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Por Moritz Neumüller
Número 38
Keywords
:Hypertext, Hypermedia, Semiotics, World Wide Web, Link
Markers, Pointing device, Web Browser, Intertextuality.
Abstract
Rather than delivering yet another Hypertext Model, this paper lays
out prolegomena of a theory of “Hypertext Semiotics”,
developed by the same author in an extensive dissertation. The aim
of this approach is to interlace the existing models with the findings
of semiotic research on a multidisciplinary basis. Special care
is given to human-machine interaction; to spatial components of
hyper/text; to semantic, semiotic and virtual spaces; to hypertext
navigation and the pointing device of standard Web browsers; and,
finally, to non-sequential texts and the concept of Intertextuality.
Introduction
The paper delivered hereafter is an extract of this author’s
dissertation [60], an interdisciplinary work that was supervised
by three professors that come from different disciplines and teach
at various Universities1. It employs
methods of Ethnology, Information and Media Theory, Economics, Cultural
Studies, Semiotics, Philosophy and Art History in order to formulate
prolegomena of a theory of “Hypertext Semiotics”. The
dissertation, finished in late 2001, adhered less strictly to literary
theories and linguistics than comparable approaches (e.g. [41, 69,
34, 81]). Rather, the intention was to apply these insights and
principles to analyze the state of the World Wide Web, at the time
of writing. Special care has been given to format of the output
of the findings. The paper version of the dissertation (just as
well as this extract) follows most technical conventions of a published
written work. But in fact, it is a printout of a PDF document which
makes use of various hypertext functionalities2.
Besides this hybrid version of electronic and physical publishing,
there is also a HTML version derived from it – both electronic
versions are available from the author and online.
Hypertext and Hypermedia
Semiotics has been applied to the notion of the Internet as a global
network, a phenomenon of wired life, and the unbounded, self-organizing,
rhizomatic nature of cyberspace, cf. [4, 18, 25, 33]. Semiotics
has also entered the realms of Computer Science via Andersen’s
Computer Semiotics [2] and other approaches, e.g. programming languages,
Semiotic Engineering, Artificial Intelligence and Computational
Semiotics, cf. [77, 53, 54, 19, 63, 85]. To broaden traditional
views and to look in new directions for inspiration, guidance, and
lessons is becoming more and more natural for those hypermedia,
computer science and structural computing scientists, who want to
position themselves and the larger community closer to the humanities
than to engineering. The intention of this work is to fertilize
the field of Hypertext Semiotics for future research. A field which
is still mined with terminology-mismatches, it has unknown border
lines and is crowded with short-sighted gold-miners digging for
quick results. In the tradition of hypertext research in the early
1990s, several theoretical approaches have narrowed the gap between
semiotics and hypertext theory. However, the rise of the WWW and
a vast need for technical solutions might have inhibited the growth
of a broader basis for Hypertext Semiotics. Despite valuable contributions
(e.g. [64, 63, 68, 58]) in the field, a lot of research has to be
done to establish a firm fundament for this kind of analytic thinking.
”Computer Semiotics” is a term which has been gaining
currency in recent years. Established by Peter Bøgh Andersen
(cf. [2]) it may be an emergent field of inquiry, but as of yet
there is little academic consensus as to its scope. By elaborating
the concept of Hypertext Semiotics, I intend to test the
stability of the Computer Semiotics construct and its applicability
of its methods on hypertext structures which has often been implied
but not yet fully explored, cf. [18, 57, 58, 59, 76]. The validity
of a semiotic approach to computer science has been emphatically
underlined by Nadin.4 Peirce’s
classic distinction between iconic, indexical and symbolic signs
has been cited in connection with hypertext theory by Colón
[18]. It has also been pointed out that some of the ”icons”
employed in GUIs, within the toolbar of Web browsers and on Web
sites are in fact symbols, cf. [50]. However, many of these bridges
between semiotics and hypertext theory are not quite theoretically
founded. Besides a thorough consideration of classical semiotic
approaches in the first chapters of my dissertation, I intended
to draw on a broader theoretical framework of the symbol, including
Cassirer, Langer and Lévi-Strauss on the one hand and Freud,
Lacan and Derrida on the other. The analysis of signs in hypertext
systems can also profit from the latest advances in image theory,
namely Elkins [27], who weds Wittgenstein’s Bildtheorie
with Goodman’s criteria of notation. The semiotic approach
has proved to be a suitable and most elaborate tool when working
with both words and images. It has been adopted by art history and
media theory and is nowadays a standard tool when analyzing the
domain of images, cf. [27].
The visualization of hypertext architecture depends largely on graph
theory, itself a notation system. Some readers might be surprised
by the exemplary regresses on cultural and artistic phenomena to
illustrate my points of view. Yet, considering that the average
Web page designer (knowingly or not) seems to recur on the same
concepts, memories and experiences of a common visual culture, this
strategy will present itself as appropriate for the purpose. The
intention to make Web pages more appealing to users of different
age and education from around the globe have pushed forward a wave
of non-text media: Graphic and photographic elements of hypermedia
design promise to ring in a Renaissance of the image while the semiotic
limitations of picture languages have been long identified, cf.
