Patrick Shale, del Center for eHumanities dell’Università di Colonia, ha da poco dato alle stampe un’imponente opera in tre volumi dedicata alla teoria e alla pratica dell’edizione digitale: Digitale Editionsformen. Il primo volume è dedicato all’eredità della stampa e ai suoi influssi sulla forma dell’edizione (Das typografische Erbe), il secondo ai fondamenti metodologici e teorici (Befunde, Theorie und Methodik), il terzo ai concetti di testo e codifica (Textbegriffe und Recodierung). Si tratta certamente del lavoro più completo finora pubblicato su questo argomento nel panorama della Digital Humanities. Con l’aiuto di Giovanni Sampaolo abbiamo riassunto e tradotto in italiano il breve testo introduttivo che è disponibile sul sito dell’editore.
What exactly is the “pluralistic text model” (modello pluralista di testo)? I find it rather cryptic. Also I think the Italian translator has mistranslated “wissenschaftliche” as “scientifica”. It should probably be “erudito”.
The pluralistic model of text is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a model of what text is, focused on textual reproduction (which the use of a text model in scholarly editing). It is a pluralistic model because it integrates (systematically) various notions of text that are out there: with scholars as well as with technologies.
Pluralism is a dangerous but necessary scientific option for all human intellectual activities. By the way, this is the only reason to allow (not accept) Desmond’s emendation of the translation of Sampaolo.
I beg you pardon for my faulty English, but it is not my mother tongue, as I suppose that of Desmond is not Italian :-).
Thanks to Patrick and Miki for their comments! I guess what Desmond was trying to ask was how would be “practically” implemented a pluralistic view of the text into a real digital edition. But I guess we should read the volume to know that! As for “erudito”, is probably acceptable, but does not make much sense in this context. IMHO the only acceptable translation of “scholarly edition” in Italian is “edizione scientifica”. Tchüss!