\u201cOrder is firmly coded: the order of chapters, the order of pages, of lines and of the line.\u201d G. Kress asks the question: \u201cIf order was fixed, as the order given by the author and naturalized by centuries of conventions of reading, then what was the reader’s task, and what or where was the reader’s freedom to act?\u201d He answers by saying \u201c[w]ords are (relatively) empty entities\u2014in a semiotic account they are signifiers to be filled with meaning rather than signs full of meaning, and the task of the reader is to fill these relatively vacant entities with her or his meaning.\u201d (Kress, 2005 p7). This could be compared to the role of teacher\/student whereby students are the readers learning through their own acts of interpretation. The teacher is no longer the sage on the stage but provided the stability of order, the direction and guidance associated with the act of reading, comprehension with feedback responds.
\nBut are words really empty? We pick our words when we speak or write. We
\nhave choices and make decisions on the vocabulary we use because words do have their own associated meaning and function. And we expect the intended audience to be familiar with those same meanings and functions. \u201cThe still existing common sense is that meaning in language is clear and reliable by contrast, with image for instance, which, in that same commonsense, is not solid or clear (Kress, 2005 p8).\u201d The image can be presented to have one clear interpretation. It really comes down to the abilities of the creator (whether writer or artist) and the mindset of the audience. Most like to complicate the message by including subliminal secondary messages \u2013 a different multimodal.
\nAs for the power of the author and the power of the reader; each can make choices based on how amiable a relationship they desire from the other. There is nothing to stop the reader from reading the last chapter first if they so choose.
\nAs for websites Kress states \u201c[t]here is no pregiven, no clearly discernible reading path, either of the home page or of each individual page, or of the site as a whole (the issue of navigation, where maps are relatively unreliable). I would say there is order but not so regimented as immovable printed text,it is based on a need to know more. The site designer as author doesn\u2019t presume to know which question the reader would like answered so with hypertext and other tools addresses multiple quests for timely information. There is more opportunity to mull over what information has been ingested when using print media but also more chances of losing the reader\u2019s attention in hypertext material.
\nIf readers are only tourists to websites, are they behaving as self-guided tour guides? If so, do the readers take in the complete resource with all the pertinent data; or do they visit only the top six busman\u2019s stops on the tour in record time? Are they receiving all the information necessary to make knowledgeable opinions\/decisions?
\nKress would lead us to believe that in the act of interpretation\u2026 [w]ith depiction and with images the situation is different.\u201d \u201cUnlike words, depictions are full of meaning; they are always specific. So on the one hand there is a finite stock of words\u2014vague, general, nearly empty of meaning; on the other hand there is an infinitely large potential of depictions\u2014precise, specific, and full of meaning\u201d (Kress, 2005 p15). What about misunderstanding, misinterpretation, multiple meanings dependent on the audience\u2018s interpretation? A finite stock of words? Are we not producing more new words each year? Are we not reinventing new meanings for existing words (example attaching slang meaning to common words)?
\nKress asks another question: \u201cWould the next generation of children actually be much more attuned to truth through the specificity of depiction rather than the vagueness of word?\u201d (Kress, 2005 p 21). I ask: Could this result in the same if this scenario were to be reversed? <\/p>\n
Kress, Gunter. (2005). \u201cGains and losses: New forms of texts, knowledge and learning. Computers and Composition. 22(1), 5-22.
\nWords: 646<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cOrder is firmly coded: the order of chapters, the order of pages, of lines and of the line.\u201d G. Kress asks the question: \u201cIf order was fixed, as the order given by the author and naturalized by centuries of conventions of reading, then what was the reader’s task, and what or where was the reader’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[992585,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-3","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20006"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2735,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2699\/revisions\/2735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/etec540summer15\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}