[omega] Texteme, redefining a term used in linguistics?

Yannis Haralambous yannis.haralambous at enst-bretagne.fr
Sat Mar 12 12:11:22 CET 2005


But we ARE establishing a new theory, in computer science, as a 
complement or contradiction to Unicode's character/glyph dualism.
The question is what relations (if any) should our theory maintain with 
human sciences. Until now, computer science didn't paid a lot of
attention to linguistics/semiotics when defining terminology, or am I 
wrong?

Le 12 mars 05, à 11h20, gabor.Bella at enst-bretagne.fr a écrit :

> I like "texteme" too!
>
> <aside>
> My only concern is that it sounds quite theoretical, as if we were
> establishing a new theory in linguistics/semiotics rather than solving 
> an
> admittedly fundamental but still mostly practical problem. But who 
> knows,
> such a name might even prove to be fruitful if it incites us to think 
> also
> on a more theoretical level. That wouldn't hurt, would it?
> </aside>
>
> Gábor
>
>
> Quoting Yannis Haralambous <yannis.haralambous at enst-bretagne.fr>:
>
>>> Pourquoi pas textème (sur graphème/lexème/sème) ?
>>
>> texteme (textème, Textem, κειμένημα) is until now THE BEST
>> idea: it is
>> short, clear, original, general enough, refers only to text and not to
>> omega, text processing or even computing, and it sound good (title of
>> the last paper: "Omega becomes a texteme processor", "Oméga devient 
>> un
>> processeur de textèmes").
>>
>> The only problem is that it already exists in Human Sciences with a
>> totally different meaning: it is an elementary unit of text, used in
>> rhetorics.
>>
>> The problem comes from the manifold meanings of "text": text can be
>> something abstract and global, text can be concrete (paragraphs, 
>> words,
>> letters). From our point of view something that encompasses character
>> and glyph is indeed an atomic unit of "text", and hence a texteme. 
>> From
>> the rhetoricians point of view the atomic unit of text is rather
>>
>> On the other hand, this term seems not be very widely used (only 93
>> entries in google, from which some are spelling errors) and from the
>> pages I read I have the impression that linguists do not really agree
>> on what a texteme is. So maybe, I say: maybe, we could allow ourselves
>> to use it DESPITE it being already defined in human sciences.
>>
>> Are you in favour of using this term with a new meaning?
>> Could a linguist (Ioannis?) tell us if this would be a wise decision?
>>
>> --
>> +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
>> | Yannis Haralambous, Ph.D.      yannis.haralambous at enst-bretagne.fr |
>> | Directeur d'Études                   http://omega.enstb.org/yannis 
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>> +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
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>> aquarium,
>>                                          mieux vaut n'être pas 
>> poisson
>>
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>>
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>
>
>
>
--
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Yannis Haralambous, Ph.D.      yannis.haralambous at enst-bretagne.fr |
| Directeur d'Études                   http://omega.enstb.org/yannis |
|                                          Tel. +33 (0)2.29.00.14.27 |
|                                          Fax  +33 (0)2.29.00.12.82 |
| Département Informatique                                           |
| École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications de Bretagne      |
| Technopôle de Brest Iroise, CS 83818, 29238 Brest CEDEX 3, France  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
                          ...pour distinguer l'extérieur d'un aquarium,
                                         mieux vaut n'être pas poisson

                         ...the ball I threw while playing in the park
                                        has not yet reached the ground



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