2. The new medium checks our immense
effect having lived to come into being.
The new medium has affected our life
tremendously.
3. “Media Translation”
Print document electronic text
An act of interpretation
Something is gained as well as lost
“textuality”
4. “Textuality”
What is text?
Traditional, editor’s view:
text— a compound of matter,concept and
action; but has no substantial/material
existence: no colour,font size,shape or page
replacement (Shillingsburg)
A textual hierarchy——Notions of “work”, “text”
and “document” in print bibliographic studies
(Anna Gunder)
5. A textual hierarchy
Work — “abstract artistic entity”；
ideal constructions
Text — manifest work
through specific sign system
Document — physical artifact
merging with sign system
6. Recognising Textuality
Conclusion:
The majority of editors and literary scholars
assume the definitions of “work”, “text” and
“document” are almost the same;
“Ideal” work
They only focus on print media;
Differences between print and electronic
media are overlooked
7. Recognising Textuality
Differences between print and electronic
1. Stability
Print: After ink is impressed on paper, it
remains stable and immovable
Electronic: does not exist until it is
displayed on the screen
8. Recognising Textuallity
Differences between print and electronic
2. Storage & Delivery Vehicles
Print: the same
Electronic texts: maybe different
e.g. data files on one server while the machine
creating the display in another location
many possible variations in electronic text
9. Recognising Textuallity
Differences between print and electronic
3. Prior existence vs Processural
Print : The print lines exist before the book
is opened, read or understood.
An electronic text: have no prior existence;
more like a process than an object
10. Recognising Textuallity
Similarity between print and electronic
Similarity: Both print and electronic text is not
physically self- identical
Print : No text is identical to any others
—differences always exist between any two
physical objects
Electronic: Delivery vehicles producing network
texts are never the same twice
— “they exist in momentary configurations as
data packets are switched quickly from one node
to another” (Katherine
11. Recognising Textuallity
Differences & similarity between print and electronic
Conclusion:
“Textuality is instantiated rather than
dematerialialised, dispersed rather than unitary,
processural rather than object-like, flickering
ranther than durably imprinted.”
Refine/ Revise our notion of materiality:
e.g. precisely specify what a book is—impossible
BECAUSE: As a physical object, it has uncountable
physical characteristics. Each characteristic
describe this book in a particular way
12.
13. Materiality
A way to think about text as embodied
entities without falling into the chaos of
infinite differences: materiality
Definition: The materiality of an embodied
text is the interaction of its physical
characteristics with its signifying strategies.
Differences between “document”, “text” and
“work” appear
14. Work as Assemblage (New
framwork)
Document 1 Document 2 Document 3
differences
in materiality
Text 1 (is sufficient) Text 2 Text 3 Text 4
similarities>differences clusters(near)
clusters (far) eg.dif media
Work
15. References & Relevant Readings
A Chinese-English translating website.
http://trans.netat.net/index.php
The “William Blake Archive”
http://www.blakearchive.org/blake/public/a
bout/glance/index.html
Beard, D. (2008). From work to text to
document. Archival Science, 8(3).
Manonton, B. (2006). Searching and
indexing text document based on topic
identification. The university of winsconsin.
16. Relevant Readings
Spencer, C. (2004). Use hidden text to
easily create two different documents from
one file. Inside Microsoft World,11(10).
Shinllingsburg, P. (2009). The dank cellar of
electronic texts. Literary and Linguistic
Computing, 24(1).
Sutherland, K. (2009). Material text,
immaterial text and the electronic
environment. . Literary and Linguistic
Computing, 24(1).
17. Relevant Readings
Sehgal, A. K. (2007). Profiling topics on the
Web for knowledge discovery. The
University of Iowa.
Dahlstrom, M. (2004). How Reproductive is
a Scholarly Edition?. Literacy and Linguistic
Computing, 19(1).
Dahlstrom, M. (2004).Electronic Scholarly
Editing-Some Northern European
Approaches. Literacy and Linguistic
Computing, 19(1).
