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Intertext: On Connecting Text in the Building Process

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ECSCW 2015: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway

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Abstract

Actors in the building process are critically dependent on a corpus of written text that draws the distributed work tasks together. This paper introduces, on the basis of a field study, the concepts of corpus, intertext and intertextuality to the analysis of text in cooperative work practice. This paper shows that actors in the building process create intertext (connections) between complementary texts, in a particular situation and for a particular task. This has an integrating effect on the building process. Several types of intertextuality, including the complementary type, the intratextual type and the mediated type, may constitute the intertext of a particular task. By employing the concepts of corpus, intertext and intertextuality with respect to the study of the building process, this paper outlines an approach to the investigation of text in cooperative work.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are, of course, more relationships to work practice than the textual relationships focused on in this article (e.g. relationships of materiality, equipment, technologies). However, accounting for these in detail, are outside the scope of this paper.

  2. 2.

    This is mainly grounded in a desire to save time by virtue of not having to wait until the whole building has been designed before commencing with its construction (Sabbagh 1989).

  3. 3.

    Note that, coordination through the material field of work also plays an important role, by facilitating integration of the cooperative work tasks. This mode of coordination has been dubbed stigmergy (Christensen 2014).

  4. 4.

    The corpus of text or variations of it is repeated across situations and even building projects.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the people of MT Højgaard A/S and PHIL & Søn A/S for letting me take up so much of their time.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IT-University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Lars Rune Christensen

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  1. Lars Rune Christensen
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Correspondence to Lars Rune Christensen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, The University of Copenhagen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Nina Boulus-Rødje

  2. The University of Tromsø - The Arctic University of Norway, Telemedicine & eHealth Research Group, Tromsø, Norway

    Gunnar Ellingsen

  3. University of Oslo, Department of Informatics, Oslo, Norway

    Tone Bratteteig

  4. University of Oslo, Department of Informatics, Oslo, Norway

    Margunn Aanestad

  5. Department of Computer Science, The University of Copenhagen, Department of Computer Science, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Pernille Bjørn

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Christensen, L.R. (2015). Intertext: On Connecting Text in the Building Process. In: Boulus-Rødje, N., Ellingsen, G., Bratteteig, T., Aanestad, M., Bjørn, P. (eds) ECSCW 2015: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 19-23 September 2015, Oslo, Norway. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20499-4_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20498-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20499-4

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