The relationship between text and the reader is much more complex than I originally perceived it to be. In the article it talked about how reading is a one way street whereas, talking with someone is 2 ways. When you are listening to someone tell a story you can pause them, ask a question to make sure you are perceiving and understanding the story in the way they intended but when reading a text of a story, there is no clarification. In this situation there is only the readers understanding and hope that the readers is envisioning things correctly. An author can be as descriptive and detailed a they want to be but there will always be a chance for interpretation from the reader that might augment the reality the author is trying to explain.
The text talks about the uncertainty to communication between text and reader and while I do think that is true based on how I explained my thoughts earlier, I do believe that the relationship between text and reader isn’t as complex and unstable as the text claims. Yes, reading is about interpretation and trying to follow the authors text as accurately as possible and there will always be room for misinterpretation, but, so is face to face communication, I don’t think this ‘issue’ is something that needs to be broken down and fixed by studying reading structure and trying to make sure reading is as perceivable as having a conversation with a human.
Reading is an amazing opportunity to understand what is said and imagine what is left unsaid. It’s what I think makes a good author, if an author can give just enough detail to stimulate the mind of the reader but not too much that it takes the fun out of reading and imagining in the first place then that author can give the reader an incredible experience, one that I believe is more dynamic than a conversation between two people. Not to mention that an argument trying to be made here is that reading is complex because of what is left unsaid but the same thing could be said for a face-to-face conversation. We as humans leave things unsaid in conversations all the time and often substitute the unsaid for body language and signals, someone with poor social skills may have an easier time understanding a written 1st person story than having a conversation and hearing the story from said person. It is all about perceptions and interpretation. Another thing that could be added to support this is the divide in a learning setting where some students learn better by reading a textbook and others learn better through lecture and demonstration. One is not better than the other, the only factor that is important is how does the student prefer to learn. This website I have attached below goes into a good amount of detail between example learning and text-learning that it helpful when supporting my point that neither text/reader and in person conversation is better than the other, it is all up to how someone wants to learn and finds the most success. https://elai.io/video-learning-vs-text
Overall, I believe the interaction between text and reader to be complex and multifaceted but I also believe in person conversation to be just as complex. The author of this article (from my understanding) was making a point to explain that face-to-face interaction is less complex than reading a text but I believe both are just as complex as each other in their own multitude of ways.