Text and context revisited within a multimodal framework

Abstract

We are now faced with a flow of documents. But how do all these digital texts circulate between senders and prosumers? Can we assume that texts today are similar in terms of meaning-making, coherence, and interpretation to texts produced, perceived, used before the technological changes? The current developments in textuality require us to re-examine the materiality, contextualization, genres, and readings of these “new” texts. Three decades of the Internet, the Web, have changed our concepts of text and context, our experience of reading, writing, and translating multimodal texts. First, we revisit the concept of text – to understand what is changing. Second, we revisit the concept of context to problematize it in the new framework, in which digital productions are open, fluid, de-/re-textualizing, de-/re-semiotizing, and de-/re-contextualizing texts. How do multimodal texts shed light on these changes, and how do they participate in them? All the articles discuss text and context and highlight different instances of re-contextualization. The whole issue does not pretend to provide definitive answers but will hopefully contribute to making translation scholars aware of the changes and how they will use text and context from now on.