摘要：How meaning evolves (in written communication) or is negotiated (in spoken) through the complex mteraction of sender, receiver and context is a preoccupation both of linguists and of those concerned with literary studies. This article is an attempt to combine the insights provided by those involved in discourse analysis and those concerned with reception aesthetics. The Ebony Tower by John Fowles is considered in the light of the discourse categories: episode, sequence, turn, act. The story can be seen to be composed of two intermeshed episodes and a short terminal episode. The episodes vary in terms of actors, narrative devices and illocutionary intent. They also vary in extent of ambiguity and hence of reader involvement and aesthetic impact. It is suggested that since both reading and writing are everyday activities, competence in :making sense off the structuring and transmission of meaning in speech may be one of the ways, beneath conscious control, in which readers realize significance in reading too.
