August Rubrecht's Research Projects
A text is...
any artifact
produced or modified
to communicate meaning.
Let us first explore the terms of this definition one by one. Then, let us consider how scholars study texts.
Artifact
The two parts of the word reveal its definition. You have seen the first part in art, artisan, and artistry; it tells us we are talking about something that required conscious attention. Fact comes from the Latin for "make" or "do," as in factory, "place where something is made," or [in a related form] fiction, "a story somebody made up."
A text falls into the category of artifacts because it is always something somebody constructed or arranged with conscious purpose. This definition is broader than the usual one, since artifact is ordinarily a concrete noun (one referring only to physical objects). You probably associate this concrete sense with archaeological finds such as arrowheads and pottery shards dug out of ancient sites. Here I am extending the meaning to include abstract constructs as well, constructs such as the rules of poker or the memorized texts of poems.
Produced or Modified
These modifiers just emphasize that a text is an artifact, and the first one should require no further explanation. Modified, however, needs some scrutiny.
A sweatshirt is an artifact primarily designed to protect the upper body. I have one that has been modified by the addition of a one-word text, "MEMORIAL." In a larger sense, however, the shirt itself has been made into a text, especially since the fabric it consists of has been dyed purple, the school color of Memorial High School.
A piece of driftwood on the beach is not an artifact, just a random object shaped and placed by natural forces. If a beachcomber takes it home, paints a face on it, and hangs it on a wall, it turns into a text communicating the beachcomber's ideas about what is interesting and beautiful. If you keep this part of the definition in mind, you will not make the mistake of calling some natural phenomenon a text simply because human beings can abstract meaning from it. A text is purposeful. A line of footprints taking the left fork at a junction on a snowy trail is not a text. An arrow drawn in the snow and pointing left is.
A beautiful sunset is not a text. A painting or photograph of one is.
To Communicate Meaning
My colleague Elizabeth Preston points out in one of her class handouts, "Communication... relies on a (at minimum) three-part model: speaker/writer/painter, medium, hearer/reader/viewer." She calls this transaction textuality. Focus your attention on the middle term in her description: medium. It refers to something whose intrinsic importance is overshadowed by its role in a transaction between people.
Consider a five dollar bill--intrinsically, a good tough piece of paper, intricately embellished. You value it not for its tensile strength or its visual impact, however, but as a medium of exchange. You can use it to transfer the value of, say, an Extra Value Meal from yourself to Burger King; having received that value, employees will hand you the meal and some change. Any text functions as a medium in a similar transaction.
The text you are reading right now might consist of a sheet of paper covered with short squiggly lines of ink, or of a pattern of light and dark pixels on a computer screen. It mediates--that's what a medium does--it mediates a transaction between me and you: I have an idea about what texts are, and I constructed this text to transfer my idea to you. Like the five dollar bill, it has very little intrinsic value as paper and ink. It has even less as a pattern on an illuminated screen. Its worth lies instead in its textuality, its ability to transmit meaning.
The sweatshirt I mentioned before is a little different. It has such substantial intrinsic value as a garment that you may (with some justification) reject my decision to call it a text. Since it communicates the idea that I have some sort of connection to Memorial High School, though, you must admit it possesses textuality.
