ETEC540: Text, Technologies – Community Weblog

“To give a text an Author is to impose a limit on that text, to furnish it with a final significance, to close the writing.”

Simply put, text is a series of phonetic sounds with variable meaning, depend on the purpose of the author. The author’s purpose for writing text is to share their experiences with culture. In his article, Barthes differentiates between the “scriptor” and the “author” by stating that the word “author” implies more authority over the reader’s interpretations. The author inflicts a certain viewpoint on the reader, which inevitably overshadows the reader’s creative mind.

Roland Barthes. (1977). The Death of the Author. Retrieved from http://www.deathoftheauthor.com

I have often heard people say that text is one of those “undefinable” terms. Although, I am not sure I agree that it is completely undefinable, I do think that the word text brings forward different meanings for different people based on their age, culture, education etc. Text to me is anything that is used to conveyed meaning whether it is writing, symbols, signs etc. Text goes back to markings on caves that were used to convey meaning to others all the way to today’s use of text in its written form. Just in the short time that I have been a part of this course I am already beginning to redefine my thinking about things such as text and technology. They seem to encompass so much more then I once imagined them to!

I chose the wordle below because I think it illustrates how many different things come to mind when we speak about text. Text is not just the writing on this page, it encompasses so many other things when we begin to look at the definition in a broader sense.

After looking for the definition of text through several sources, a couple of words reappears. In Merriam-Webster it’s “the original words”. In Oxford English dictionary it’s “written or printed”. I began to think if there’s anything I would add to these definition. I remember reading “Remix” (Lessig, 2008). The idea behind “Remix” is that the current trent is we take texts and we add, change, recreate it into something of our own. The definition of text then as “the original words” could be debated. What would being “original” mean in this context? To use “written or printed” to describe text wouldn’t be accurate either then. The medium in which text is transmitted has moved beyond print.

Lessig, R. (2008). Remix. New York: The Penguin Press.

“Framing all the great music out there only drags down its immediacy. The songs are lyrics, not speeches, and they’re tunes, not paintings. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture—it’s a really stupid thing to want to do.” – Elvis Costello

When reading others’ posts on how they perceive text, and what it can be, this quote stuck out in my mind. It points out how different forms of texts can do and express things that others just can’t. They’re all expressive communication, but different… perhaps, too, like looking at something through someone else’s glasses.

Another interesting thing about this quote is that, while it is what Costello said in 1983, the main simile in it isn’t his. The generation of this wise comparison was by someone else, and it took a good deal of sifting through texts (oral, written, etc.) to figure out who it originally belonged to.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music/

It’s a great example of how unique text forms can be, and how what people say can be recycled and re-authored.