Text, book, meaning and reader

Abstract

The issue of meaning production in written communication is discussed through the analysis of three different material presentations of the Gospels: a handwritten codex, a printed book and a tablet. Starting with a distinction between “text" and "book", the paper states that material supports are important in the construction of meaning without, however, relegating to the background, as unimportant, questions of uses, appropriations by readers and, of course, the text. A minimal cartography designed to map the production of meaning in reading is proposed, involving the text, the material aspects of its presentation, the individual and social dimension of the readers.