long essay on Kevin Davies' Comp. which I'm going to have to read again...

"In other words, it seems like Davies is suggesting that grammar and syntax, even when tinkered with, speciously incite the syllogistic production of readerly meaning--and that the function of having learned to read produces not self-reflexive insights about language use but, well, readings of the available language. He stresses, in the haughty tone of adolescence, how he learned this all in the first grade: language governs itself. While this is the exact claim a critique of linguistic transparency attempts to rebut, in evoking early childhood education (as opposed to post-secondary education), the voice Davies adopts situates the reader of Language writing as an expressive subject in social space, with problematic results. That is, the point here might be that Language writing can't possibly teach us to unlearn certain lessons when we come to it at ages of decreasing neural plasticity..."