Narrative theory

La isotopía del texto es el hilo semántico que lo recorre: the thread of meaning that runs through it. English has that metaphor too, which is why el hilo looks easy — and then it does two more jobs that « thread » cannot. It is the wire or flex of an appliance, and it is the cloth: una camisa de hilo is a linen shirt, because linen was what was spun before anything else. So perder el hilo is to lose the thread of an argument, el hilo del teléfono is the telephone lead, and el hilo in a shop is what English calls linen. The picture behind all three is the same one: something spun long and thin, and then either followed, plugged in, or woven.