Virtual Typography

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nts

the reader’s imagination. Through contradicting or

fulfi lling the reader’s expectations writers can play with

the reader’s imagination. This indicates that meaning

conveyed by text does not reside within the structure of

individual sentences, but also in the way the diversity of

sentences correlate. Iser refers to changes in the reader’s

perspective on text contents as the reader’s ‘wandering

viewpoint’. Reading differs from the perception of given

objects because ‘the whole text can never be perceived

at any one time’ (Iser, 1978). Words and sentences

constitute text fragments that need to be reassembled

in the reader’s mind. This is why texts communicate in

a fundamentally different way to images (which can be

viewed at a glance). It also means that the intelligent

guesswork mentioned above does not only relate to the

recognition of words and sentences but also to their

correlative meaning.

‘...it is the very lack of control

that forms the basis of the

creative side of reading.’

Wolfgang Iser

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