Concept in Definition ABC
Miscellanea / / July 04, 2021
By Florencia Ucha, in Oct. 2008
A text is a composition of signs encoded through a writing system, such as the alphabet that goes from A to Z and that all human beings mostly know and use, regularly, to communicate between us and that it must have a unity of meaning so that it can be first decoded and then understood by the reader. Therefore, the importance of the process of coding within the framework of the texts.
Meanwhile, it can also be called text both a literary work and a text message; This means that text is any compound of signs that matches what we exposed above regardless of its size or extension. Likewise, in the current framework of the dissemination of digital media, the conception of text is also directed to a specific type of document, in which it is possible to disseminate written content, with the possibility of extension to images, tables, graphs, algorithms and a large series of complements that exceed the single organization of language conventional. Similarly, the definition of text is extended to the
communication almost informal that arises from chatting systems and, above all, from social networks, which present a previous coding, in terms of reducing the number of characters.Furthermore, the concept of text is closely linked to another, that of discourse, since this is the generation of a text by an issuer in a given context, with a specific communicative intention, the latter also being the function par excellence of the text. There can never be a speech without a text, which is, ultimately, what motivates the speech: having something to say. Many linguists today claim that the powerful integration of audiovisual tools is a firm reason to establish a division between speech and text today, with the argument that it is possible to deliver a true speech with the full guide of dissemination tools visual. However, not all experts agree, since they consider the use of multimedia elements as a truly independent language, derived from the language traditional and deserves an independent approach by semiology.
Another important characteristic to understand and deepen even more regarding the scope of a text, is that this can be monologal, for example a speech or a novel, or it can involve more than one receiver; This can be the case of a conversation between two or more people through chat or that between several people physically and face-to-face in a bar. It is preferred to speak of dialogue when exchange of text expressions between two individuals and of colloquy when it is a greater number. On the other hand, teleconferences are currently a formidable tool for the dissemination of texts, since it is possible to a notable interaction between the transmitter (s) and the numerous receivers, sometimes located at great distances from the lecturer.
A text that prides itself on being such and well elaborated must meet certain terms which are called textuality conditions, these are: cohesion, coherence, meaning, progressivity, intentionality and closure. If a text does not observe any of these, then, surely, there will be some inconvenience in terms of understanding what you want to expose. This analysis is reason for debate among sociologists, since it involves, basically, a coding error that must make the real ubiquity of the issuer be evaluated.
As a consequence of the important diversity of texts that exists, there has been no choice but to classify them according to their function or their internal structure. So we can find texts in which the characteristics predominate narrative, argumentative, commutative and descriptive. The works of art (narrative) in turn have been divided into prose, poetry, epic genres and dramaturgy. On the other hand, scientific texts constitute a particular variant, with defined emitters and contextualized receivers capable of decoding the particular language of these contents.
Topics in Text