[29, 72]. Keeping these limitations in mind, I still tried to make
use of Otto Neurath’s International Picture Language to elaborate
a basic scheme for a new generation of ”icons”, which
I call Graphic Link Markers (GLM), cf. [60, 61] Hypertext theory
has always been strongly linked to usability and human factors,
epitomized by Jakob Nielsen who is commonly referred to as a Web
design guru today. Important as Nielsen’s usability studies
are to understand the success or failure of corporate Web sites,
online services and DotCom enterprises, they often lack a broader
analytical basis. The discussion of the commercialization of the
Internet has produced a large body of theoretical and practical
work. The elaboration of my hypertext semiotic approach is placed
in the framework of this sociological and economic research.
Communication at the Interface
Semiotics has often been applied to computer science in the field
of interface design, e.g. [3, 19, 47]. As building ever faster,
cheaper, smaller, more robust etc. machines and applications is
an important branch of computer science, this development (and the
growing accessibility of PCs) fosters the need to bring man and
machine closer together. According to Keeler and Denning, the development
of multimedia gives interface designers the ultimate challenge to
develop interface technology that will simulate human-to-human communication.
Referring to Peirce’s semiotic concept, they try to answer
the question whether human communication theory can treat the conceptual
deficiencies of interface design philosophy, cf. [36]. Andersen,
however, insists that, although there are some resemblances between
the system concepts of Computer Science and Linguistics, ”the
concepts cannot be considered identical, and therefore computers
cannot play the role of participant in a communicative process.
Instead, they are assigned the role of a medium for communication
between human users. A computer system is described as a calculus
of empty expression units, some of which can be part of the sign
system that emerges when the system is used and interpreted by humans”
[2, p. 134]. This opinion is shared by others who have developed
semiotic approaches that perceive the user’s work at interface
as a communication act between designers and users, using the computer
as a medium, cf. [53, 19]. I propose linking the psychoanalytic
notion of the computer as a transitional subject and Bahr’s
view of machines as active counterparts that raise our receptive
sensuality to superhuman levels. Analyzing hypertext as a sign system
is not a mere extension of the semiotic project for the sake of
completeness; rather, this approach promises insights that can help
to make that medium a more useful, intuitive, rich and productive
one: ”As opposed to any form of sequential closed communications,
hypermedia requires means for and ways of generating an infinity
of meaningful interpretations. A non-linear structure is, after
all, a graph constituted from nodes and links. The semiotic level
of such nodes and links is quite abstract, but without a good understanding
of these communicational entities, we will never exercise an efficient
command of the process of generating the infinity of meaningful
interpretations” [54].
Spatial and orientational metaphors
It is commonly agreed upon that, as computers get more powerful,
it is possible to invest more computer power to make the user interface
more realistic. In this context, spatialization has become an important
issue: ”As mankind is a species used to live in a spatial
environment it indeed makes sense to use a spatial concept for the
overall user interface” [23, p. 61]. Enriching and spatializing
a virtual world is possible in various ways, e.g. the use of a virtual
sun and virtual shadows to show the passing of time or using different
sizes for information objects according to their size, cf. [78].
”A spatialized virtual space allows moving objects closer
of farther from the user. Objects that are important for the present
work should be closer than others. This spatialization leads to
the extension of the desktop space to room, house or city spaces”
[23, p. 76]. In fact, mankind shares this spatial orientation with
other species, but is separated from them because it is a ”speaking-being”
(l’être parlant, or parlêtre), cf. [39]. Ipsen
claims that spatial deixis falls back on vocabulary describing laterality
(left/right), verticality (above/ below) and sagittality (front/back).
The most important semantic axis, however, seems to be close/distant:
Ethnologists have found that societies depend upon this dichotomy
in the structuring of their mythology, villages, hunting techniques,
seasonal migrations, marriage policies, etc. and Lévi-Strauss
has elaborated his structural anthropology on the basis of the proximity
axis, cf. [44]. The difference of close and distant, or self and
other, is the first spatial/ semantic relation a child has to learn.
In the early stage, transitional objects mediate between the self
and the world, cf. [83]. The dialectical relation of the ”I”
to the ”you” is developed only at a later stage.5
Some theorists assert that, unlike verbal language, the visual image
is not suited to exposition (e.g. [67, 2.291]; [30, p. 138, 175];
[43, p. 88]). In that logocentric view, syntagms are defined purely
as sequential or temporal ’chains’. Chandler argues
that spatial relations are also syntagmatic.6
Such structural relationships are not semantically neutral. George
Lakoff and Mark Johnson have shown how fundamental ”orientational
metaphors” are routinely linked to key concepts in a culture,
cf. [40].7 These aspects of dimensionality
also refer to textual environments, where ”we find the semiotic
paradox of the (linear) text as a three-dimensional space”
[34, p, 560].
