Textual Genetics and Manuscript in Word Processing. A new Definition of the Text?: Essay on the "Avant-texte" of a short story by Pascal Quignard

Abstract: Very little research has been devoted to the way in which the textual genetics approaches the manuscripts in the text processing. However the future of the genetics depends, partly, on the interest which one can carry to this new materiality of the manuscript. The notion of text, the concept of what text is, have they been changed, or at least modified by the use of text processing? To write a text is to elaborate a discourse in the form of an utterance and to record it. The order of the discourse, in other words, the semiotic (the linguistic recognizable) / semantic (the meaning expressed (uttered) in the discourse) ratio should in no way be modified by the use of text processing. What changes, on the other hand, it is the materialization of the paper support of the text and consequently the status of this materialization.