What then about the concept of text in this electronic environment?
The concept of text has traditionally been applied to verbal messages
only. Some include both oral and written verbal messages, while
others, in what we might call a common sense tradition, reserve the
text concept for handwritten and printed texts, or text as a physical
object. With a new electronic writing technology on our hands the
concept of text must be reconsidered.
In its broadest sense the concept of text refers to messages of any code, not just verbal messages, and a message might be generated by several systems of cultural codes (Nöth 1990). A pragmatic definition places the concept of text or message in the context of communication, and in a semiotic communication model the focus is mainly on the text (or the message) itself, and its interaction with its producing and receiving culture. Its concern is with the generation and exchange of meaning; the role of communication in establishing and maintaining values, and how those values enable communication to have meaning (Fiske 1991:189).
In a semiotic communication model the text is a sign, while Hjelmslev prefers to talk about the sign function, which is the internal or external function of the sign. There are two sides (or planes) of the sign function: content and expression, which he calls functives (Hjelmslev 1974). The first is the verbal aspect or meaning potential of written language, while the second is the visual aspect of writing, the expression potential. There is a relationship of what Hjelmslev calls 'solidarity' between the sign function and its two functives, and there is never a sign function without both being present at the same time, they presuppose each other.
The expression potential, or the visual aspects of writing, change according to the technology of writing or presentation which is being used, and there are different potentials of expression in different communication technologies. The potentials of text as a sign function depend upon the choice of technology used in the communication.
When we speak we communicate by means of both linguistic and non-linguistic signs. We speak the words, but we add intonation and stress, pauses and gestures among other things. These non-linguistic signs are not available to writers. Traditionally a writer works with visual signs only, and not auditive ones. In our culture and time the writer's signs have mainly been communicated through the medium of paper. The electronic writing and presentation technology has, however, introduced new media and a wider range of non-linguistic signs. In the following I shall present the main non-linguistic signs used in writing when using a specific hypertextual multimedia writing tool. In my presentation there are ten of them altogether, and the first is the element of space.
1. Space
Writing with a hypertext writing tool emphasizes the fact that writing is a visual and spatial activity and experience. The writer uses space as a sign because he or she manipulates space when writing. The writer is not writing on a page, but can position text (or messages written with other sign systems than verbal language) anywhere in a space which is accessible from the graphic monitor of the computer. What we see on the display when writing or reading on a computer is limited by the dimensions of the hardware and the functionality of the software. In most text processing programs the space is equivalent to what we traditionally call a page in an article or a book, while desktop publishing software operates with spaces found in the graphic industry, what has previously been the spaces of the printing press. These are all limitations imposed by the tradition of printing on paper. The same limitations are not always present in the electronic space. Electronic space introduces a new concept of space whether we for the time being call it cyberspace or virtual space.
2. Nodes
Nodes are containers of information. They are the things which we can link to and from (Nielsen 1990), or the smallest piece of an electronic hypertext that can be addressed by a link (Berk et.al 1991). We can say they are the enclosed spaces in which we write, and they might be of two types. Either they are enclosed spaces or boxes presenting messages or parts of messages. Or they are enclosed spaces which include other spaces like in a series of chinese boxes.
3. Links
Links connect nodes, or they are pointers from one node to another. They indicate that there is a relationship between the node that is the source of the link and the link's target node. The visual, graphic representation of a link is either a highlighted word or phrase, a button or an icon, or other graphics e.g. a visual line connecting the nodes (ibid:554).
The nodes may be linked together in various ways. There can be a linear linking, where the writer of the text signals a traditional sequential way of reading which we are familiar with from printed books. The linking might also produce an hierarchical presentation of the text indicating the super- and sub-organization of information.
A third way of organizing text through linking is the hypertextual model. Hypertext has been defined as the technology for non-sequential reading and writing (Nelson 1987), and this is the way we read when we read a book by way of the index or an encyclopedia by way of key phrases. A text that is organized hypertextually is like a web of information through which a user or reader can move either by following established links or by creating new ones.
4. Views
Hypertext programs provide several ways to view text. One way is to reduce or enlarge what is displayed by means of a zooming function. Another is to make the window that the user works in larger or smaller or even have more windows open at the same time.
