briefly

1 Language forms: classical and modern, from the Greeks up to Mallarmé

2 Para-language forms: echoes of classical and modern; postmodern, para-syntactic, still use elements of the natural language, but violate known organization, linear order, logical structure, rhetorical expectations, etc. Non-linear texts, hypertexts, post-literate writing... (Private crypts/codes can be included here)

3 Post-language: violation of rudimentary forms more radical, but still uses slightly recognizable letters or morphemes, but words are either absent, altered, or replaced by crypts or glyphs ; at the extreme end of this spectrum would be asemic writing, shading off towards visual media.

4 Visual media: mixed media, where linguistic items are just a part of the whole, and do not play the role of master code. This is the last threshold towards the domain of the visual arts.