Is There a Text?

So, what is a text? Is it a prose piece? Is it poetry? Is it anything that is written and can be read?

According to the dictionary, text is “the main written part of a book, newspaper, etc.” or “the written form of a speech, interview, etc.” In colloquial contexts, it could mean anything written.

However, let’s go a little deeper. What do you do with a text? You read and understand it. Right? If a poem or story is a text, it is meant to be read and analyzed. It can have multiple different meanings, and people understand and interpret it in different ways. There isn’t just one way to read a text.

Similarly, let’s look at other things that can be interpreted. What about a painting or photograph? If your answer to that is yes, that means paintings and photographs are also texts. An image is a text. So is a piece of furniture, if it makes you feel and think.

Anything that you have to think about to understand can be called a text. Since a text, in its rawest meaning, means something that can be understood and interpreted. Anything you see that you can interpret in a way different from other people can be a text. It could be a huge book, or even an action. That brings us back to the question of whether or not there is a text. What kind of question is that when everything around us is, in fact, a text?