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Explicit intertextuality
Intertextuality will often appear explicitly in a text you are reading. Such appearances happen, for example, when the text contains concrete elements (copies) from another text.
Alternatively, the different texts can refer directly to each other. You have surely seen this yourself, either as a specific page reference in a paper-based book or with a hyperlink in an interactive publication.
Such explicit intertextuality presupposes that the author knows the relationships and can link them together for you. It is also clear that the relationships are only useful to you with access to the secondary texts. Within the same book, you can scroll forward or backwards. Then you can choose to what extent the relationships will involve you. If the secondary texts are not readily available, their usefulness is limited.
Examples
A quotation is a good example of explicit intertextuality. I have copied a text from another publication into my text and credited the source as required by academic conventions. The quote can come from a book, a newspaper or a website. It can also be a photograph or an illustration.
Another example of explicit intertextuality is specific page references in a paper-based book or hyperlinks on a website or in an interactive publication. The reference causes you to leave the text you are in and move your attention to another place in the publication.
Explicit intertextuality has limited or no value if I refer to a text you do not have available. If in one publication I refer to a procedure in another publication, you will not be able to do the job if you do not also have this other publication in front of you.
It is normal to use explicit intertextuality in text. In each case, the author desires to make the relationships known that determine the use of references, even if the conventions of the genre and/or the medium normally determine this. A newspaper article dealing with a book will not have much value if it does not simultaneously announce its title and author.
Explicit intertextuality can also be used as a rhetorical tool. Frequent source references are correct and important in an academic text and help establish the author's ethos.
If the related texts are found within the framework of a single work (for example, in the same publication), the term intratextuality is often used. This form of textuality gives the author less leeway but also makes it easier for the reader to find the other texts that the author refers to. Common page references are a typical example of this.
Intertextuality on the web and in interactive publications can be considered a particular variation of the term. You can use the word intratextuality on the web because all the texts are located on the same media in your browser. At the same time, each website can be considered an independent work. This principle also applies to an interactive publication, which can contain hyperlinks within the same publication, to other publications, or to web pages. Whether all these references can be regarded as intratextuality then depends on the rhetorical situation.
TipsThe expression the rhetorical situation describes the circumstances that exist when the reader consumes a text. Such circumstances may, for example, include the reader's physical location, the environment he or she is in, and any tasks to be performed while the text is read. |
In today's society, hyperlinks have become a natural part of everyday life, and for most of us, "clicking on the link" is a natural action. But you probably feel the same way as me; a link that does not work or does not give the desired result is a source of irritation.
Examples
The way you enter references on Facebook is a good example of practical intertextuality on the web.
First, you can enter your own text. This text is an introduction to the relationship. Then - after you have entered the link to the page you want to relate your text to - Facebook retrieves the page's title, meta text and - where available - an image. The image is automatically adjusted in size to fit on Facebook's wall.
(The illustration is taken from Simrad's Facebook wall in March 2011.)
Here at Skriftlig Info, you have probably noticed that at the bottom of many pages, you will find links to the sources that are used. Such hyperlinks are also regarded as explicit intertextuality.
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