On categories of hypertext

Abstract

The paper deals with the categories of hypertext as compared to the traditionally acknowledged categories of text. It treats both the technologically independent and technology-based properties of digital texts. Although the technological shift from the affective to the digital presentation leads to a significant growth of the role and impact of the addressee on the content of communication, nevertheless, the conceptual basis of hypertext is shown to be prevailing over its digital code-based properties. The essential distinction of hypertext from the paperbased text lies in the significant modification of the iconic principles and the predominance of the hypotext structure over the paragraph division. The author presents the systemic, formal, functional, and pragmatic categories as applied to the production and the reception hypertext representation models.