ABSTRACT
We apply the term ‘text’ to any object—material or non-material, static or active, natural or artificial—that (a) has meaning for an individual or community, and (b) is intended to be shared. It includes anything you use to communicate with others. Communication, like metaphor, is a visible manifestation of letness. Although an activity or object may be significant to someone (let this x stand for something I value), it is not communication and therefore not a text unless it is shared, intended to be shared, or believed to be shared. The ‘something’ becomes a text when it has an author and a reader (real, implied, imagined, etc.). The ‘anxious gardener’ worries that his readers won’t read his book in the way he intended. Thus one object, the book, but at least two texts, which we call the authortext and the readertext, since a text cannot stand alone. This not only applies to distant readers. You can never be sure that even someone you know well experiences your understanding of a text. Two principles of semiotic research: (1) statements about authors, texts, and readers can never be made in isolation from each other; (2) any statement about a text must include context.
