texte

Texte is a unit of written language that conveys meaning. In French, the word texte means text, but in linguistic and literary contexts a text is more than a single sentence: it is a coherent sequence of signs that constitutes a communicative whole.

Etymology: from Latin textus, “woven thing,” a metaphor for woven discourse. The term emphasizes that a text arranges signs—words, sentences, punctuation—into an organized whole that can be read, interpreted, and evaluated.

Types and structure: Texts vary by genre and purpose. Common types include literary texts (novels, poetry), informational texts (essays, reports), and procedural or instructional texts (manuals, recipes). Texts have cohesion (linking devices) and coherence (overall meaning and organization) and a textural quality or texture that readers experience as unity.

Analysis: In linguistics and literary studies, texts are studied with close reading, genre analysis, and discourse analysis. Analysts examine macrostructure (overall organization), microstructure (sentence-level choices), and linguistic features such as tense, modality, and reference. Context, audience, and purpose are central to interpretation.

Digital and processing: In computing, a text is unformatted character data, stored as plain text or encoded in various formats. Plain text uses simple encoding; rich text includes styling. Text processing and natural language processing operate on text, and markup languages (HTML, XML) structure it for display and computation.

Usage and impact: Texts are central to education, media, law, and daily communication. The concept of text intersects with typography, readership, and cultural context, influencing how meaning is produced, transmitted, and interpreted across different media and communities.