According to Wenz [80], Lotman’s thesis, which says that there
are certain parallels between consciousness/text/culture points
to the capacity of texts to represent our perception of space. Signs
of space in texts are products of a complex process of linearization
which have to transform three-dimensional space into linear and
therefore one-dimensional language.
The term sign spaces refers to the possibility of texts
to create their own spaces in a metaphorical sense. Spatial metaphors
used in referring to the written text or to passages within the
text create a textual space with places such as above, and below,
center, and margin. These concepts refer to the physical and logical
form of the written text: the shape as it appears on the page and
the textual structure itself, cf. [80, 34]: In fact, ”writing
is always spatial, and each technology in the history of writing
(e.g. clay tablet, the papyrus roll, the codex, the printed book)
has presented writers and readers with a different space to exploit”
[11]. Readers form mental representations of a paper document’s
structure in terms of spatial location and overall organization:
Such representations or models are derived from years of exposure
to the information type (e.g. academic journal articles) or can
be formed in the case of spatial recall from a quick scan of the
material, cf. [24, p. 100].
Text and Speech
On the one hand we have the two-dimensionality of the page or of
the screen with its (visual) borders, on the other hand there is
the one-dimensional linearity of speech and writing, as far as the
result of the linearization process is concerned, and the one-dimensionality
of reading in the sequence of time. At the intersection between
space and time, we are confronted with ”the semiotic paradox
of the spatial nature of the text” [65] which contrasts with
the linearity of speech in its temporality. The metaphors of the
written text with loci to which we can refer illustrate
that the text is perceived as a static space. It has macro-textual
structures, such as chapters, sections, headings, paragraphs, footnotes,
etc. and is bounded by margins, a top, and a bottom to which the
text makes reference, cf. [80, p. 579]. Such references construct
connections between different passages in the text which are semantically
connected but separated in the surface structure in the linearizing
of complex ideas. Thus, the reading process follows the linear ordering
from the beginning to the end and can be compared to a way from
a starting point to a goal, cf. [80, p. 577].
Philosophers from Hobbes to Derrida have pointed out that there
is no stopping the generation of meaning by contiguity, and spatial
adjacency allows uncontrollable contiguities. While physical space
allows for unintended adjacencies, in a standard node-and-link hypertext,
nothing is officially next to anything else until a link is created.
In such hypertexts, all connections are supposed to be intentional.
There should be no unavoidable and uncontrollable adjacencies such
as occur in physical space, e.g. if a barber shop happens to be
located besides a café, the costumer can be served a coffee
while waiting for his haircut, cf. [37]. There may be adjacency
effects also in hypertexts, due to window location and other accidents
of implementation, as well as the unavoidable effects of linguistic
echoes and associations.
If the node-and-link hypertext includes an overview or map, then
there may be additional modes of accidental adjacency within that
presentation. Furthermore, textual linearity is more than mere sequence.
It depends on devices which provide cohesion, such as deixis, anaphora
or reader instructions of the type ”see above”. These
cohesive devices construct larger syntactic entities which are hierarchically
structured and in sum lead to macro-textual8
structures, cf. [80, p. 579]. These structures can be compared to
landmarks which provide the reader with information concerning his
or her whereabouts. The text described in topological terms, consists
of units and connections between them. Note the ethymological connection
between topos – the place – and the topic, or subject,
which indicates a strong spatio-semantic bond in our thinking: ”With
or without the computer, whenever we write, we write topically”
[2]. Furthermore, typographical convention will help the reader
to predict which object will follow next: a new section, paragraph,
or a new sentence.
Connection by reader instructions undermine partly the congruence
and linearity of discourse, [80, p. 579]. Here, we think of Langer’s
distinction between discursive and presentational language: ”The
meanings given through language are successively understood, and
gathered into a whole by the process called discourse. . . ”
[42, p. 89]. Discursive in this context means sequential: Words
cannot be piled one upon the other, neither can they be arranged
arbitrarily in a sentence because they have to follow a pre-defined
grammar. It takes time to form, listen to, or read each word of
a sentence and only once you have perceived the last word of a sentence
you know its meaning. Langer thought that, even if our ideas are
nested (like clothes that are draped around a body), we have to
string them in order to communicate them to others, like hanging
them out to dry on a clothes-line: You place one piece of language
at a time onto the straight line; at the end of the process the
parts add up to a whole argument or proposition, cf. [43, p. 88].
The argument of hypertext is that ideas do not have to be arranged
on a long clothes-line. In fact, hypertext represents a variable
structure that permits an interlinked presentation of ideas. Wenz,
who is approaching hypermedia semiotics from a literary studies
background, points out that spatial metaphors of textuality and
hypertextuality produce a textual space which guides the reader’s
orientation in the process of reading. For her, metaphor is not
just a figure of speech and a linguistic phenomenon, but includes
a cognitive dimension, cf. [80, p. 576]. Writing and reading lead
to awareness of linguistic structure and awareness of language structure,
which is a product of writing, and not a precondition for its development.
