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1 _ The book is one of the oldest communication supports we know and that is still very present in our lives.

It serves as an information container unit, as an ultimate object of materialisation of text and image, giving it texture, dimension, smell, enabling its edition, reproduction and archive. It’s an expressive object as canvas for literature or history’s documental record. This is a technology that doesn’t become obsolete, has value and character on its own and continues on boosting varied areas of creation.

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L ANGUAGES, BOOKS, AND READING _ 2 _

In the order of discourse, we are confronted with what

connections between the material object, the work (in

is perhaps the most fundamental rupture of all. Indeed,

the sense of a specific work or of a series of works), and

in the written culture as we know it, such an order is

the author were finally established.

established from the relationship between objects

The third legacy is, of course, the invention of the

(the letter, the book, the newspaper, the magazine,

printing press in the mid-fifteenth century. From that

the poster, the form, and so on), categories of texts,

moment on, without it having caused the disappear-

and different uses of the written word. This connec-

ance of scribal publication—far from it—the printing

tion, which links types of objects, categories of texts,

press became the most utilized technology for the

Living in the current digital age, new technologies

and forms of reading, is the result of a historical

reproduction of the written word and for the produc-

are in constant development and the transition of

layering of three fundamental innovations. The first

tion of books.

the printed page to the screen seems inevitable. We

took place in the early centuries of the Christian era

now have a much more close relationship with text,

when the codex as we still know it, that is, a book made

We are the heirs of these three historical developments,

provided by this electronic evolution. The e-book

up of leaves and pages gathered into the same binding

as much for the definition of the book that is for us

makes producing, reproducing and experiencing text

or covering, replaced the scroll or volumen, that book

both an object different from other objects of written

much more easy, accessible and dynamic with tools

of a completely different structure which belonged to

culture and an intellectual or esthetic work endowed

that take the most out of the digitalisation of the book.

Greek and Roman readers.

with an identity and a coherence assigned to its author,

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The second rupture occurred in the fourteenth

as for a perception of written culture based on imme-

and fifteenth centuries, before Gutenberg’s invention,

diate, material distinctions between objects that are

with the appearance of the libro unitario, as Arman-

associated with different textual genres and usages.

do Petrucci called it, the book that, for texts in the

It is this order of discourse that electronic textuali-

vernacular, assembled in the same binding all the

ty calls into question. Indeed, it is the same apparatus,

works of a single author, or even just one sole work.

in this case the computer screen, that enables differ-

Although this type of book was already the rule for

ent types of texts to appear in front of the reader, texts

juridical collections, canonical works of the Christian

that, in the world of the scribal and a fortiori printed

tradition, or the classics of antiquity, the same was

cultures, were distributed among distinct objects.

not true for texts in the vernacular that, in general,

In the digital word, all texts, whatever their genre, are

were assembled into miscellanies made up of works of

produced or received through the same medium and

different dates, genres, or languages. It was around

in very similar forms, usually decided on by the read-

figures such as Petrarch or Boccaccio,Christine de

er him- or herself. Thus a textual continuity is created

Pisan or Rene´ of Anjou that, for “modern” writers,

that no longer differentiates discourses on the basis of

the unitary book was born, that is, a book in which the

their materiality. Hence the anxiety or the confusion of

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readers who must confront or overcome the disappear-

must transform not only the intellectual categories

er is in a position to be able to read a book read by

Thus in the eighteenth century Blackstone, one of the

ance of the most strongly internalized criteria that en-

he or she has employed to describe, structure, and

the historian and to directly consult the analyzed

lawyers involved in the trials that have contributed

abled them to distinguish, to classify, and to categorize

classify the world of books and of other written mate-

documents him - or herself. The first uses of these new

to the birth of the notion of literary property, justified

different types of discourse.

rials but also his or her most immediate perceptions,

modalities in the production, organization, and ac-

the ownership of the author by stating that a work is

habits, and gestures.

creditation of scholarly discourse show the importance

always the same if, beyond the variations in its ma-

of the transformation of cognitive operations implied

terial forms, what he described as sentiment, style,

by the use of electronic texts.

