Though the pop culture side of Pulp Fiction is obvious enough, there exists an unexplored Tagmemic side as well. Tagmemics encompasses a series of invention heuristics developed by Kenneth Pike, Professor of Linguistics. Pike originally intended for tagmemics to serve as a method of understanding the morphological and phonological elements of primarily oral languages, such as those used by the Mexican Mixtec Indians where he spent years as a translator. But after collaborating with Young and Becker, the three managed to make it apply to a wide variety of fields, issues, and texts.

Tagmemic rhetoric is a "social" composing process theory, as opposed to a cognitive or expressive one. It is entirely process oriented (rather than product), and deals with how texts are created based on the critical, cultural, and historical elements within the texts, the writers, and their environment. At the heart of tagmemic rhetoric lies the tagmeme -- an object or linguistic unit that is "part of a stream of speech." (Pike, 31)

For example, let's say we see a bag of apples lying on the ground: On one hand, the apples exist as independent units; they are "wholes" unto themselves. However, since we know that spontaneous generation isn't possible we must conclude that these apples at some point came from a larger system of units, in this case an apple tree. Taking a further step we can assume that the tree itself is from an even larger system of units, probably an apple orchard of some sort. The apples are particles -- stationary, individual units. The apple tree is a wave -- a series of particles in motion since the apples either grow or wither, then either fall or are picked from the tree. The orchard represents a field -- a miniature universe filled with numerous waves. Individual tagmemes, recognized and assembled into their specific particles, waves, and fields, are the basis for tagmemic rhetoric.

One might ask why we should care, and of what possible relevance would this be to our students. The relevance comes in getting our students to understand the world around them as an insider looking out, rather than an outsider looking in. In short: critical literacy. By attempting to view the apples not just as static, individual units, but as units being a part of a much larger field, we understand the apples better. We have an inkling as to where they may have come from, a greater understanding of what their purpose is, and consequently where they may be going.

Young, Becker, and Pike used this "insider/outsider" binary as the crux for a series of different maxims and tools used to dissect texts and brake them down into segmentable, categorized units. They categorized knowing something from the outside only as knowing it etically. Etic knowledge meant knowing something in passing, or on a surface-level. For example, non-magicians watching a magic show have no idea how each illusion is accomplished, yet they know enough to expect to be entertained. They know magic etically. Pike referred to knowing something from the inside -- knowing it as an expert -- as knowing it emically. Staying with the magic example, magicians performing the magic show know precisely how each illusion is accomplished. They know magic emically; if they don't they will get booed by their audience and possibly sued by their assistants for endangering their lives.

Pike also developed a nine-cell matrix used for analyzing texts and stimultaing invention. The matrix was broken down by particle, wave, and field and their contrastive features, their range of variation, and their distribution in larger contexts. Young, Becker, and Pike used this matrix to help students "solve and see, and share what he has seen" (xii), and to "develop a rhetoric that has as its goal not skillful verbal coercion but discussion and exchange of ideas." (9) They asserted that we all start off learning etically, then gradually shift to understanding emically the more we explore, create, and invent. They suggested we view rhetoric not merely as a process but as a linguistic activity carried on within a social context that both generates and transmits meaning.

To help us with invention and to better understand and explore subjects, Young, Becker, and Pike developed six tagmemic maxims:

• People conceive of the world in terms of repeatable units
• Units of experience are hierachically constructed systems
• A unit, at any level of focus, can be understood only if three aspects of the unit are known: its contrastive features, its range of variation, and its distribution in larger contexts
• A unit can be viewed as a particle, wave, or field
• Change between units can occur only over a bridge of shared features
• Linguistic choices are made in relation to a universe of discourse

With these maxims, and the nine-cell matrix, subjects could be hierachically broken down into particle, wave, and field through their contrastive features, range of variation, and distribution. This matrix represented the pinnacle of invention in tagmemics because it helped contextualize subjects and explore the rhetorical situations surrounding them.

Perhaps the most exciting part about tagmemic rhetoric was that it could be applied to literally any subject: freshman composition, theology, literary theory, and even technical communication, all by finding the specific particles within each discipline, moving towards the waves and fields, and methodically progressing from etic to emic. For example, as a web designer every time I build a new site I always make an effort to analyze it tagmemically first: In my head or on a dry-erase board I take a mental step back from the site before writing a single line of code and brake down the individual pages (particles) of the site and make certain they relate to each other conceptually and as a whole (wave). I then take a further step back and try to anticipate any potential problems when clients view the site on different browsers or different operating systems, and I flag any areas which might involve crash-prone code or code which older browsers aren't able to interpret -- all to maximize ease of use and minimize frustration in real world usage (field). Tagmemic rhetoric isn't merely cross-disciplinary; it is pan-disciplinary.

Given this pan-disciplinary nature of tagmemics, applying it to contemporary films like Pulp Fiction isn't too much of a stretch. Much as how Winnie the Pooh was unwittingly ripe with multileveled examples of Taoist philosophy, Pulp Fiction is unwittingly ripe with Tagmemic examples. The film is, in fact, a cinematic Rosetta Stone of Tagmemia filled with particles, waves, fields, slots, classes, roles, and cohesions . Discussing them all would fill a book -- or two. However, one specific character and passage stand out above all others, particularly because of their places at the beginning and end of the film: Jules and Ezekiel 25:17.