In the same sense, spatial configurations are not only a product,
but the producers of a cognitive system, cf. [80, p. 575]. Derrida
who positioned writing as being prior to speech defines writing
not as the activity of writing, but as the movement of differentiation
of sign systems (différance).9
Language, like any other code, constitutes itself as a texture of
differences: ”Difference and opposition are the cognitive
foundations of semiosis and therefore the precondition for every
semiotic coding. This is a process which leads to an unbounded referring
of signs. Writing in Derrida’s sense creates networks by ’spacing
of speech’ and can be interpreted as a metaphor of the human
mind” [80, p. 575], cf. [21].
Studies that formalize their view of the Web as a graph ”ignore
the text and other content in pages, focusing instead on the links
between pages” [12]. Furthermore, formal graph theory sets
all possible spatial representations of a graph as equal. I follow
those authors insisting that a theory of space is essential for
any advance in hypermedia design, cf. [35, 52, 70]. In fact, spatialization
plays an important role in the development of new hypertext models,
such as FOHM (cf. [52]) that concentrate on the nodes and links
as part of a (visual and textual) sign system.
Semantic, Semiotic and Virtual Space
Catherine C. Marshall and Frank M. Shipman [48] noticed that authors
sometimes prefer to express relationships among nodes by using geometric
cues like proximity and alignment, and visual cues like graphical
similarity: ”These geometric and visual cues correspond to
Bertin’s notion of planar and retinal variables. By combining
geometric and visual cues, authors may build up surprisingly complex
hypertext structures” [49]. The work they refer to is Bertin’s
Semiology of Graphics [8]. According to Bertin, a network
becomes a map, if the planar relationships between all parts of
each component are represented by their location on the plane. Only
if nodes have a ”geographic order”, we may visualize
them in navigation maps, otherwise they stay topological constructs.
This construction of meaning does not only correspond to our natural
semiotic environment, but also to our cultural sign systems: It
is important, if a text block in a book precedes or follows other
lexia; they might be separated by other lexia, an empty page, or
three more volumes. In the electronic text, we have lost the tactile
connection with the medium, which used to indicate the difference
between a paperback novel, a leaflet, or a book of three volumes,
cf. [73]. Bolter [11] suggests that hypertext creates a new ”writing
space”, a field whose boundaries can always be expanded by
the introduction of new material. The traces of texts and images
make hypermedia an augmented reality, an enriched reality in contrast
to virtual reality, the 3-dimensional, artificial reality.
Schulmeister thinks that the multimedia space consists of a representation
space, a symbol space, and an event space. Wexelblat [82] invokes
the term “semantic space”, an environment that is quite
different from any physical or constructed/mapped space we know.
The nature of this space resists easy definition as familiar metaphors
from physics, architecture, and everyday experience have only limited
value here ”since it is deeply connected to the production
of meaning, interpretation, and other activities involving symbols”
[35, p. 207]. It becomes obvious that this notion of a ”semantic
space [. . . ] involving symbols” is a proto-semiotic one:
The term ”symbol” is used in its widest sense (cf. [66,
p. 142]) and the ”semantic” value of the sign is seen
as isolated from its semiotic context. It is not clear if the authors
refer to semantics as the branch of Semiotics that is devoted to
the study of the relationship between signs and their objects (to
be exact: between the sign vehicles and their designata). It seems,
rather, that they refer to ”semantic” as ”relating
to meaning” in the most general sense. I could not agree more
to the general conclusion that ”semantic and architectonic
spaces cannot be perfectly reconciled [and that] we should aim for
systems that harmonize the two as well as possible, but which acknowledge
the contingent nature of any such harmony” [35, p. 215]. Yet,
it seems important to place this conclusion in the semiotic context.
In this discussion of the roots and aims of Hypertext Semiotics,
I believe that changing ”symbol” to ”sign”
and ”semantic” to ”semiotic” in Kaplan/Moulthrop’s
definition is more than a mere terminology purism: Semiotics and
that branch of linguistics known as semantics have a common concern
with the meaning of signs, but John Sturrock argues that whereas
semantics focuses on what words mean, semiotics is concerned
with how signs mean, cf. [16, 26]. With this in mind, let
us go back a few lines in Kaplan/Moulthrop’s argumentation
to show the impact of this maneuver. They criticize Marshall and
Shipman’s conception of Spatial Hypertext as reflecting only
one aspect of the complex phenomenology of virtual space: Their
general idea of space ”tends to collapse into the much narrower
domain of screen real estate. The user’s manipulation
of objects within a graphic representation implies some related
transformation in a mental or linguistic space, but that space is
accessible only through the representation. Space comes to be defined
in terms of the active window on a display screen” [35, p.
