The jargony definition of a text is "Anything which can be analyzed the way we analyze a non-jargony text." ... When academics say that everything is a text, using this definition, they are making a meaningful statement.
It is only a meaningful statement if it is really true that everything can be analysed in that way. That is what I was saying in my comment above. Now I'm not what you call an academic, I have no idea what the tools X, Y and Z are or if they are indeed universally applicable. I rather doubt they are universally applicable, but if you say they are then I will take your word for it. In that case, if the entirety of the definition of a text is that it can be analysed with those tools then it would indeed be logically correct to call everything a text. If someone can come up with a single thing that cannot be analysed with the tools then your statement has been proved false.
That is about as far as logic can take us.
How did this discussion start? I am imagining a scenario in which someone tried to define a text and you offered the academic definition that you are used to. In which case I would assume that by saying your definition was 'meaningless' they in fact meant 'too broad for my current purpose'.
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Date: 2008-02-23 05:51 pm (UTC)It is only a meaningful statement if it is really true that everything can be analysed in that way. That is what I was saying in my comment above. Now I'm not what you call an academic, I have no idea what the tools X, Y and Z are or if they are indeed universally applicable. I rather doubt they are universally applicable, but if you say they are then I will take your word for it. In that case, if the entirety of the definition of a text is that it can be analysed with those tools then it would indeed be logically correct to call everything a text. If someone can come up with a single thing that cannot be analysed with the tools then your statement has been proved false.
That is about as far as logic can take us.
How did this discussion start? I am imagining a scenario in which someone tried to define a text and you offered the academic definition that you are used to. In which case I would assume that by saying your definition was 'meaningless' they in fact meant 'too broad for my current purpose'.