Most hypertext programs enable the user to manipulate with different text views by ways of icons or drop-down menues. The user may choose to work in a view which displays the web of nodes and links. When working in that view, the user may manipulate the nodes and the links to form new sequences or connections. This is the view that presents the hypertext structure of the text.
Another view presents a list of node names. This is equivalent to a table of contents and to the view you have when using the outline tool in text processing programs. Lastly the user may view the text as a graphic representation of the hierarchic structure of nodes and sub-nodes, as it is possible to create nodes within nodes for as many levels as may be practical (Bolter et. al. 1993).
5. Colours
Colours have of course always been a resource to writers, but more or less fell out of use with the coming of printing. When colours are used in the presentation of written language, they are used typographically in addition to or as substitutes for other typographic devices mainly for emphasis, to differentiate and make things stand out from the rest. Colours may also be used to create coherence between various parts of text that is written in the same colour, and for the same purpose they are used in graphical views of hypertexts.
6. Sound
Sequences of sound can be part of text and may be activated by pressing a button. In this way written text is not just visual, but auditive as well, as the sequences may be speech, music or other digitalized sound. For verbal language it means that the non-linguistic signs of speech, e.g. stress, intonation and pauses, become part of the written text. Bringing in the auditive aspect as a new expression potential in writing gives a new dimension to the concept of text.
7. Graphics
Graphics have always been part of written text. In our Western culture the illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages are outstanding examples of advanced integration of graphical and typographical signs. An early specimen is the Book of Kells in the Hiberno-Saxon style from around 800 A.D.
The introduction of printing led to an almost exclusive development of the typographical sign based on an alphabet. Writing in the Western world became synonymous with the use of typographical signs. The use of graphics and pictures in writing slowed down the printing process and made it more expensive, so the use of these sign systems was discouraged.
With electronic writing it is not only possible to integrate non-linguistic images as parts of the text. Such items are also easily produced with the appropriate applications, and they may be as easily imported from picture data bases and clip-art archives.
8. Icons
Icons in the context of electronic writing and presentation are systematically coded pictures and images. Normally they constitute a culturally recognized sign system with a strict regularity, and the signs are clearly distinguished from each other. Iconography has long traditions in visual communication of messages, and is today used for a variety of purposes, examples can be shop and traffic signs. An important point about these signs is that they are meant to be understood by speakers of all languages.
The software industry makes use of iconic signs in order to label functions and improve the interface of applications. For the writer with an electronic writing tool the iconic sign system is a supplement to the linguistic code and increases the expression potential of writing.
9. Animation and video
Many definitions of writing argue that writing leaves stable, visual signs on a surface. From what has been said above, the idea of a writing surface makes little sense with electronic writing technology, and the term 'writing space' (Bolter 1991) has been introduced instead. Also the visual signs are not necessarily stable. What is displayed on the computer screen is a transient representation of a digital code. There is no element of permanence in electronically displayed text.
The transitoriness of electronic writing is emphasized by the fact that the text might include elements of animation and video films. In addition to the visual representation of what we experience as stable or static sign systems, like linguistic and iconic signs, the text can also be made up of sign systems paradigmatically characterized by movement. This is a non-linguistic quality that has been ascribed to among other things facial expressions, gestures and body language. Now this expression potential does not only belong to the linguistic code of speech, but to the code of written language as well.
10. Text norms
A new potential of expression and new rules of writing are established through the introduction of new writing and reading technology. Nobody thinks about explaining to a reader of a book how this book is to be read, or how to find one's way through the book. There are established conventions for those procedures, and when we talk about text we call these conventions text norms (Berge 1993). A text norm is the social dimension of text. It is how users agree to apply and respond to text. Text norms are usually the result of an historical development, and we may take them so much for granted that we become blind to their cultural and historical reference.
All readers know how to open a book and how to navigate by means of table of contents and pagination. It is different with electronic texts. Most readers are unfamiliar with such texts, and people generally don't know how to get an overview of the text and how to find their way into it and out again. Most writers of electronic texts or programs know this, and they try to create interfaces that are user-friendly. But there are still few standards and commonly agreed upon rules as to how such interfaces should be, and the reader might find that each new program has its own unique interface. Even though the printed book took a couple of hundred years to develop standard formats, electronic books must delvelop such standards within not too long as the production and distribution of such books increase rapidly.
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