The Function of Theory in Composition Studies

by Raul Sanchez

Raúl Sánchez is Associate Professor of English at the University of Florida.

133 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2005

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book, Sánchez argues that composition studies has moved away from studying writing and instead now focuses on hermeneutics and ideology. He argues, following Derrida, that writing is a paradigmatic human activity and writing should be studied as writing (a grammatological viewpoint). When we focus on epistemology, ideology, hermeneutics, and culture, we are saying that writing services a something else. He writes that instead "composition theorists might instead theorize writing as an activity that produces sentences or statements, some of which can be identified, after their production, as knowledge. Writing so theorized would not be an epistemic phenomenon. It would not necessarily be understood as a means to record, discover, or produce — via cognitive, social, or even sociocognitive operations — anything other than more of itself" (31). Writing is, for Sánchez, a thing that produces more writing. We should move away from, so he argues, the ideas that writing either represents ideas or that we discover ideas through writing.

I found Sánchez's book highly provocative. It made me think and disturbed my attachment to hermeneutics, which I highly appreciate. However, his book is problematic in its limited discussion of Derrida (a much more complex exegesis on Derrida is necessary), his limited view of composition studies (he focuses mostly on those who have "imported" critical theory, without acknowledging this limited focus), and on his lack of a "so what." I am left wondering, after reading this, what this means for the composition classroom.

I do have a fairly charitable reading of the book, though. I wonder if his polemical take on the topic isn't mostly to provoke more writing, in the form of academic research, on writing. Behind the theory (perhaps behind isn't the right word) is a call to action: research on the (f)acts of writing. While, at the moment, I think hermeneutics is important to Rhet/Comp, I do think there is a lack of research on the (f)acts of writing. It will be interesting to see what responses there are to Sánchez's book, and what projects Sánchez produces next.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raul Sanchez's The Function of Theory in Composition Studies manifests a widely thought (but little discussed) aspect of composition research that seems peculiar to the unique subject matter of the field: what is it exactly that self described composition researchers should be doing when the do research? Although a pragmatic response to this question might appear more fitting, Sanchez proves throughout this book that a more fundamental (but not fundamentalist) approach is in order to adequately address the sometimes unquestioned appropriation of theory from other fields into that of composition. Despite its brevity (a pleasant surprise considering the book's tome-like title), The Function of Theory in Composition Studies is a well executed jab at the unspoken assumptions that under-gird much of composition's woefully inadequate attempts to formulate a theory of writing in light of the recent work provided by postmodern and postcolonial theorists such as Derrida, Homi Bhaba, and Spivak.