207]. So, if Marshall/Shipman’s concept of spatial hypertext
invoke architectonic space in the context of writing, ”semantic
[read: semiotic, MN] space emerges more clearly in the act of reading
or reception – though since hypertext tend to blur the roles
of reader and writer, these distinctions cannot be absolute”
[35, p. 207]. The semiotic space I impose on hypertext has more
to do with Lotman’s ”semiosphere”, a pansemiotic
space outside of which the existence of semiosis is impossible.10
The concept of space used in this account shares little of the clarity
and unambiguousness of architectonic space. As McKnight et al. [51,
169-190] observe, the psycholinguistic or semantic space of a text
(electronic or otherwise) can never be represented with perfect
accuracy by any physical system: ”We cannot navigate semantic
space, at least not the way we navigate physical environments, we
can only navigate the physical instantiation that we develop of
the semantic space” [51, 187]. Harpold, who applies a ”semiology
[of] Lacanian flavor” discusses hypertextual linking as detour,
not a definitive trajectory from departure point to arrival point,
but an elliptical and fundamentally uncertain displacement. The
hypertextual detour, he says, is ”a turn around a place you
never get to, where something drops away between the multiple paths
you might follow. The consequence of this falling away is that the
fabric of a hypertext is riddled with holes” [32, p. 172f.].
As semiotic space resists isomorphous transformation to an architectonic
space, all navigational tools based on a travel metaphor can only
succeed by actively using bricolage techniques. If system designs
are to reflect an intelligent anticipation of breakdowns [35, 84],
we must understand that any attempt to represent the two domains
of virtual space, the architectonic space of mapping and the space
of semiosis must inevitably reach a point of obvious constraint.
In fact, bricolage is a magnificent technique to deal with breakdown
situations and unbridgable, or unintelligible antagonisms.11
Thus, research that is aiming at developing ”intuitive”
interfaces should be disposed to adapt and extend structuralist
methods: ”If it is true that the systems are the real things
and humans only manifestations of them, then the most sensible way
to build a computer system is to begin by constructing the system,
without regard if to whether processes are performed by human or
computer” [2, p. 21]. Spatial Hypertext developers have become
aware of these issues and the breakdown situation and call the bug
(”mismatch between architectonic and semantic spaces”
[35, 51]) a feature (”ability to leave structure implicit
and informal” [49, p. 90]).
Pointing and touching
Marshall and Shipman claim that the characteristics of spatial hypertext
include ”the separation of symbol and underlying content [and]
the use of these visual symbols to create hypertextual meaning”
[49, p. 90]. What they mean by ”the separation of symbol and
underlying content”, is actually a development of a language
that can draw on visual signs as well as on written signs. In our
normal lives, we use several sign systems at the same time to communicate
with our environment.
We use codes, such as clothes, perfume and body language simultaneously
and we use them in concerted action (cf. [66, 26, 75] for an overview
of the different sub-disciplines of semiotic research). For example,
if we want to communicate to our business partners that we are interested
in a long term relationship, we will not only tell them verbally,
but use other codes as well, e.g. invite them to an exclusive restaurant,
show them our premises, switch off our mobile phones while we are
in a meeting with them, etc. In computer interaction, however, we
have to separate and omit most of these sign systems. On today’s
terminals, we can either write (command line interface) or point
(GUIs), but we cannot fully reproduce the integrated, multi-channel
communication of real-life actions, like negotiating. Following
Schmauks’s vision of deixis in HCI, Ipsen comes to a similar
result: ”Pointing actions consist of verbal and nonverbal
components, resembling multimedia actions” [34, p, 560]. He
takes the example of a customer asking the question ”Is this
computer IBM compatible?” accompanied by a pointing movement
of our finger ()
at the shelf: ”Here, linguistic (’this computer’)
and gestural (pointing finger) means of communication are used.
In computing [esp. in hypertext, MN], language is assisted by other
pointing tools, such as the cursor moved by keyboard or mouse, a
figure on the screen, or other graphical devices. In cyberspace,
a representation of one’s hand may appear” [34, p, 560].12
Of course this shopping example has even more facets to it: The
secondary function of the question might be more important than
the primary function: Instead of the message ”Tell me if this
computer is IBM compatible”, the sender might want to communicate
”I know that this computer is not IBM compatible, and I want
to lower the price”. The mouse has followed the keyboard as
the main input device in hypertext structures. To move within the
WWW, we do not have to use complicated commands but simply mouse-click
on a link marker to follow the link. Thus, we point on it, using
the mouse as our prolongated index finger. This is also indicated
by the way the cursor changes its appearance when dragged over a
hyperlink. Most standard browsers show ”a view from above”
on a hand with a stretched-out index finger.13
Interestingly enough, only the LINUX version of the Netscape Navigator
still uses an index finger that indicates a pointing movement in
a direction (”if you follow this link, it will lead you to.
. . ”) rather than a tactile pressing on an object. The German
word ”peilen” (to take the bearings of, to get a fix
on) shares its etymology with the ”Pfeil” (arrow). An
arrow – in hunting just as well as in taking the bearings
of celestial bodies to calculate one’s position – is
used for long-distance aiming, just like the finger that points
on an object that is out of reach. The touching finger is a short-ranged
device identifying a near-by object, that can possibly be lifted,
dragged and dropped again. Most standard browsers have followed
Microsoft Internet Explorer’s adaption to the desktop metaphor:
The drag & drop metaphor highlights the implied tactile relationship
between the user’s hand and the objects on the GUI’s
virtual desktop, cf. [73]. By showing the mouse pointer as an index
finger that taps on the link markers, the spatial character of the
hypertext docuverse was tied to the ”small world” on
the top of a virtual writing desk14.
