Fuzzy Coherence: Making Sense of Continuity in Hypertext Narratives
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Fuzzy Coherence: Making sense of Continuity in Hypertext Narratives Jukka Tyrkkö Academic dissertation to be publicly discussed, by due permission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki in auditorium XIII, on the 3rd of December, 2011, at 10 o’clock. Department of Modern Languages University of Helsinki © Jukka Tyrkkö (2011) ISBN 978-952-10-7384-7 (PDF) ISBN 978-952-10-7383-0 (Paperback) Bookwell Oy Jyväskylä 2011 http://ethesis.helsinki.fi Abstract Hypertexts are digital texts characterized by interactive hyperlinking and a fragmented textual organization. Increasingly prominent since the early 1990s, hypertexts have become a common text type both on the Internet and in a variety of other digital contexts. Although studied widely in disciplines like hypertext theory and media studies, formal linguistic approaches to hypertext continue to be relatively rare. This study examines coherence negotiation in hypertext with particularly reference to hypertext fiction. Coherence, or the quality of making sense, is a fundamental property of textness. Proceeding from the premise that coherence is a subjectively evaluated property rather than an objective quality arising directly from textual cues, the study focuses on the processes through which readers interact with hyperlinks and negotiate continuity between hypertextual fragments. The study begins with a typological discussion of textuality and an overview of the historical and technological precedents of modern hypertexts. Then, making use of text linguistic, discourse analytical, pragmatic, and narratological approaches to textual coherence, the study takes established models developed for analyzing and describing conventional texts, and examines their applicability to hypertext. Primary data derived from a collection of hyperfictions is used throughout to illustrate the mechanisms in practice. Hypertextual coherence negotiation is shown to require the ability to cognitively operate between local and global coherence by means of processing lexical cohesion, discourse topical continuities, inferences and implications, and shifting cognitive frames. The main conclusion of the study is that the style of reading required by hypertextuality fosters a new paradigm of coherence. Defined as fuzzy coherence, this new approach to textual sensemaking is predicated on an acceptance of the coherence challenges readers experience when the act of reading comes to involve repeated encounters with referentially imprecise hyperlinks and discourse topical shifts. A practical application of fuzzy coherence is shown to be in effect in the way coherence is actively manipulated in hypertext narratives. Contents Contents v List of illustrations viii List of Tables ix On the notation ix Acknowledgments x 1. Introduction 1 1.1 Theoretical framework and research questions 3 1.1.1 A necessary caveat, or defining the scope 8 1.2 Hypertextlinguistics: state of the art 9 1.2.1 Hypertext theory and web design 10 1.2.2 Linguistic studies of hypertext 12 2. Hypertext 14 2.1 A brief history of hypertext (and the Internet) 18 2.2. Terminology and definitions: Key concepts 21 2.2.1 Hyperlink 21 2.2.2 Fragment 24 2.2.3 Multilinearity 26 2.2.4 Reading 29 2.3 Emerging conventions 30 2.4 Hypertext fiction 32 2.5 Primary data 35 2.5.1 Awakening 36 2.5.2 The Heist 37 2.5.3 Under the Ashes 37 2.5.4 253 38 2.5.5 Holier than Thou 38 2.5.6 24 Hours with Someone You Know 39 2.5.7 Disappearing Rain 39 2.5.8 Kazoo 39 2.5.9 Considering a Baby? 39 2.5.10 Omphaloskepsis 40 2.5.11 The Color of Television 40 2.5.12 afternoon: a story [sampler] 40 2.5.13 Samantha in the Winter 41 2.5.14 The Body 41 2.5.15 The Museum 41 2.5.16 The Interview 42 3. Hypertexts among texts 43 3.1 Text, paratext, and hypertext 48 3.2 A plentitude of features 52 3.3. Historical precedents to hypertext 55 3.3.1 Episodic arrangement 55 3.3.2 Medieval manuscript culture and glossing 57 3.3.3 Marginalia 59 3.3.4 Glossaries, encyclopaedias, dictionaries, and indexes 62 3.3.5 Footnotes and endnotes 64 3.3.6 Metanarrative in prose fiction 65 3.3.7 Gamebooks 66 3.3.8 Fragmented prose 67 3.4 Technologies of writing 70 4. Coherence 75 4.1 Approaches to the study of coherence 77 4.1.1 Coherence negotiation as processing 89 4.1.2 Coherence and the temporal aspect of reading 91 4.2 Coherence and hypertext 94 4.2.1 Local and global coherence in hypertext 97 4.2.2 Expectations in hypertext 100 4.2.3 Contextual frames 103 4.3 Hypertext and fuzzy coherence 106 5. Cohesion 108 5.1 Modeling cohesion 109 5.1.1 Grammatical cohesion 109 5.1.2 Lexical cohesion 111 5.1.3 Lexical cohesion, reference, and interpretation 119 5.2 Lexical cohesion in hypertext 