ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to position comprehension as a complex social act – a habit of situated mind. Drawing on insights into reading from literary theory and critical literacy it makes two claims. First, it claims that text is never a neutral depository of extractable meaning. It is always a product of the circumstance of writing and of the intentions and ideologies of the writer. Second, it claims that meaning is never ‘fixed’ in text, but emerges temporarily in readers’ minds as a result of the interactions they make with that text, and that those interactions are influenced and moderated, not just by the experiences and interests of the individual, but also by the social, intellectual and cultural communities to which those readers belong.