The pointing finger and the index are etymologically connected with
digitus index, the Latin word for forefinger. In printing,
index refers to an arrow-shaped character to call attention to a
particular paragraph or section. In this function, the index is
somehow related to the bookmark, as it marks (indicates) a point
to start reading. The pictorial connection of the index finger (),
the pointing act and the concept of leaving a mark became very strong
in book illustration: In a certain medieval illuminated manuscript,
the script/illustrator Isodorus shows himself writing the inscription
in which he says he executed the picture in his Gospels15.
The notion of leaving a mark is, of course, also connected with
the finger print, a unique sign of individuality and an indexical
sinsign in Peircean terminology, like the hand signature, or the
electronic password, cf. [55]. Ipsen’s example shows that
combining communication channels (e.g. linguistic and gestural)
produce meaning economically: Being precise in just one of the channels
affords much more time and cognitive effort: ”Is the forth
computer from the left on the second lowest shelf on the right hand
side of your showroom IBM compatible?” or asking the question
in a charade-like manner. In both cases, the coding in a single
channel complicates the communication significantly in comparison
to the multi-channel variant, cf. [34, 15].
Hypertext Navigation and Intertextuality
Generally, hypertext is defined as the use of the computer to transcend
linear, bounded and fixed qualities of the traditional written text,
as it is composed, and read, non-sequentially: ”It is a variable
structure, composed of blocks of text (or what Roland Barthes terms
lexia) and the electronic links that join them,” [20, p. 3],
cf. [5]. The passage from one node to the other (navigation) is
based on the selection and combination of elements. The act of navigation
means a linearization of those nodes that the hypertext user chooses
to read along a personal thread that is laid upon the network. According
to Wenz [80, p. 581], such linearization can be compared to linearization
processes which underlie the transfer of complex and simultaneous
nonverbal perceptions into language, as different possibilities
of selection in different situations create a multiplicity of linear
discourses. Wenz concludes: ”Therefore, multiplicity of linearity
instead of non-linearity should be the key word in discussing the
reading process in hypermedia” [80, p. 581]. Of course, the
critical reader is reminded of Kristeva’s concept of intertextuality
which divides the text into two axes: a horizontal axis, which is
the linear connection between author and reader through the text,
and a vertical axis, which connects the text to other texts ”of
the anterior literary corpus and the text as an absorption of a
reply to another text” [38, p. 69]. These two axes create
a two-dimensional space. There is no fixed position in the connection
between these four elements. There is only movement between author,
reader, text, and intertext, cf. [68]. This movement is the movement
of différance, only available as a trace which can be elucidated
in interpretation. The virtual presence of many voices is interwoven
in these intertextual relations. As Barthes puts it, ”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”
[6, p. 146]. In conclusion of my prolegomena of a theory of hypertext
semiotics, I do not think to have produced a new ”hypertext
model”. Yet, I was able to interlace the existing models with
the findings of semiotic research, on all levels of the textual,
aural, visual, tactile and olfactory channels. While this connection
between hypermedia and the field of media semiotics is clearly visible
in Nöth’s Semiotics of the Media [64], computers
play no role whatsoever in Bignell’s Media Semiotics [10]
published the same year! The long-term goal of Hypertext Semiotics
(as I see it) is to enhance hypermedia as a multi-level semiotic
system that incorporates spatio-temporal aspects, the power of the
image and ”language as the ultimate upgrade” [17, p.
182].
Glosario:
Bricolage
A term introduced by Lévi-Strauss [317] to designate a manner
of construction that relies on improvisional (or ad hoc)
and makeshift responses and far-flung analogies for problem-solving
and to explain the world. In a general sense, bricolage is the process
of creating something not as a matter of calculated choice and use
of whatever materials are technically best-adapted to a clearly
predetermined purpose, but rather in a dialogue with the materials
and means of execution. In such a dialogue, the materials which
are ready-to-hand may suggest adaptive courses of action, and the
initial aim may be modified.
Code The establishment of a conventional rule-following
relation in a symbol, represented as a deterministic, functional
relation between two sets of entities.
Communication The process of transmitting and receiving
messages. According to Roman Jakobson and others, an analysis of
this process yields six factors: addresser, addressee, contact (or
channel), context, code, and the message itself. Corresponding to
these factors are six functions: emotive, conative, phatic, reference,
metalinguistic (or metacommunicative), and aesthetic or poetic.
This process has been taken as the focal object of semiotics.
Différance A word coined by Jacques Derrida
as part of his critique of phonocentrism and of the metaphysics
of presence. It involves a pun, for he is playing on two senses
of differ: to differ and to defer (postpone or put off).
In addition, this word itself is supposed to show the dependence
on speech upon writing, for the difference to a French speaker between
difference and differance is no difference at
all. That is, the difference is discernible to the eye but not to
the ear.
