ABSTRACT
It is the purpose of this chapter to consider readers' sense of the communicative nature of reading, and the power of that sensibility to drive the inferences they generate. The view of text we are advocating is that the production and comprehension of text are specific acts. As Bruce (1980) suggested, texts are written by authors who expect meaningmaking on the part of readers and read by readers who do the meaningmaking. Writers, as they produce text, consider their readers—they consider the transactions in which readers are likely to engage. Readers, as they comprehend texts, respond to what writers are trying to get them to do as well as what the readers themselves perceive they need to do. Consistent with these notions we contend that reading and writing are both acts of composing engaged as individuals transact with each other and their inner selves. Furthermore, these composing acts or transactions basically are the same as those that occur daily within the context of negotiations between people.
