Introduction

[Marty Jacobsen]

On Fri, 8 Jan 1999, Karen McComas wrote:

> Hi Marty,
>
> Haven't introduced myself yet, but you've thrown out some good bait :)
>
> I'm not very clear on the scope of discourse (one reason I joined this list)
> but let me respond with a theory of my own about hypertext environment, if it
> is a discourse (and I'm not certain that it is - let's just suppose it
> is)....I think the minimal unit of discourse in a hypertext environment is
> either .... oh drats, I was going to initially say it was a single screen, but
> just as I started to type that I started to second guess myself...could it be
> a single letter, linked to another document....could it be a graphic, linked
> to another document....hmmmmmm....someone else better jump in here ;)

Your 'oh drats' statement reflects the approximate distance I travel
before revoking my own 'minimal units.' There is some work out there about
'screening' (ie-screens as 'new' electronic pages), so that is one
possibility.  The link is also a rather problematic unit, and links have
many forms, so we can't think of them as verbal only but more semiotic
(which allows for the navigatory buttons to serve discursive functions and
thus become units themselves). I argue that the co-textual relationship of
link to location is different from a co-textual relationship in print, and
part of the reason is the abrupt separation caused by the jump (see
Bolter's discussion of 'hyperbaton' in _Texts and Textuality_ ed. Philip
Cohen).  This question has an uncertainty principle to it--the more I look
at one possible unit and try to define it, the less certain the adjacent,
and hence necessary, unit appears.

I am also interested in knowing if different specialties apply different
units to hypertexts.  So CA, VA, ethnographers, anybody who thinks about
minimal units, toss in your thoughts.  Let's give Chris his thread (and me
some data :)

MJ