The topic of the day is writing. However, we don’t look so much at the form of writing (grammar, words etc) but delve much deeper into the act of communication and the role our minds and imagination play in creating the reality we experience through the act of writing and reading.
According to Lotman’s thesis there is a parallel between consciousness, text, and our culture with all three representing our perception of space. Signs are included in text that we read in the form of key words and ideas that linearize this three dimensional space creating one dimensional language. Any article we read includes signs that help to create the reality of the virtual world we are reading and are guides for our imagination as we read (Iser’s hypothesis). Text could be thought of as a labyrinth or network of interconnected nodes with one pointing to the next or pointing to multiple other nodes which communicate with the reader by branching out into different ideas. This is especially so on the internet due to a multitude of hyperlinks and other distractions.
The mind reading the text reflects: ‘the cognitive conditions of unhindered vision and movement in space’ (Nöth 1995). To make sense of this limitless space our mind interprets the information by categorizing it and compartmentalizing it. There are generally two theories of how this is done:
or
Although imagination has often been thought of using terms such as ‘artistic creativity, fantasy, and invention’ it has a much more important function. Imagination is primarily responsible for compartmentalizing information we receive into coherent units and putting them in logical order that we can understand (Johnson 1985). Imagination is central to cognition and reasoning permeating our spatial, temporal, and culturally formed understanding. Imagination is the link between perception, categorization and understanding; and is the basis for the creation of possible worlds such as ‘as-if and what-if’ scenarios.
Because imagination is so crucial text (in fact all communication whether oral, written, or sign language) includes ‘signposts’ that direct our mind and help us to orient ourselves. It is helpful now to consider communication to be a ‘code’ based on differences between characters. Jacques Derrida suggests that communication is in fact nothing more than a series of sign posts guiding our imagination down a specific path.
It is necessary now to divert for a second to examine a different key point of our imagination. The way we humans perceive our environment is affected by what could be termed as ‘velocity’. Imagine the difference between a pedestrian and a car driver. The car drivers imagination and perception includes distant landmarks and places that he can reach (due to his being in a car) while someone who is bound to only be on foot has a limited perception of what is within walking distance. Our minds as humans have drastically changed due to the invention of high speed transport that was unavailable only 100 years ago. In the same way the internet has ‘sped up’ our minds again and caused them to go into warp speed. A study has shown (sorry couldn’t be bothered finding the source again) that people who use the internet more than others are far more likely to ‘jump’ between ideas and websites in a ‘I want it now’ fashion than people who primarily read books (who have more patience). This hyperspeed mind has however had another result. While a pedestrian can enjoy every flower and smell; a car driver misses these minute details. In the same way we often skim over ‘minute details’ in the cyberspace world. This is clearly seen in abbreviations and net slang which has been shortened to accompany our mental patience: ‘coz, wot, sup’ etc are the product of our impatient minds.
There are three components that help us understand what we read. These are:
Within these bounds, space is never an unsemiotically given piece of reality (there are always signs that create our mental image of this space). Text is however more than a mere sequence of signs. Text depends on devices to form a cohesive structure using deixis, anaphora, or commands such as ‘see above’ etc. Using these devices; text is combined into cohesive structures we know such as paragraphs and chapters that allow the reader to orient themselves concerning their whereabouts in the idea or argument. An alert reader can also use this information to predict the following information which is a crucial skill for skim reading etc and helps with the overall logic of the argument. This is also a clear indicator of the linearity of a discourse or just general reading of text.
All this assists the reader to form a coherent picture of what they are reading. It should however be noted at this point that there are two parties creating this coherence. There is the writer creating the coherence via a (hopefully) logical writing style and the use of summarization; and also the reader who is having their imagination guided by a series of signposts left by the writer. The construction of coherence on the reader’s part is largely dependent on the reader’s knowledge and ability to interpret the signs correctly. To summarize; creating cohesion requires the writer to assist the reader to form logical connections between thoughts and arguments. ‘Unconnected’ chunks of information will leave the reader confused. However, it is ultimately the reader’s perspectives, mental processes (imagination), and culture that create the message that is received.
An interesting point to note is that words are not ‘words’ but signs representing a mental image called ‘Lexumes’. When I say: ‘room, hall, attic or corner’ these signs (words) create a mental image in your mind. Although one would think that there is no relationship between the word and the image this is not the case. Reflecting on the psychological effect of words; Ehrich (1989) states:’text communication is more about communication, aesthetics, and psychological effects than grammar’. That is, the virtual world the words create inside the readers mind is more important than the strict form the words take (ie grammar, speeling, etc) Even our language has been influenced by the mental image a word creates. Several scholars argue that the mental image has actually helped create the words we use for that image:
‘Consider the semantic opposition between cranny, nook, chest on the one hand and place or hall on the other. In these examples, the small spaces are expressed by means of short forms with a relative high phonetic constriction.’ Could it be words are often formed by ‘sound’ as in the example just shown with ‘small spaces’ tending to be formed from short sharp tones while words for open spaces are formed by longer sounds? (http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/wenz/image.html)
Kristeva divides text into two axes: a horizontal and a vertical axis. The horizontal access is the connection between the author and the reader that is created through the text, and the vertical axis is the connection formed between the text and other texts (possibly connected by a thought or idea the writer or reader has subconsciously taken from elsewhere)(Kristeva 1980). These two axis create a two dimensional space with the actual message falling somewhere between the extremes with no fixed position. "The text is not a line of words but a multidimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash." (Barthes 1977)
The writer can create signs using imaginal iconicity (stylistic iconicity) in the text using techniques such as repetition, rhythm, duration, and tempo. These devices represent real world structures such as time, sequence, and quantity. Good writers can use these devices to delay or accelerate tempo in the story to make the protagonists’ experiences far more real to the reader (and provide details to the readers’ imaginary world). The most common examples of using such techniques are found in descriptive paragraphs or visual poetry (which attempt to paint a picture in the readers mind). This indicates the ‘virtual world’ created in the readers mind not only includes spatial features but also the dimension of time. However, in the readers virtual reality ‘time’ is not a fixed constant as we know it but a dimension that can be manipulated by our minds to either speed up or slow down. The only constant required is a linear sequence of thoughts that our minds can interpret.
It should be noted at this point that there is not one specific world that is created by a piece of writing. In fact, a unlimited multitude of ‘realities’ exist created along the guideline of the text, and formed by the external influences on both the writer, reader, and the text itself (as discussed previously). While text is constrained by borders, margins, chapters, grammatical rules, and paragraphs it should be noted that what is crucial is not the text itself but the imaginary reality it creates. The text is merely the window through which we view this alternate reality. This alternate reality is a combination of the reality we see, our perception of the world, our imagination, and the signposts created in the text itself.
Idea’s taken almost exclusively from Professor Karin Wenz, http://www.cyberartsweb.org/cpace/ht/wenz/intertext.html
I hope you enjoyed my first editorial.
M
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