What is Miller’s understanding of the self (of the writer) in relation to the text? How’s her conceptualization of that relationship speak to Bazerman’s work?
Miller understands a self that is created by the text, rather than the more common idea (in my experience) of the self creating the text. This runs interestingly counter (though not necessarily “against,” if “counter” can exist without “against”) to Bazerman’s ideas of the influences that go into a text. Bazerman builds on the idea of the vast body of experience crafting the author, and thus the text. This smacks of a self-to-text relationship. Miller, however, goes after the text-to-self relationship, that one’s self is amorphous and created by the text which they themselves are “writing” at the moment, whether that text is truly written or not (it can also be spoken, or one of many other communicative verbs). This self does not necessarily reflect the “real” self in any obvious fashion - comparing Miller’s example of writing like a student from a frequently college-bound family despite her more humble beginnings to what Bazerman would expect from her as a writer is a good example of this relationship.
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