Shift to Digital and Media Paratext

2.2.3 Shift to Digital and Media Paratext

Gerard Genette’s concept of paratext was coined at a time in which print culture was still the main channel for accessing published texts and literary works. Since Genette’s publication of Seuils in 1987 and with the launch of the world wide web, print culture underwent various changes and the modes of accessing and consuming literary works has also changed. Despite various criticisms of Genette’s insistence on the authorial intention and his concept of paratext, especially in the poststructuralist discourse, his contribution to paratextual study nevertheless laid the groundwork for further academic research. While his seemingly rigid hypothesis of paratext may be perceived as limiting by some schools of thought, it is

worth pointing out that Genette’s paratextual approach also left room for exploration and flexibility. As he concluded in Seuils:

If we are willing to extend the term (paratext) to areas where the work does not consist of a text, it is obvious that some, if not all, of the other arts have an equivalent of our paratext: examples are the title in music, and in the plastic arts, the signature in painting, the credits or the trailer in film ,etc. …, peritextual or epitextual supports. All of them could be subjects for investigations paralleling this one. (Genette, 1997, p. 407)

It is perhaps for this reason that Genette’s academic framework has continued to remain relevant despite the fast-paced evolution of the digital world and the world wide web, which have paved the way for the development of other categories of paratext, identical to Genette’s definition of epitext. However, it should be noted that extending Genette’s definition to epitextual material often counters Genette’s insistence on authorial intention (Batchelor, 2018).

Due to the complex and undefined nature of what constitutes epitext, it has remained challenging to conceptualise and hypothesise a framework that caters to the study of epitextual material, especially in the digital and media domain. In the 1980s, when Genette first explored paratextual analysis, an epitext would have appeared in print form, for example, as a newspaper article or review. With the digital and online revolution, the form of epitextual material has undergone profound changes and the formulation of a concept flexible enough to cater to the various shapes and forms of epitextual material has become significantly challenging.

As Birke and Christ (2013, p. 79) have previously pointed out: research on digital texts and digital epitext, is still “far from having developed a coherent conceptual vocabulary to talk

paratextual study can offer valuable insights into “medial difference and medial change” (Birke

& Christ, 2013, p. 66).

The digital revolution and the launch of the internet have called for a re-evaluation of existing conceptualisations of paratext, repositioning and challenging preconceived ideas and definitions of text, author, and reader. Questions such as whether or not e-books and digitised media align with Genette’s concept of authorial role need to be evaluated along with what role digitised epitext assumes when discussing translations. While it can be said that e-books generally align with Genette’s concept of authorial role, e-books and websites are constantly subjected to alterations according to current trends and discourses. Furthermore, in an increasingly globalised world that has become heavily reliant on technological advances and cross-cultural communication, it is vital to understand how digitised epitext presents and promotes translations and, subsequently, plays an active role in determining the reception of a text or a translation.

The digitisation has seen a shift from “text to context” (Batchelor, 2018, p. 49). In order to align Genette’s model with digitised text, academics such as McCracken (2013) or Benzon (2013) often work with definitions that allow for a lot of leeway and room for interpretation (as cited in Batchelor, 2018).

As mentioned above, digital and online newspapers fall into the category of digitised media. However, research into digitised media as epitext has not been as prominent as for other digitised channels. As a result, translations, digitised and online newspaper articles as well as online blogs and commentaries need to be more thoroughly studied as, similarly to peritext,

they can provide valuable insights into the prevailing social norms and ideologies of a source and target culture.

For the purpose of this thesis, this research will distance itself from Genette’s definition of translation as paratext and decouple the paratext from its authorial function. While it is acknowledged that Genette’s formulation of paratextual studies did provide fruitful grounds for further paratextual study in the translation studies discourse, as previously discussed, it is argued that Genette’s approach can be problematic for various reasons. Furthermore, in light of the evolution of digitised text over the last two decades, an approach applicable to all the various forms of paratext, including book paratext and digital epitext, needs to be coined. Even though Genette’s paratext was ingenious at the time and provided a fundamental foundation for further research, it fails to keep up with the current demands and developments of contemporary times. This thesis seeks to explore alternative definitions and functions for digitised and online epitext and will treat online news articles as epitext and analyse their functions and relevance for translation studies.