But language is not pure sign, it is also a thing. This exteriority -word as object rather than sense- is an irreducible element within the signifying scene. Language is tied to voice, to typeface, to bitmaps on a screen, to materiality. But graphic traces, visualizations are irreducible to words. Their interpretation is never fully controllable by the writing scientist.

– Timothy Lenoir and Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht,
from the introduction to the Writing Science series

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