Man, I wish I was the person 30 minutes ago before I read Eyman’s take on textuality. Before those thirty minutes, life was simple- “text” only meant textbooks and scripts. I appreciate gaining insight about text, but not when I have to go through the trouble of Eyman. So pretty much what Eyman is saying in this portion of the article is that “text” can mean almost anything. It can be the Daredevil issue that’s next to me (by the way pretty good read, recommend) or this half empty water bottle. But Eyman being the confusing linguistic chatter box, he doesn’t really mean that.
Once I read a few more pages, I find out that it can be anything- but it needs to have purpose. Not just purpose, but also distinguishing qualities. In classic Eyman fashion, he forms an amalgamation of ideas using past authors who have touched on this topic. (I believe) He expects his readers to take that combination- but I don’t want to. Though, there is one piece of the combination that caught my interest. That piece being ‘The Seven Traits’.
What’s that? You May Ask
Essentially, it’s seven characteristics that play into text which are well explained by Ali Darwish. Those characteristics being: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informality, situationality, and intertextuality. While these traits function as the pillars to define textuality, I would argue that the one trait that holds it all together is coherence. Because humans rely so much on connections to comprehend something new, “a text creates no sense in itself but only in connection with knowledge of the world and of the text” (Eyman (not really) pg 11).
I only focused on Darwish’s portion of the big platter Eyman was force feeding me, but if you want more sides with that- I got you. Introducing: Gianna Florentine’s blog post. She discusses more on Darwish’s idea while providing more authors who have contributed to Eyman’s big platter combo.
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