Textes

Textes is a term used across languages to refer to the unit of written or spoken discourse that can be interpreted to convey meaning. The word text derives from Latin textus, meaning a woven thing, a fitting metaphor for how words are combined to form a message. In scholarly contexts, a text may be a single document, a literary work, or any coherent stretch of discourse that can be analyzed.

Texts are categorized by genre and medium. Literary texts include novels, poems, plays, and other creative works. Non-literary texts cover legal codes, scientific reports, news articles, manuals, and religious writings. Oral texts encompass speeches and transcriptions of conversations. Digital texts refer to web pages, ebooks, social media posts, and other content produced or consumed in digital form. A text’s meaning is shaped by context, including historical moments, cultural norms, and intertextual references to other works.

Textual analysis often involves identifying how a text achieves its effects. In philology and textual criticism, editors compare manuscript variants to reconstruct a preferred version, documenting differences in an apparatus criticus. The concept of text also interacts with ideas like authorial intention, reader response, and intertextuality, recognizing that meaning emerges from the relationship between text, reader, and wider discourse.

In the contemporary era, texts exist as data for digital analysis. Corpus linguistics, natural language processing, and text mining study large collections to reveal patterns, usage, and evolution, while issues of accessibility, copyright, and metadata shape how texts are stored and studied.