or language can be recognized. A close connection is

Because of this, the perception of individual works as works becomes more difficult. Reading in front

The second change concerns the order of reasoning,

of the computer screen is generally a discontinuous

if by that we mean the way an argument is organized

reading process that seeks, using keywords or thematic

and the criteria that a reader might employ to agree

A third level of change is linked to the order of

thus established between the unique identity of the

headings, the fragment that the reader wishes to find:

or to disagree with it. For the author, electronic tex-

property, meaning property both in a juridical sense,

texts, always detectable and perpetuated, and the ju-

an article in an electronic periodical, a passage in a

tuality enables the development of demonstrations

that of literary property or of copyright, and in a tex-

ridical and aesthetic regime that attributes ownership

book, or some information in a website. This is done

and arguments following a logic that is no longer

tual sense, that of the characteristics proper to each

to their authors. This is the foundation of the notion

without the identity or coherence of the entire text

necessarily linear or deductive, as is the logic imposed

written text or genre. The electronic text as we know

of copyright that protects a work that is assumed al-

from which the fragment is extracted necessarily

by the inscription, however it is done, of a text onto

it or have known it is a moving, malleable, open text.

ways to be the same regardless of the forms of its pub-

being known. In a certain sense, one might say that

a page. It enables an open, fragmented, relational

The reader can intervene not only in its margins, but

lication. It is obvious that the palimpsestic and poly-

in the digital world all textual entities are like data-

articulation of the reasoning, made possible by hy-

in its very content, by removing, reducing, adding,

phonic texts of digital textuality challenge the very

bases that offer fragments, the reading of which in

pertextual connections. For the reader, the validation

or reworking textual units.

possibility of recognizing such a fundamental identity.

no way implies a perception of the work or the body

or the refutation of an argument can henceforth occur

Unlike the manuscript or printed objects in which

This challenge has led to a reflection that has

of works from which they come.

by consulting texts (but also images, recorded speech,

the reader can add his or her writing only within

begun in the last few years regarding whether or not

Regarding the order of discourse, the electron-

or musical compositions) that are the very object of

the blank spaces of the handwriting or typographical

it is possible in digital textuality to reconstitute a

ic world thus creates a triple rupture: it provides a

the study, provided, or course, that they are accessi-

composition, with the digital world the reader can in-

perpetuated and perceptible identity for texts or,

new technique for inscribing and disseminating the

ble in digital form. If that is the case, the reader is no

tervene within the text itself. The consequences are

at least, for certain texts. This has also led to the

written word, it inspires a new relationship with texts,

longer constrained to trust the author; he or she can

important. They lead to the disappearance of the name

suggestion for a reorganization of the digital world

and it imposes a new form of organization on texts.

in turn carry out all or part of the author’s research.

and the presence of the author because the text is con-

so that authors’ rights, as well as those of their pub-

The originality and the importance of the digital rev-

Here we have a fundamental epistemological mutation

stantly modified by a multiple and collective writing.

lishers, can be protected. This reorganization could

olution must therefore not be underestimated insofar

that profoundly transforms the techniques of proof

One might think that this possibility offers writing

lead to a stronger distinction (even if it is made diffi-

as it forces the contemporary reader to abandon—con-

and the modalities of the construction and validation

the new form Michel Foucault has dreamt of many

cult by the medium, which is a single machine trans-

sciously or not—the various legacies that formed it.

of the discourse of knowledge.

times while imagining an order of discourse in which

mitting different sorts of texts) between, on the one

This new form of textuality no longer uses printing

Let us take an example: In the world of the printed

the individual appropriation of texts would disappear

hand, electronic communication as we know it, which

(at least in its typographic sense), it has nothing to do

word, the history book assumes a pact of trust between

and in which each writer, anonymously, would leave

makes it possible to send or receive open, mobile,

with the libro unitario, and it is foreign to the materi-

the historian and the reader. Notes refer to documents

his or her mark in the layers of an authorless discourse.

free texts, and on the other, electronic publish-

al nature of the codex. It is therefore a revolution that

that the general reader will not be able to obtain.

