Theory in Text Encoding

Theory in Text Encoding

Paul
Caton

Scholarly Technology Group, Brown University
Paul_Caton@brown.edu

2003

University of Georgia

Athens, Georgia

ACH/ALLC 2003

editor

Eric
Rochester

William
A.
Kretzschmar, Jr.

encoder

Sara
A.
Schmidt

The existing body of theoretical work in text encoding suffers from two
interrelated problems: firstly, confusion over the specific nature of the work;
and secondly, the absence of any truly critical theory.
Theory’s purest signified and a fundamental predicate of progress in the natural
sciences involves a representation that meets discursively bounded criteria of
“truth.” According to Renear (1997) the electronic document encoding and
processing community “has evolved a rich body of illuminating theory about the
nature of text” (107), a claim that expands that of Renear, Durand, and Mylonas
(1996) and anticipates Mylonas and Renear (1999) who assert the principal goal
of the research community that develops and applies the TEI Guidelines and other
text markup schemes is a greater “theoretical
understanding of textual representation” (my emphasis). In making their case the
authors invoke Lakatosian criteria which they confidently pronounce (some
disclaimers notwithstanding) this research community’s work meets. Yet the
development of OHCOs 1-through-3, for example—surely one of text encoding’s
founding “theoretical” moments— demonstrably fails to qualify as a progressive
problemshift in Lakatosian terms.I omit the argument of proof here
for brevity.
Text encoding has not generated a rich body of illuminating theory because it
cannot. Asking, for example, “what is text, really?” already poses the wrong
question because it assumes an undiscovered essence the encoding community can
find with a progressive research program. This will not happen because no
mysterious core exists whose explanation falls to home-grown text encoding
theory. Renear argues that despite falsification of all OHCO variants there is
nevertheless “no reason to give up the common-sense view that texts do have an
objective structure independent of our methods and theories about them” (1997,
122). Structure there may be, but discovering it is not like positing the
double-helix of DNA; we need not strive to understand-by-modelling because of
inadequate observational technology or limited knowledge. Praxis prompts
reflection which generates principle to guide subsequent praxis. Poetry, for
example, shows a self-conscious praxis continually reviewing, refining, and
codifying (prescriptively) its methodology,In the
hyper-self-consciousness of artistic praxis prescription inevitably invites
its own negation—though anti-prescription is arguably still a
principle. and this is as true of its encoding as its writing. Out of
“successful” text encoding praxis comes not theory but principle.See, for example, the Women Writers Project’s online guide for marking up
line groups. ()
This is to say not that text encoding has no theoretical component but that
pursuing the theory behind a principle takes us to another place: to linguistics
or rhetoric or semiotics or the cognitive psychology of visual perception, and
so on. Such pursuits can produce sophisticated and thought-provoking borrowings
that unquestionably enrich the literature, but these are the exception, not the
rule.Recent productive borrowings include Buzzetti’s from Hjelmslevian Semiotics (1999); Renear’s from Austin’s
Speech Act Theory (2000); and Piez’s from
Traditional Rhetoric (2001). In
particular, scholarly work in text encoding rarely positions itself with respect
to work in modern literary/cultural theory, and even more rarely does it use
text encoding as a springboard for a sustained engagement with such theory. This
seems to me a significant and unfortunate absence, a product both of text
encoding’s desire to differentiate itself as a specific field of intellectual
inquiry and of a positivist, utilitarian bias against the perceived negativity
and self-imprisoning reflexivity of contemporary theory. Renear’s narrative of
the development of text encoding theory exemplifies the latter stance with its
Realist/Anti-realist distinction, associating the former with common-sense and
characterizing the latter as “consistent with post-structuralist epistemologies”
(122). This imitates an exclusionary move Zavarzadeh and Morton (1991) identify
in literary studies: positing deconstruction as the boundary of theory beyond
which it is unthinkable to go because (supposedly) deconstruction represents the
limits of the thinkable, the point where theory swallows itself in absolute
relativism. Ironically, Renear’s account positions itself precisely as
theoretically reflexive while exposing its own refusal of genuine
reflexivity.
Text encoding—indeed humanities computing as a whole—can too easily think of
itself as related to every humanities discipline but also marginal or even
external to all of them. This licenses attitudes such as Renear’s contention
that what he calls text encoding theory brings “a much needed fresh perspective
on textuality” (107), as if text encoding occupied a different space from
traditional disciplines. Contrarily I would argue that whatever its origins in
non-academic praxes, text encoding forms itself in
and of humanities disciplines. I should stress that
I do not consider these disciplines stable sites: they can and should be
challenged. Text encoding therefore offers a locus for work that tries to think
through the tensions, contradictions, and faultlines that constitute those
disciplines qua humanities disciplines. However,
unless it can stand on sufficiently equal terms to enter a critical dialogue
with theory of exemplary reflexivity and philosophical rigor, the text encoding
community’s theoretical work will have limited significance and appeal—a fate
already shared by much of the humanities computing literature (Corns 1991;
Warwick 1999). My own position is that the historical materialism that comes
down to us from Marx, enriched and updated by thinkers such as Lenin, Adorno,
Althusser, and many others, offers us the best critical tools for a dialectical
engagement with what it means to encode texts in the humanities. Althusser
(1982) memorably describes the problem:
Left to itself, a spontaneous (technical) practice produces only the
“theory” it needs as a means to produce the ends assigned to it: this
“theory” is never more than the reflection of this end, uncriticized,
unknown, in its means of realization, that is, it is a by-product of the reflection of the technical
practice’s end on its means. A “theory” which does not question the end
whose by-product it is remains a prisoner of
this end and of the “realities” which have imposed it as an end.
(171, emphasis in original)

Currently a prisoner of its pragmatic roots, theoretical work on text encoding
has only its chains to lose.

REFERENCES

Louis
Althusser

For Marx
First published in French, 1963. Translated by Ben
Brewster.

London
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Dino
Buzzetti

Text Representation and Textual Models

Paper presented at ACH/ALLC 1999, June 1999, University
of Virginia

1999

Paul
Caton

Towards a Politics of Text Encoding

Paper presented at ACH/ALLC 2001, June 2001, New York
University

2001

Thomas
Corns

Applications in the Study of English Literature

Literary and Linguistic Computing

6
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1991

Elli
Mylonas

Allen
H.
Renear

The Text Encoding Initiative at 10: Not Just an
Interchange Format Anymore—But a New Research Community

Computers and the Humanities

33
1-2
1-9
April 1999

Wendell
Piez

Beyond the ‘Descriptive vs. Procedural’
Distinction

Paper presented at Extreme Markup Languages 2001,
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2001

Allen
H.
Renear

Out of Praxis: Three (Meta)Theories of
Textuality

Kathryn
Sutherland

Electronic Text: Investigations in Method and
Theory

Oxford
Oxford University Press
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Allen
H.
Renear

“The Descriptive/Procedural Distinction is
Flawed

Paper presented at Extreme Markup Languages 2000,
August 2000, Montreal

2000

Claire
Warwick

English Literature, Electronic Text, and Computer
Analysis: an Impossible Combination?

Paper presented at ACH/ALLC 1999, June 1999, University
of Virginia

1999

Mas’ud
Zavarzadeh

Donald
Morton

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