Discourse A term sometimes used to translate parole
(more usually rendered ”speech”). Ferdinand de Saussure
[468] separated language (langue), conceived as a self-contained
system of formal differences, from speech (parole), the actual utterance
of individual speakers. He did so for the purpose of making language
for the formal object of linguistic and he thought that the study
of language should focus on language, not speech or discourse.
Graph Informally, a graph is a finite set of dots
called vertices (or nodes) connected by links called edges (or arcs).
HTML HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a simple
programming language used to format documents for display on the
World Wide Web. When displayed using a World Wide Web browser, documents
prepared in HTML include formatting, graphics, and hypertext links
to other documents or multimedia.
Hypermedia Most hypertext researchers view the
terms hypertext and hypermedia as synonymous and use them interchangeably,
with a preference to sticking to hypertext.
Hypertext A body of electronic text that can be
authored, and read, non-sequentially. In classic hypertext theory,
blocks of text (lexia or nodes) are joined by electronic hyperlinks.
In this approach, hypertext also includes linked multimedia material
(hypermedia) and alternative hypertext approaches, such as time-based
hypermedia and spatial hypertext.
Icon Ultimately from Greek eikon (likeness, image,
portrait), an icon (or ikon) is an image, a representation, a simile.
Semiotically incorrect, but nevertheless widely used, is the denomination
of the symbols on the GUI desktop and in WWW documents as ”icons”.
In this paper, I call the graphic representations of hyperlinks
Graphical Link Markers (GLMs).
Image Stemming from Latin imago (imitation, copy,
likeness, bust), the image is generally a representation, or double
of something. The emphasis of this term does not lie on a graphic
quality, but on the likeness (a difference that can be compared
to index vs. icon).
Index In the general context of science, an index
is mostly understood as an alphabetized list of names, places, and
subjects treated in a printed work, giving the page or pages on
which each item is mentioned. Accordingly, indexing has become an
important method to store and retrieve information in computer science.
Indexicality, in its semiotic sense, however, is a quite different
concept: In Semiotics, the index is a proper sign where the motivation
is due to some kind of physical connection or causal relation between
the sign vehicle and reference object.
Intertextuality A term introduced by Julia Kristeva
and widely adopted by literary theorists to designate the complex
ways in which a given text is related to other texts. As every text
is constructed as a mosaic of other texts, every text is an absorption
and transformation of other texts. According to Kristeva, the notion
of intertextuality comes to replace that of intersubjectivity.
Lexia In the sense of Roland Barthes’ S/Z
[37], lexia are units of textual meaning that can be analyzed according
to their codes of signification. In hypertext theory, lexia are
unordered blocks of texts connected by links. Lexia are also referred
to as nodes.
Link In a hypertext, (hyper-)links are connectors
between nodes.
Link marker The link marker is the visual representation
of the link anchor, or, point of departure of a link. Some authors
use the term ”button” for the link marker. The link
marker can be a word or an image.
Node In graph theory, a node (or vertex) is a dot
in a graph. In hypertext theory, it is one of many blocks of text
connected by links and to be read in an unsequential order.
Pansemiotic, pansemiotism The view that everything
is, in some manner and measure, a sign.
Semantic General, relating to meaning or signification.
In Semiotics, semantic means more narrowly, concerned with the relationship
between the signs and the objects.
Semiotics The study of doctrine of signs, sometimes
supposed to be a science of signs; the systematic investigation
of the nature, properties, and kinds of sign, especially when undertaken
in a self-conscious way. While semiology is sometimes used to refer
to the Saussurean tradition, and semiotics sometimes refers to the
Peircean tradition, nowadays the term semiotics is more likely to
be used as an umbrella term to embrace the whole field, cf. [468,
416]
Sender One who sends or conveys a message, thus
a synonym for addresser.
Sinsign A term used by Charles S. Peirce to designate
a specific type of sign, one in which an individual event or object
(not a category) serves as the sign vehicle.
Symbol A term frequently used to designate a conventional
sign (for instance, a sign based on convention or established usage).
But this term refers to various other types of signs as well. For
Ferdinand de Saussure, a symbol is a sign in which the correlation
between signifier and signified is, in some measure, motivated (that
is, nonarbitrary). In Charles S. Peirce’s elaborate classification
of signs, a symbol is almost the opposite of this. Peirce defines
symbol as part of a trichotomy: icon, index, symbol. This trichotomy
is based on the relationship between the sign vehicle and its (reference)
object. If a sign vehicle is related to its object by virtue of
a resemblance to that object (for instance, a map to its territory),
it is an icon. If it is related to its object by virtue of an actual
or physical connection (for example, the direction of the weather
vane to the direction of the wind being indicated by the vane),
it is an index. If it is related to its object by virtue of a habit
or convention (for instance a single red rose as the symbol of affection-or
more), it is a symbol.
Topology The topographic study of a given place,
especially the history of a region as indicated by its topography;
WWW The World Wide Web (WWW) is an Internet-based
hypermedium that consists of text, graphics, audio, animation, and
video.