121 5.2.1 Reiteration and hyperlinking 135 5.2.2 Synonyms, antonyms, and other forms of classical relations 141 5.2.3 Collocations and metaphors 142 5.2.4 Case study: Under the Ashes 143 5.3 Effects of the fragment boundary on cohesive ties 150 5.5 Aboutness, discourse topics and discourse labels 161 5.6 Conclusions: cohesion and hyperlinking 167 6. Hypertext pragmatics 171 6.1 Hypertext as dialogic language use 171 6.1.1 Hypertext and Grice’s Cooperative Principle 174 6.2 Hyperlinking pragmatics and reader’s expectations 179 6.2.1 Hyperlinks, salience and foregrounding 184 6.3 Hyperlinking and deixis 194 6.3.1 Deixis and cataphoric referentiality considered together 198 6.4 Rhetorical relations, dialogic patterns and hyperlinking 201 6.5 Conclusions: pragmatics of hyperlinking 208 7. Coherence in hypernarratives 210 7.1 Defining narrativity 210 7.1.1 Hypertext and narrativity 213 7.2. Pragmatics of hyperlinking in hyperfiction 220 7.2.1. Case study: Grice’s maxims and hyperfiction 222 7.2.2 Readers’ expectations as a narrative device 228 7.2.3 Multilinearity by alternative link elements 236 7.3 Contextual frames and hyperfiction 244 7.3.1 Case study: Holier than Thou 249 7.3.2 Cognitive schemata as global-level organizing principles 257 7.4 Causality in hyperfiction 259 8. Fuzzy coherence 263 8.1 Coherence as a language processing goal 263 8.2. Transient incoherence 266 8.3. Fuzziness, or the acceptance of transient incoherence 268 8.3.1 Fuzzy coherence before hypertext 268 8.3.2 Making use of fuzzy coherence 270 8.6 The future of fuzzy coherence 270 8.7. Further areas of research 271 Appendices 273 Appendix A. Structural maps of select primary hypertexts 273 Appendix B. Hyperlinks in select hyperfictions 278 Bibliography 280 Literary sources 280 References 283 illustrations and maps Illustration 2.1. A link element and the corresponding link terms 23 Illustration 2.2. A schematic view of an active and inactive hyperlink 26 Illustration 2.3. Structural map of The Museum by Adam Kennedy 28 Illustration 3.1. Marginalia as parallel text in Fletcher’s Purple Island (1633) 60 Illustration 3.2. Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) 61 Illustration 3.3. Passage 3 of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (1982) 66 Illustration 3.4. Extract from Horn’s Encyclopedia (1969) 68 Illustration 3.5. Extract from Pavic’s Dictionary of the Khazars (1988) 69 Illustration 4.1. Theoretical approaches to coherence 77 Illustration 4.2. Coherence processing from expectation to coherent text 89 Illustration 4.3. Formal schematic of hyperlinking as both a local and global phenomena 98 Illustration 4.4. Formal schematic of contextual effects in hyperlinking 102 Illustration 5.1. Relationships between types of cohesive relation and cohesive chains 118 Illustration 5.2. Three potential lexical fields of “stable” 124 Illustration 5.3. Section title in a conventional text (left) and in hypertext (right) 125 Illustration 5.4. Processing of word meaning in context 127 Illustration 5.5. Structural map of Under the Ashes 144 Illustration 5.6. Hyperlinking within a fragment and across a fragment boundary 160 Illustration 6.1. Formal schematic for expectation-forming in hyperlinks 180 Illustration 6.2. Structural map of Samantha in the Winter 186 Illustration 6.3. Distinct lexical fields in The Heist, as identified from a set of 25 hyperlinks 189 Illustration 6.4. Schematic view of dialogic rhetorical patterns in hypertext 203 Illustration 6.5. Structural map of Considering a Baby? 207 Illustration 7.1. Partial map of Under the Ashes 238 Illustration 7.2. Alternative sequences in The Heist 242 Illustration 7.3. Schematic representation of the cognitive frame model 246 Illustration 7.4. Two parallel plotlines starting from the same fragment 250 Illustration 7.5. Structural overview of Holier than Thou 251 Illustration 7.6. Schematic view of cognitive frame shifting in Holier than Thou, Reading 1 254 Illustration 7.7. Schematic view of cognitive frame shifting in Holier than Thou, Reading 1(2) 254 Illustration 7.8. Schematic view of cognitive frame shifting in Holier than Thou, Reading 2 256 Illustration 8.1. Schematic view of the coherence-processes involved in hyperlinking 264 Map 1. Awakening by Courney Kahoenani Roe 273 Map 2. Holier than Thou by Michael Shumate 274 Map 3. The Heist, part 1 by Walter Sorrells 274 Map 4. 24 Hours with Someone You Know by Phillipa J Burne 276 Map 5. Kazoo by Jay Dillemuth 277 Tables and lists Table 3.1. The seven standards of textuality by Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) 44 Table 3.2. A breakdown of Hoey’s (2001) definition of text 45 Table 3.3. Properties of real texts by Emmott (1999) 47 Table 3.4. Hypertextual features and their relationship to features of earlier texts 54 Table 5.1.