Intertextuality

Definition:

Intertextuality is the shaping of a piece of texts' (picture, video, writing) meaning based on another piece of text. This could mean that an author has done a piece of text however it could even be the author borrowing or referencing from pieces of text from another persons work, or their own previous work.

Intertextuality can be shown through conversation, thoughts, architecture, and even physical activity. However, when in conversation, if a current social comment is made or someone refers about an issue, this is NOT intertextuality because they are just speaking about what is happening in the world at that period of time.

Intertextuality is also very common in music and songs. It can be in the lyrics or it can be in the actual video itself, whether it is a parody or a music video has taken a small part of another music video and copied it in their own video.

People often refer to fairy-tales when referring to intertextuality because they are often relatable. It is very often a joke - for example, when someone has to do a lot of housework they might call themselves Cinderella.

Overall, intertextuality is the ability to recognise references between texts and the heightened ability to understand the meaning of the idea which has been raised and it can be found in most forms (books, films, videos, music).

  

This is a good example because this represents how similar the two pieces of text are in the two films. The image on the right is 'The Birds' by Hitchcock and the image on the left is 'Harry Potter' by J.K. Rowling. The two images are freeze-frames of the two films and shows that intertextuality has occurred between these two films.