Notas:
1
Univ. Doz. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Veith Risak, Institut für Computerwissenschaften
der Universität-Salzburg; Univ. Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Dr. Wolfgang
Panny, Institut für Informationsverarbeitung und Informationswirtschaft
der Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien; Univ. Prof. Dr. Herbert Hrachovec,
Institut für Philosophie der Universität Wien. Of course,
the purpose of this multidisciplinary advance was not so much to
dismantle disciplinary boundaries as to be able to move across them.
2 Besides the uncountable bibliography
links, the dissertation includes more than 2500 handcrafted links
to the glossary, to external Web sites and between sections.
3 Hopefully, the insights gained
from building non-visual hypermedia systems for blind users can
soon be used for navigation in auditory hyperspace.
4 ”Computation is about
meaning, not electrons. Regardless of the type of computation, what
interests computer users is not the electrons moving along sophisticated
circuits, but the various bearers of meaningful information signs
subjected to their programmed processing. Whether electron, light,
quantum, or DNA-based, the computer is a medium for sign processes!
Numbers turned into images, simulations, database operations, etc.
are examples of how the signs of the object of our practical interest
are processed according to our goals” [55].
5 Emile Benveniste argued that
”language is possible only because each speaker sets himself
up as a subject by referring to himself as ’I’ in his
discourse. Because of this, ’I’ posits another person,
the one who, being as he is completely exterior to ’me’,
becomes my echo to whom I say ’you’ and who says ’you’
to me”. For Benveniste, neither of these terms can be considered
without the other: ”they are complementary [. . . ] and at
the same time they are reversible”, cf. [46, p. 225]. The
connexion to the spatial dimension can be shown by the social phenomenon
that the person who sits down first defines all other relations.
6 ”Whilst most obviously
associated with art and photography, they are no less structurally
important alongside temporal syntagms in media such as television,
cinema and the World Wide Web. Unlike sequential syntagmatic relations,
which are essentially about before and after, spatial syntagmatic
relations include: above/below, in front/behind, close/distant,
left/right (which can also have sequential significance), north/south/east/west,
and inside/outside (or centre/periphery)” [16, Syntagmatic
Analysis].
7 The metaphor, in general, ”is
pervasive in everyday life, not just in language, but in thought
and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we
both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature”
[40, p. 3]. For Wenz, ”metaphor is not just a figure of speech
and a linguistic phenomenon, but includes a cognitive dimension”
[80, p. 576].
8
8 Just as the reader of a
linear document constructs a local and global mental representation
of the document, the author of a linear document uses cues both
at the local and at the global levels, ”dividing the document
into chapters, sections, paragraphs, sentences, words etc. This
facilitates comprehension and navigation” [79].
9 Derrida sought to challenge the phonocentric
privileging of speech over writing in Western culture and to demonstrate
the instability of this opposition, cf. [135]. He also challenged
the privileging of the signified over the signifier, seeing it as
a perpetuation of the traditional opposition of matter and spirit
or substance and thought.
10 Thinking in ’ecological’
terms (e.g. biospheres) about the interaction of different semiotic
structures and languages led the Russian cultural semiotician Yuri
Lotman to coin the term semiosphere to refer to ”the whole
semiotic space of the culture in question” [46, p. 124-125].
11 Lévi-Strauss coined
the term bricolage as the process of creating something not as a
matter of calculated choice and use of whatever materials are technically
best-adapted to a clearly predetermined purpose, but rather in a
”dialogue with the materials and means of execution”
[45, p. 29].
12 Many other authors use the
term cyberspace interchangeably for VR, hyperspace, the Internet,
etc. In regards to the spatial relativity of the Human-Computer
Interfaces, Ipsen continues: ”There is an interface device
for the user to be connected with the machine or rather with the
application. By means of this interface, the user’s origo
is set to the coordinates defined by the software, which is the
most crucial point of the whole story. [. . . ] The user’s
point of view is shifted to some virtual place that is totally separated
from the real environment” [34, p, 560].
13 Naturally, this does not
hold true for all text-based browsers, such as lynx. The Guide system
had four different cursors, according to the link type.
14 Consequently, the Opera browser
allows to drag links out of the browser window. On dropping the
link, the users get asked whether they want to copy the node,
or the link itself to the new location.
15 “His pen is once again
on the letter ’x’ of ’finxit’, in a clever
conceit which draws attention both to his making of the manuscript
(’finxit – he made it) and shows him as if in the process
of actually writing it” [1, p. 18]. In Latin codices of the
corpus iuris civilis, we find little drawings of hands
and index fingers that mark certain passages. In a fresco cycle
in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, we see a little boy that can be
interpreted as a ”personification of the index finger”
that we usually find in the codices, cf. [31, p. 140].
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Moritz
Neumüller
Moritz Neumüller has graduated from the University
of Vienna in Art History,
and from the Vienna University of Economics in Commerce, with special
emphasis on Information Management.
Con la colaboración de:
Lic. Sergio Verde Perallicenciado
Se encuentra desarrollando el Master "Gestión del Patrimonio
Cultural" en la Universidad Complutense
y como becario en la empresa cultural La Fabrica, en Madrid, España.
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