Hypertexts: Changing Narrative Forms in the Era of Digitality
Author(s): Robin Xavier
Publication #: 2508001
Date of Publication: 04.07.2017
Country: India
Pages: 1-5
Published In: Volume 3 Issue 4 July-2017
Abstract
Hypertext fiction is a new branch of Digital literature and/or Ergodic literature. The term ‘hypertext’, coined by Theodore H. Nelson in Computer Lib/Dream Machines, can be most simply defined as ‘non-sequential writing’. Hypertext fiction is a term that is used to describe novels or short stories that are written in hypertext and sometimes contain accompanying image, film and sound. Such works of digital literature can be accessed on the World Wide Web but they are also distributed via self-contained storage devices such as CD-ROMs. Hypertext in this sense means a system that branches and allows choices to the reader, so that the user can move within a hypertext system according to their rationale. Facilitated by a digital environment, hypertext allows documents to be linked according to concepts and ideas rather than alphabetical or numerical sequences. In hypertext, documents are structured according to context and purpose and horizontal or vertical hierarchies are forsaken in favour of intertwingularity, an apparently neologised blend of ‘intermingled’ and ‘intertwined’ which suggests complex configurations and multiple combinations. The proposed paper focuses on the ways in which hypertext fictions emerging as a challenge to reading and writing in the liberal humanist paradigms. It attempts to concentrate on the redefined world of these texts and the fictional world constructed solely through the choices that the readers make. The interactive nature of these fictions is a liberating experience for the readers and writers trapped in the ‘linguistic turn’ of the Poststructuralist theories. And, in the context of the theories of language teaching, the pedagogical value of the approach is a challenge to the learner in plural ways, as there is the logical possibility of the ‘presence’ of multiple texts.
Keywords: hypertext, lexia, hypercard, multimedia, polyphony, intertwingularity.
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