Intertextuality, as defined by Michael Riffaterre, "depends on a system of limitations in our freedom of choice, of exclusions, since it is by renouncing incompatible associations within the text that we come to identify in the intertext their compatible counterparts."
He further states that this intertextuality is the complete opposite of hypertextuality because the former builds a "structured network" of limits that will keep the reader on track (towards the "correct" interpretation), the latter is a "loose web of free association."
This comparison forces me to question Riffaterre's understanding of hypertext. The quote comes from a 1994 article, when hypertext was somewhat different from today's (1997) version, but certainly not an amorphous, unstructured mass of material arbitrarily selected. Two distinct types of information linking in hypertext refute Riffaterre's argument. First, embedded links are placed in a text by the author. They are very rarely random. A second form, "searches", are dependent on the programming of the search engine (program). Currently, different search engines give different "hits" to the same inquiry, which indicates that someone has decided how the search will be limited because computers can not make such decisions without instructions.
Riffaterre ultimately sees the intertext from the Aristotilean perspective of certifiable truth. He even goes so far as to imagine that the "Institutions of Interpretation" have not changed since Aristotle.
Perhaps some in academia can maintain that illusion, but those who have grown up as "other" would argue the point. At any rate, he embraces an artificial standard when he states,
Intertextuality is made manifest either by syllepsis or by a gap, or by an ungrammaticality. . . Each of these is immediately perceptible to readers, who need no more, to respond to the text, than the senses nature gave them.
He further states that this intertextuality is the complete opposite of hypertextuality because the former builds a "structured network" of limits that will keep the reader on track (towards the "correct" interpretation), the latter is a "loose web of free association."
This comparison forces me to question Riffaterre's understanding of hypertext. The quote comes from a 1994 article, when hypertext was somewhat different from today's (1997) version, but certainly not an amorphous, unstructured mass of material arbitrarily selected. Two distinct types of information linking in hypertext refute Riffaterre's argument. First, embedded links are placed in a text by the author. They are very rarely random. A second form, "searches", are dependent on the programming of the search engine (program). Currently, different search engines give different "hits" to the same inquiry, which indicates that someone has decided how the search will be limited because computers can not make such decisions without instructions.
Riffaterre ultimately sees the intertext from the Aristotilean perspective of certifiable truth. He even goes so far as to imagine that the "Institutions of Interpretation" have not changed since Aristotle.
Perhaps some in academia can maintain that illusion, but those who have grown up as "other" would argue the point. At any rate, he embraces an artificial standard when he states,
Intertextuality is made manifest either by syllepsis or by a gap, or by an ungrammaticality. . . Each of these is immediately perceptible to readers, who need no more, to respond to the text, than the senses nature gave them.
Download ebooks on http://www.frenchtheory.com/ - See that post with different algorithms in metabole - See the journal French Metablog with today different posts-Enter Jean-Philippe Pastor
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