But the mobility of the open and malleable text

ing, which is the result of editorial work and implies

in the same period in time, and for the first time in

Bibliographical references mention books that the

seriously challenges the criteria and the categories

that the text is fixed, delimited, and closed so that

history, combines a revolution in the technical means

reader, most often, will only be able to read in a li-

that, at least since the eighteenth century, established

its ownership is clearly defined and, by that fact,

for reproducing the written word (as did the invention

brary. Citations are fragments that the historian alone

the author’s ownership of his or her works and con-

so are the rights of the author and the income of the

of the printing press), a revolution in the medium of

chooses to extract, without the reader being able

sequently the publisher’s ownership of the works he

publisher. This discussion has truly crystallized

the written word (like the revolution of the codex), and

to know the complete text out of which they came.

or she has acquired. The recognition of copyright

around the advent of the e-book because this new type

a revolution in the use of and the perception of texts

These three classic means for a proof (notes, references,

(the word appeared in 1704 in the registers of the

of computer product does not allow the transmission,

(as in the various revolutions in reading). This no doubt

and citations) are profoundly modified in the world

StationersCompany) implies that the work can be

copying, modification, or even printing of texts pub-

explains the confusion of the contemporary reader who

of digital textuality from the moment when the read-

firmly identified in its uniqueness and originality.

lished in an electronic form and placed on the market.

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Electronic publishing, which implies the same oper-

the editorial intent and of the intellectual or political

ations as conventional publishing (the preparation

design that governs the publication. In an electronic

of texts, the creation of a catalogue, copyediting) would

form, a reading of the “same” article is organized out

thus be defined in contrast to the free and spontaneous

of the logical architecture that structures the domains,

communication on the digital network.

the themes, the headings, and the keywords. Such

The tension between the free communication of

a reading proceeds in the same way as the analytical

ideas and research and electronic publishing that

language of Wilkins, that is, from an encyclope-

fixes and closes texts is a major issue in the conflicts

dic organization of knowledge that proposes texts

between scientific communities and publishers. In the

to the reader that have no other context than that

last few years, a very heated controversy has opposed

attributed by their belonging to a certain theme.

scientific journals, which have increased the number

This difference must be pointed out at a time when,

of electronic editions protected by passwords that

in all the libraries of the world, people are discussing

prohibit the copying or printing of articles in order

the need to create digital collections, in particular

to maintain a captive market for journals, subscrip-

of newspapers and journals. Digitization projects that

tions to which can cost up to $10,000 or $12,000,

will enable long-distance communication are abso-

and researchers, in particular those in the biological

lutely essential. But they must never lead to the aban-

and cognitive sciences, who demand free access to

donment or, worse, the destruction of printed works

The coming of the digital age is bringing a lot of

the advances in research. Two different logics are

in their original form.

developments to text but it is also leaving behind

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at issue here: the logic of free communication, which

many important aspects that lasted for centuries on

is associated with the ideal of the Enlightenment

this medium. The most obvious one is its physicality,

that upheld the sharing of knowledge, and the logic

which is materialised into pixels in a screen. This is

of publishing based on the notions of an author’s

a big cut of the relationship with the reader, for that

rights and of commercial gain. For reaching a com-

the individual loses the physical reference of the sens-

promise, certain journals, such as Molecular Biology

es during the reading experience, with no definition

of the Cell or Science, have agreed to allow their

of dimensions or notion of exploration. The book has

articles to be freely consulted after a few months or

to preserve the ideia of an unit of closed content and

a year of restricted access.

be able to translate its spatiality to the digital medium.

The example of journals illustrates the profound difference that exists between readings of the “same” text when it is moved from a printed medium to an electronic form. The case of newspapers is particularly illuminating. In the printed newspaper, the meaning the reader gives to each article depends on the presence, on the same page or in the same issue, of other articles or other elements (photographs, cartoons, advertisements, and so on). The reader constructs the meaning of any article by relating it, even unconsciously, to what precedes it, accompa-

taken from: Languages, Books, and Reading from the

nies it, or follows it, and from his or her perception of

Printed Word to the Digital Text by Roger Chartier, 2004

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