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Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links
link metastructures

The syntagmatic is the ordering through time (and space) of 'units' so that a meaningful discourse is produced. The canonical, and usual, example of this is, of course, common language. As the paradigmatic is not particularly necessary, or evident, in cinema, so too is this the case in hypertext, where nodes can be joined in various ways and there is not, strictly speaking, the need for a formal grammar in hypertext to ensure the production of meaning.

This does not mean that there is no paradigmatic series in hypertext, nor does it mean that any order is as relevant as any other. However, it does mean that if a hypertext is actually hypertextual - to the extent that it supports multilinear access and understanding - then the paradigmatic series is much more diluted than is the case in language.

Furthermore, since each hypertextual node is much like a shot, that is, it is in many ways able to be thought of as a 'whole' discursive unit (rather than a word), then the range of possibilities at any point in the syntagmatic series - what we ordinarily conceive of as the paradigmatic axis - is similarly diluted.

However, the paradigmatic in hypertext becomes much less a case of which node is required or selected out of a set of possible nodes, than it is the combination of sequences - of syntagmatic series - themselves. Hence Bernstein's patterns, as syntagmatic chains, now operate as paradigmatic sets, and it is the relation of the syntagmatic series to each other that constitutes the paradigmatic continuum against which we judge or interpret hypertextual sequences.

Hence, it is less the relationship established by a single link, and much more the sequence formed by a series of links, that is significant in considering hypertext structure, and here quite clearly the role or rhetoric of the link becomes subsumed by the contexts provided by the nodes and the formed series.

In addition, it is apparent that hypertext writing and systems that emphasise 'usability' (where usability seems to assume ease of use as a positive attribute for any hypertext), place an emphasis on the syntagmatic. This emphasis on the smooth flow of links into nodes describes a highly linear reading experience. Interestingly, in Bernstein's examples most of the patterns that would probably relate to 'usability' are represented by highly linear images, the sieve for instance. However, the emphasis in the syntagmatically oriented hypertext is not, as might be thought, on simple patterns (any variety of pattern could be formed by the reader) but on linear continuity.

Similarly, we can characterise those hypertexts that emphasise linear discontinuity as inclining more towards the paradigmatic, where such work is much more concerned with the problems or questions formed, posed, or able to be explored by the juxtapositions generated by highlighting the disjunction between episodes (and not just nodes). In such work the determination of syntagmatic sequences becomes much more indeterminate, and so the reader, correspondingly, requires more sophisticated reading skills and experiences in order to contextualise the work. It is a common sense observation that literary hypertexts generally fall into this latter category, though as Bernstein indicates this does not preclude their relevance for more instrumental forms of writing or knowledge presentation.

The distinction between the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic has a very strong theoretical history in literature, where the syntagmatic is identified with 'realist' literature and the paradigmatic with, at an extreme, poetry. Regardless of the significance of such theory for hypertext, particularly in terms of ideological analysis, such terms provide a methodology for recognising the continuity between various hypertexts, possible, imagined, and realised. Indeed, just as Jakobson identified in regards to literature, it is clear that literary hypertexts tend to emphasise the paradigmatic, while instrumental hypertexts emphasise the syntagmatic, and that these axes are defined by the syntagmatic sequences provided and formed.

Adrian Miles: Hypertext syntagmas: cinematic narration with links
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