Imagining textual machines

Abstract

Abstract This article introduces the concept of textual machines developed by Graziella Tonfoni. Textual machines are textual devices or engines in motion and they represent the cognitive processes that texts exhibit. Textual machines are revolutionary writing aids because once the kind of textual machine needed is visualized, it is easy to translate that insight into writing the text so that it accomplishes the same thing as the machine. The major part of this article describes and illustrates fourteen textual machines. The textual lens, for example, focuses directly on some information in a text and then expands and enlightens it. Some of the other textual machines presented in the article deal with more complicated processes, such as the selection and interpretation of information. The purpose of this article is to enable readers to gain awareness of their own cognitive processes by being able to visualize them through the various textual machines. This self-awareness results in a clearer analysis of t...