1The book Digital Semiopoetics describes changes underpinning the modes of existence of signs, texts, and discourses in the digital environment. It argues that digital technologies create new, different from those existing, representations of the semiosphere (Chapter 4), textual structures, and digital structures. They are grounded in the specific character of the digital sign – immaterial, variable, hybridic – combining the meaning-making function with the function of actions (Chapter 3). One such sign of action is the cursor – a multisign of action, which participates in the creation and the use of the text.

2It turns out that the structure of the sign is not identical in the case of each of its different representations – instead, it is modeled technologically. The digital sign is bilateral (each sign is represented on the programming level, as well as the end-user level) and has a multivariate structure (its aspects being: representation, meanings, actions, meta). The dominance of a given aspect-sign function determines the type of the sign. The specific nature of the digital sign on the end-user level is determined by the aspect of actions, which dominates in the case of mediating signs (with the aim of transporting the user to another sign and text) and operational signs (with the aim of performing certain actions on the text itself). On the level of programming code, the specific nature of digital signs is determined by the meta aspect, that is, the aspect of defining the method of existence of the text on the end-user use (these signs are the following: organizers, modifiers, and semantics).

3The book shows that signs, texts, and discourses are analogous, interconnected structures, which means that changes pertaining to one structure result in the remodeling of the remaining structures as well. They structures are mental in nature, which means that they are inherently connected with the act of interpretation. In effect, changes to their mode of existence result in changes to the sphere of interpretation itself (Chapter 2). The new structure and functions of the digital sign define a new mode of the text’s existence on the levels of style and communication (Chapter 5). First, the layer of representation (the texture) undergoes additional semantization and textualization. Meanings emerge in the interaction of the semantics of the moving, polisemiotic texture, the semantics of words, and the semantics of the user’s actions. Due to their text-making function, the user’s actions become an integral part of the piece of work itself. Second, there is a change in the mechanisms of the cohesion of the text, which is characterized by instability and openness to change, and the cohesion-driving factor lies in the actions of the users, which are interpretative in nature (causative interpretation).

4Meaning making strategies in literature in particular and digital art in general include atomization, kinetization, and modeling (Chapter 6). Beside the semantics of the word, literary stylistic devices engage to an unprecedented degree the word’s semiotic dimension: changes in shape, changes in color, sound, and size; transformations developing in full view of the recipient – that is, movement and sound. The layer of the word’s representations becomes spatial and tangible; and the actions of the users become a constitutive component of the figures themselves. Kinetic, transsemiotic, interactive figures in particular, and in general, the textual figures which create digital literature, demonstrate that the category of literature encompasses both the semiotic tissue of the text, as well as the actions of the user.

5The book names and describes new poetic figures, which are not present in literature in printed form, and which are uncovered in the course of evaluating literary hypertexts. These are semiotic figures – in particular, figures of movement, which include: reduction, adjection, permutation, transformation, and interactive forms (e.g. accumulation). In addition to semiotic figures, the book also describes causative figures and shifts in the modes of existence of previous thought figures – in particular, metaphors engaging words, movements, sounds, images, and actions (the corporeality of the recipient). The book makes the argument that literary meanings (and other meanings as well) in the digital environment are shaped in the course of interactions between the semantics of the word (here, also the narrative of the literary work) and the semantics of the level of representation. This means that in the case of digital pieces of work we can speak of the literary shaping of the semiotic layer of the text.

6Transsemioticity, causation, engaging the corporeality of the recipient, also form part of the digital representation of the narration. Digital Semiopoetics argues in favor of the figurative nature of narration, and points to implication as the fundamental figure behind narrative thought. The link-based structure of hypertext and the mode of the recipient as the user performing certain actions on the text, initiate a new type of narration – alternative and causative in nature. The analysis of narrative works in the digital environment points to the growing significance of interpretative narration, implied relations, and the recipient’s expectations. Another important factor in the shaping of meaning is the moving intratextual context, which participates in the creation of a multivariate narration. Chapters on restructuring in regard to the sign and the text, as well as on the creation of textual meaning, form the most crucial part of the entire argument. They prove that it is no longer possible to speak of the poetics of a digital literary text in particular (as well as other discursive texts in general) without taking into account its semiotics. The engagement of a moving texture and the actions of the user (causation) in shaping textual meanings become the basis of initiating a new field of humanities – semiopoetics.

7The monograph also goes into detail on digital discursivity, primarily in relation to the discourses of art, education, and the humanities (Chapter 7). It discusses paraphrasing as one of the fundamental strategies of discursive action – primarily in the sphere of art, and in particular literature and its various modes of existence in the digital environment. This is the case in e.g. digital literary translation and its types: digitization, digital adaptation, hypertextual translation, and translation of structure. The book also presents an overview of new textual forms – macrotexts, or texts built on top of a single text, created in the interaction of multiple texts, often characterized by a distinct organization of signs representing different media and discursive orders.

8Analysis of text in a digital communicative situation allowed for the presentation of remediation and transdiscursivity as methods of shaping digital discursivity and mediality. It also allowed for the description of mechanisms of persuasion in the digital environment – forms of mediated persuasion used in university educational platforms and their influence on the discourse of education.

9The abovementioned content in part two of the book – essential to the dissertation – has been prefaced by an attempt to define what underpins such crucial changes in regard to signs, texts, and discourses, that is, cultural changes. The answer is the phenomenology and epistemology of digitality (Chapter 1), which are the topic of the first, introductory part of the monograph. In this part, the main focus of which lies on philosophy and cultural studies rather than semiotics and poetics, includes discussions on the status of technology, its influence on the sphere of aesthetics and the creation of artistic meaning; the method of constructing texts and using texts in the digital environment. This part will provide an overview of the computer program, the link, and the interface as tools behind a new method of shaping text and discourse, and, in consequence – shaping culture itself.

10Transl. by Krzysztof Kietzman