Text, according to the OED:
1. a. The wording of anything written or printed; the structure formed by the words in their order; the very words, phrases, and sentences as written.
But also:
4. c. fig. The theme or subject on which any one speaks; the starting-point of a discussion; a statement on which any one dilates.
According to Miriam-Webster:
8 a: something (as a story or movie) considered as an object to be examined, explicated, or deconstructed b: something likened to a text.
In order to best understand what is being debated, one must understand exactly what a word means. Incidentally, because the word "text" is so commonly used in linguistic analysis, it is often challenging to separate it from word-bound art. Even Miriam-Webster has a significant difficulty in defining a text (confining it to being story- or movie-like production). However, seeing as the word "text" is virtually synonymous with the word "theme" or the word "subject," one can safely assume anything can be a text (i.e. a topic). The one key aspect of a text, which someone said in class, is that it has to be scrutinized by a human. Rather, it has to be discussed by a human.
Taking all of this into account, I suppose that a text is defined first by its observation, and subsequently by the transmission of that observation. A person cannot discuss that of which he or she is unaware (thus necessitating observation). A person cannot express sentiments without an act of communication (thus, it becomes a topic).
A question: if a person is able to articulate a thought in his or her mind, but neglects to do so to the world, is the thought still a text?
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3 comments:
Thank you for looking up the word. I was curious what the conventional meaning of "text" was in the dictionary.
In answer to your question, I do not consider a thought to be a text. The object or phenomenon of which the person is reflecting on could be the text. The thought itself, unless communicated, can not be considered a text.
Thanks for the definitions, Dan. If OED and Merriam-Webster can't even agree upon the definition, then our class certainly had no chance in a single class period. I am surprised that both sources could not find a common ground: one refers to "text" as something written or printed, while the other qualifies "text" as an examined object.
I agree with Virginia that one person's thought cannot be a text unless that person articulates it. Plus, would the one person who knows about the thought even care if it was considered a text or not?
Does the definition OED gives imply that anything can be a text, even if it has no meaning, as long as it is written? Would that qualify computer code for example as text? It does have words, and it has grammar but I don't think it is text.
As to the question about the thought, I too think that it becomes text when it is somehow given a form - speech, drawing, writing, dance, etc.
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