ABSTRACT
There are three parties to every transaction that written language makes possible: a writer, a reader, and a text. And of the three, the text is the pivot. Although texts may be (and often are) studied independently of the other two, neither writers nor readers can exist without a text. Writers must produce texts and readers must interpret them, and the text always stands between the two, a barrier as well as a bridge. Writers cannot reach through a text to the reader beyond, any more than a reader can penetrate the text to make direct contact with the writer. Like a river that permits communication between one shore and another, the text is also an obstacle that keeps the two sides apart.
