Defining 'Text'

Reading a 1992 piece by Doug Hartman. I like this approach to defining text.

"The text has been rendered by intertextually-informed research in two ways. Both, influenced considerably by literary theory and semiotics, require an altered notion of what constitutes a text. Although we usually think of the text as the object one reads-a textbook, a section of a passage, or the alphanumeric code printed on a page-it need not be confined to the boundaries of printed language. A text includes both linguistic and nonlinguistic signs. A text can be an utterance, a gesture, a thought, a structure, a function, or a piece of art, music, or drama (Rowe, 1987; Short. 1986; Siegel, 1984); in this more inclusive sense, a text is any sign that communicates meaning."

with the end note:

"For the sake of clarity and consistency, I will generally use “the text” to refer to the physical, linguistic object, and “text,” “a text, ” “textual resource,” and “textual utterance” to refer to the more inclusive conception of a linguistic or nonlinguistic sign that communicates meaning. "

Here's the full ref:
Hartman, D. (1992). Intertextuality and Reading: The Text, the Reader, the Author, and the Context. Linguistics and Education, 4, 295-311.

And those other refs:
Rowe, D.W. (1987). Literacy learning as an intettextual process. In J.E. Readence & R.S. Baldwin (Eds.). Research in literacy: Merging perspectives, Thirty-sixth Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. lOl- 1 12). Rochester, NY: National Reading Conference.

Short, K.G. (1986). Literacy as a collaborative experience. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
Indiana University, Bloomington.

Siegel, M.G. (1984). Reading as signification. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington.