Abstract

Besides modern-day text, how did text come about? What do you think about when you think of text? There is an evolution of text and how text can be viewed. Certain privileges come with text, depending on the platform it goes on. This chapter focuses on how text came to be today with the general alphabet. We will also dive into and decode the reading from Eyman.

How Did We Get Here?

Text comes in all different forms. No, not on your phone or computer. Denise Schmandt-Besserat helps define how text came about to be in today’s society. You don’t think that the first form of text was with typewriters, do you?

Before there were digital spaces, people referred to text as tokens. They were made from natural resources, like stone. These tokens had messages other than what was met by the naked eye. In 8000-3000 BC, these tokens kept organization for goods. How does this relate to text today? Were getting there. Over time, the tokens turned into stone having carvings on the inside. Like if you drilled holes into a rock. These carvings were the new faces of symbols for messages. This is called a pictograph. The carvings symbolize a code. Instead of having letters signify one part of an entire word as we know it today, the code in the pictograph defined a phrase. This code allowed people to the community when it was put together in a sequence of other tokens.

After some time, some of the pictographs turned into real pictures. These still had symbols. Typically, these pictures were sown on save walls. Imagine your younger self trying to draw figures and pictures on your wall. The pictures were separated into simple symbols with meaning. This form of text was sided in squeezes to give a message. This was how the modern alphabet was made. Different figures of people were made up to signify a letter to make up a word. They all looked roughly the same, so differentiating the difference between each figure, I’d imagine was challenging.

Almost to the modern day, instead of having figures as symbols for vocabulary, other pictures were made to represent things. These symbols were not very detailed. For example, a fish was a few different angeled lines to make up the picture of a fish. This was called a proto-canaanite.

Speech came about with the syllabaries. It’s letters that are put together for a purpose for words. Somehow in the mix of all of this, we come to the alphabet. As the evolution of text was rising, so were the ways we could write. That brings us to what we know today as typing on digital spaces.

Opportunity For Revision

When text gets published, there is no room for conversation on edits. This is particularly true with text from textbooks. Once words and facts get printed on a page, there are no edits for the publication. There is no room for revision. Thankfully, a Creative Writing class that was taught by Professor Jette was a place where revisions were strongly used, especially by the students. Her class felt like an entire workshop, where we got to work on drafts for our papers! Something I appreciated from her class was her having a whole unit on workshops. We were able to bring in a piece that we were working on for her class, or outside of the classroom environment. Before we published our work, we were able to have a class workshop and receive feedback. The structure of the class was very student-ran and gave peers an advantage to get their work out in the writing world.

A resource that was given to us in class was Digication, allowing authors (us) to make changes to work after it was published. Students were allowed to put any kind of work they wanted in it. For inspiration, I was able to see other people’s sites. If I was invested in an excerpt that people shared from class, I had access to the full-length piece on Digestion. Like looking through someone’s Instagram account. Once pieces were published onto Digication, it was public. The drive did not stop there. If the creator wanted to add, change, or remove something, they were able to do so. Unlike a published textbook, authors were not allowed to make revisions. No matter if the information is entertaining or factual, Digestion was a space that allowed people to revise their work.

Technology allows different influences on writing. The visual process was unique. Each student not only got to create an overall theme for the site, but they got to design each page if they wanted to. This is lowkey the same as picking a template on Google Slides. In Jette’s class, for example, she would give us a prompt to write a poem. Since these would be posted onto Digication, we were able to make the poems about anything we wanted, if we had a creative theme to match the background of the poem.

From Digital Rhetoric: Theory, Method, and Practice

In the means of “text”, “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” takes a point of view from Stan Lindsay. He says that websites “persuades each user that it is worthy of use, based on design, usability, and accessibility”. (Stan Lindsay 1998) Digital rhetoric comes into play when viewing something on the web. Visualization of a concept of the web can alter one’s opinions. The text that an author of a source decides to use can also make or break the look. This part is crucial to the author because it provides full independent actions of one’s settlement for the text. FINFISH

Robert de Beaugrande and Wolfgang Dressler give insight that text is a “communicative event”. (Eyman, 2015). Although I agree with this statement, especially in today’s society where people like to physically text to communicate, it does not always give off the right messages. While text is a place to communicate, people can misread the overall meaning of a message. Especially before advanced technology for example iMessage, once a text was sent, there was no changing what was written. If you never had the future of editing your messages, did you ever say something to someone you wish you could take back? This relates to any other publication. Especially before digital spaces, authors had to have a lot of reviews especially the tone of voice before they published something into the world. Textbooks, newspapers, letters, etc.

Textuality

In addition to text being on computers, phones, or other spaces online, text can influence readers. Have you noticed that you are drawn to more eye-catching text online? You might see bolded sections/headings,  You might not, because that’s what brands want you to do naturally. Authors try to influence their readers to look at specific things first. It was difficult to do this with printed text. There are discrete differences between online and paper text.

From “Defining and Locating Digital Rhetoric” on page 21, Eyman discusses the textuality within text when viewing any type of text. As a class, groups were able to analyze communicative text. In group, in particular, used a bag of Sour Patch Kids to better understand the terminology of textuality. We viewed cohesion as something eye-catching. In this example, it was all capital letters and big font on the front of the bag. Typically, this was the first thing that people looked at on the packaging. Something in text that has to be known by the reader is called coherence. Like looking at the nutrition facts of the packaging of a food bag. With all text and publications, comes a purpose. What is the purpose of Sour Patch Kids? This is called intentionality. Moreso for present-day text acceptability is having  QR codes and barcodes for people. This feature gives more information about a particular brand. Along with this, especially for Sour Patch Kids comes informativity, like nutrition ingredients, website information, and expiration dates. This extra piece of information is not for all people but is available for those who are interested. How does one categorize things situationally? Sour Patch Kids are a fun snack, sour candy, and accessible to mostly all ages. In writing terms, think of categorizing a piece of writing in genres, like fiction, history, non-fiction, poetry, bibliography, etc.

Conclusion

A piece of writing. An educational, persuasive, or entertaining piece. Short, long, on digital or paper. Text comes in all different forms. Text is a way of communicating. There are purposes and reasoning behind the way that text is presented, either on a screen, paper, or an object.