This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help by adding relevant internal links, or by improving the article's layout. (September 2009)

A text is a coherent set of symbols that transmits some kind of informative message.

[edit] Text (required attributes)

[edit] Author

In library science, also referred to as "Statement of responsibility". Defined as "A statement, transcribed from the item being described, relating to persons responsible for the intellectual or artistic content of the item".^[1]

[edit] Title

For printed (paper) books, this is obtained from the "title page" if available, otherwise from the half-title, caption title, running title, colophon, cover title or elsewhere in the item.

[edit] History

Undoubtedly, writing is much older than the notion of texts. Originally, writing was a method of accounting for transactions, it was initially not (commonly) used in order to transmit messages independent of acts or deeds. The concept of a text only becomes relevant if / when a coherent written message is completed and needs to be referred to independently of the circumstances in which it was created.

[edit] Other Uses

In cinema studies, film is referred to a 'text'.

[edit] Sources

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Peter Barry. Beginning Theory: an Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. ISBN 0-7190-6268-3.
• Jonathan Culler. (1997) Literary Theory: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285383-X.
• Terry Eagleton. Literary Theory: an Introduction. ISBN 0-8166-1251-X.
• Terry Eagleton. After Theory. ISBN 0-465-01773-8.
• Jean-Michel Rabaté. The Future of Theory. ISBN 0-631-23013-0.
• The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. ISBN 0-8018-4560-2.
• Modern Criticism and Theory: a Reader. Ed. David Lodge and Nigel Wood. 2nd Ed. ISBN 0-582-31287-6
• Theory's Empire: an Anthology of Dissent. Ed. Daphne Patai and Will H. Corral. ISBN 0-231-13417-7.
• Bakhtin, M. M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Ed. Michael Holquist. Trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.

[edit] External links

This literature-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e