At the beginning of my college career, I understood text to be limited to print in particular literary works. It wasn’t until my 2020 writing class that I was taught that text meant much more. It referred to any form of communication that conveyed meaning. Examples include websites, images, and videos. This definition made it clearer because communication is multimodal and integrates various media. Since I unlearned what I thought was the only definition, it elucidated my understanding in my digital writing class.
Text-A Communicative Event
Robert de Beaugrande and Wolfgang Dressler’s definition of text as a “communicative event” that met specific criteria: cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informality, situationality, and intertextuality. These sets of criteria define it as a discourse. Cohesion refers to its structure, and coherence refers to its meaning. Intentionality explains the purpose. Acceptability refers to whether the intended audience agrees or not. Informativity refers to the quality of information. Situationality is a way of understanding whether the text is appropriate. And intertextuality displays connections within the text. Although I believe that these bring it together in a more rhetorical sense. I agree with Darwish’s conclusion that text requires a level of transparency. It is determined by the readers’ ability to analyze and process the information presented.
Text expands beyond the literary context to include digital works and the use of media and technology. Digital rhetoric provides new ways to interact with and study texts; they aren’t just static objects. Digital text is flexible and can be altered by users. Overall, my understanding has evolved from viewing it as fixed and literary. I’ve recognized it as multimodal and rhetorical. It represents any communication shaped by purpose, audience, and context
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