Untitled - witz cultural

152HYPERTEXT 3.0 and in earlier chapters we have observed many examples of such differencefrom chirographic and print textuality. Whether or not it is true that the digital word produces a secondary or new kind of orality, many of the devicesrequired by hypertext appear in oral speech, just as they do in its written versionsor dialects. Many of these devices to which I wish to direct our attentionfall into a single category: they announce a change of direction and often alsoprovide some indication of what that new direction will be. For example,words and phrases like in contrast, nevertheless, and on the other hand giveadvance notice to listeners and readers of something, say, an instance orasserLion, is coming contrary to what has come before . For example announcesa category shift as the discourse switches, most likely, from general or abstractstatement to proposed instances of it. Causal or temporal terms, such asbecause or afi.er, similarly ready listeners for changes of intellectual direction.In both print and oral communication, they are means, in other words, ofpreparing us for breaks in a linear stream of language. One must take care inusing this termlinear since, as we have already seen when looking at hypertextnarrative, all experience of listening or reading in whatever medium isin an important sense linear, unidirectional. Thus, although readers-or, tobe precise, readings-take different paths through afiemoon, Patchwork GirI,or Quibbling, each path-each experience of reading-takes the form of asequence. It is the tert that is multisequential, not a particular reading paththrough it. I emphasize this obvious point because the problem of preparingfor change of direction (and openings and closings are also such changes)has been with us since the beginnings of human language.Since hypertext and hypermedia are chiefly defined by the link, a writingdevice that offers potential changes ofdirection, the rhetoric and stylistics ofthis new information technology generally involve such change-potentialor actual change of place, relation, or direction. Before determining whichtechniques best accommodate such change, we must realize that, together,they attempt to answer several related questions: First, what must one do toorient readers and help them read efficiently and with pleasurel Second, howcan one help readers retrace the steps in their reading pathl Third, how canone inform those reading a document where the links in that document leadlFinally, how can one assist readers who have just entered a new document tofeel at home therelDrawing on the analogy of travel, we can say that the first problem concernsoientationinformatron necessary for finding one's place within a bodyof interlinked texts. The second concerns navigation information necessaryfor making one's way through the materials. The third concerns exit or