction to the 

second edition of Propp’s Morphology. Dundes is 

arguably merely pointing out the closed-structuralist 

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Volume 02 Issue 11-2022 123 

                 

 
 

   
  
 

American Journal Of Philological Sciences   
(ISSN – 2771-2273) 
VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

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OCLC – 1121105677    METADATA IF – 5.963 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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effect of Propp’s approach. Dundes does, however, 

also point out that the type of tales Propp investigates 

in his Morphology conform to what is termed Aarne-

Thompson tale types, and those tales are not 

geographically limited to the former Soviet Union. By 

doing this, Dundes illustrates the two main problem 

with Propp’s morphology: Firstly, Propp assumed that 

“fairy tales” existed as a special class of stories as an 

essential working hypothesis, and secondly, the 

morphology Propp comprised was supposed to 

describe “the tale according to its components parts 

and the relationship of these components to each 

other and to the whole”. Dundes claims that form, i.e., 

the morphology of the folktale, “must ultimately be 

related to the culture or cultures in which it is found”, 

which Propp fails to do, and thus illustrates the 

problem with closed-structuralism. Paradoxically, I 

would argue that Propp’s morphology does exactly 

what Barthes is advocating for; Propp became a reader 

of the folktale, and thus also a writer. Propp, by way of 

his morphology, thus illustrates the the difference 

between Barthes’ consumer and reader rather nicely. 

Due to the plurality of potential meanings in a text, 

most contemporary critics have move away from a 

strictly formalistic approach to literary analysis. This is 

because our contemporary view of the notions of 

transtextuality would dictate that textual analysis is in 

fact pluralist, a sentiment captured by Barthes in 1981 

with the following statement: “There are no more 

critics, only writers” (Theory of the Text).             

            The concept of transtextuality and Barthes’ idea 

of differentiating between consumers and readers 

disrupts any monotheistic meaning and thus also any 

monotheistic reading. Transtextuality would not be so 

disruptive to textual analysis if one insisted that the 

text existed in a realm of its own. However, by 

exploring the notion that multiple realms might exist 

at the same time and that, more often than not, these 

realms influence each other would introduce what 

Barthes termed the “evil of plurality”. This can be 

interpreted to mean that due to the relational nature 

of all texts, transtextuality is inherently subjective. The 

reason for this is the direct correlation between the 

reader and their subjective memory or knowledge 

base, of which the social aspect should not be ignored. 

As a consequence, all textual analysis are rooted in a 

subjective interpretation directly linked to the memory 

or knowledge base of its reader. This interpretation is 

echoed by Allen who wrote: “For Barthes, literary 

meaning can never be fully stabilised by the reader, 

since the literary work’s intertextual nature always 

leads the reader on to new textual relations”. In 

addition, structuralist analysis of literature has shown 

how the codes of society modify and influence 

literature. If one were to look at the lack of prolific 

female writers thought-out the eighteen-century 

without taking into consideration the way society 

often has undermined the authorship of women, one 

fails to see the correlation between literature and the 

codes of society, and one need only look at the lack of 

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Volume 02 Issue 11-2022 124 

                 

 
 

   
  
 

American Journal Of Philological Sciences   
(ISSN – 2771-2273) 
VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

SJIF IMPACT FACTOR  (2022: 5. 445)  
OCLC – 1121105677    METADATA IF – 5.963 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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female authors belonging to the Western literary 

canon to see this point. In 1979, Barthes articulated 

that texts “blend and clash,” by which he was referring 

to the “multi-dimensional space in which a variety of 

writings, none of them original” are regurgitated by 

the author, which make the text appear as a “tissue of 

quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of 

culture”. This is arguably the notion that Barthes was 

referring to when he a decade earlier in his 1967 essay, 

The Death of the Author, argued that “the unity of a 

text is not in its origin, it is in its destination”. This 

means that one of the fundamental principles of 

transtextuality would suggest that there is never a 

single or correct way to interpret a text since every 

reader brings with them a set of expectations, 

interests, viewpoints, reading experiences, and varying 

degrees of cultural exposure that they, willingly or 

subconsciously, project onto the text.   

CONCLUSION 

The observation by Barthes differs from the long 

standing tradition of formalism which focused on 

analysing texts in a way that would sequence its 

meaning so that it would conform to a monotheistic 

reading. As a consequence, all textual analysis are 

rooted in a subjective interpretation directly linked to 

the memory or knowledge base of its reader. 

Consequently, Propp’s Morphology should be read in 

light of this fundamental principle of transtextuality, 

which should then be enough to raise doubt about the 

impact of morphology in the unsuspecting reader. 

Logic would dictate that an unsuspecting reader, one 

without previous knowledge regarding Propp and the 

Morphology of the Folktale, would not recognise, and 

thereby not read, any text in relation to such a 

Morphology if (s)he was not aware of the existence of 

such a system when first engaging with the text. 

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VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

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(ISSN – 2771-2273) 
VOLUME 02 ISSUE 11 PAGES: 120-126 

SJIF IMPACT FACTOR  (2022: 5. 445)  
OCLC – 1121105677    METADATA IF – 5.963 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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