Semiotics and Narrative
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Maria Popova (mpopova@nbu.bg)
The term narrative as a kind of text is used in the narrow sense of linguistics and literary studies, as well as in the broad sense of semiotics, which considers as 'texts' any semiotic entities - pictures, movies, photos, etc. As Roland Barthes puts it: “narrative may be transmitted through oral or written language; through static or moving images, through gestures and through an organised mixture of all these substances. There is narrative in myth, legend, fables, fairytales, novellas, novels, history, novel, epos, tragedy, drama, comedy, pantomime, pictures, vitrage, comics, events and conversation. In these almost infinite forms, narrative exists at all times, in all corners of the earth, in all societies. Narrative begins with the history of mankind.”
In a narrow sense, narrative is a verbal text characterized by an objective description (oral or written) of a series of chronological and causally related events. Thus Tzvetan Todorov defines narrative as “a referential text with a temporal flow”.
In a broad sense, narrative is “the semiotic presentation of a series of events semantically related in a temporal and causal way. Movies, plays, comics, novels, newsreels, diaries, chronicles or treatises on geology are all narratives in this broad sense. In this sense, narratives can be constructed through the use of a wide range of semiotic environments: the written and spoken word, visual images, gestures and actions, as well as a combination between them. Any semiotic construct, anything made of characters, can be called a text. Consequently, we can talk about many types of narrative texts: linguistic, theatrical, pictorial or filmed.”
In the Introduction to structural analysis of narratives, Roland Barthes points out that “narrative begins with the history of mankind; […] no nation is without narratives: all social classes, all human groups have their own narratives, and very often they bring equal enjoyment to people of different cultures. Narrative doesn't want to know what is good and bad literature; it is international, trans-historical and transcultural. It is in the world, like life.”
However, the terms narrative, narratology and narrative semiotics are surrounded by a noticeable confusion, which frequently leads to terminological “misunderstandings” in scientific publication. This ambivalent situation calls for more serious analyses and terminological precision. An in-depth discussion is required for this topic and that is the purpose of the round table “Semiotics and Narrative”.
Proposals should be submitted electronically to Prof. Emeritus Maria Popova and include the paper’s title, author(s) name and institutional affiliations, contact details, and an abstract (200-300 words).
Abstracts:
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prof. Michalis Kokonis, kokonis@enl.auth.gr, School of English, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The Semiotics of God-(Video) Games and some Narratological Issues
The aim of this paper is to focus on some crucial problems concerning the understanding of this new cultural form called ‘computer games’. There are affinities between most computer games (at least the most popular ones) and the literary or cinematic text in that a story of some sort is involved in all of them. In the comparison between cinema texts and computer games there is even the shared modality of an audiovisual mode of representation.
However, there is a great deal of difference in the way the reader / viewer in literature and cinema and the player in computer games interacts with the respective text in question: modes of identification with characters, immersion in the fictional and game world, passive or more active degrees of interaction, etc. The question is whether semiotics can help as a viable methodology assist in the explication of such textual relationships where the player (as reader of her text) assumes authorial characteristics and to what extent such activity affects the ontological status of player (as reader cum author) vis-a-vis the real / fictive gameworld. Whereas traditional narratology theory may find itself in need of some revision to tackle with this problem in hybrid digital texts (computer games included), a new brand of semiotics “the text vs. practice” suggested by Compagnio & Coppock (of the Italian Society for Semiotic Studies) surely offers itself as a most effective methodological tool.
To limit my scope I elect to examine simulation and strategy games, also called ‘god-games, which offer an omniscient third-person point of view and a flat grid-like gameworld; in particular I intend to focus on a strategy, turn based simulation game, Rome Total WarTM, which offers an additional research parameter, that of History.
Key-words: Narratology, Semiotics, Computer God-Games, Rome-Total War TM, Interactivity, Ontology, History.
2) prof. Emeritus Maria N. Popova, mpopova@nbu.bg, NBU, Sofia
TEXT, COMMUNICATION AND RECOGNITION AS SIGN PROCEDURE
During their whole life, man and society create, organise, transmit and store information. These are broadly discussed processes in a number of scientific fields like psychology, language sciences, sociology, science of culture, neurophysiology etc. Each of these fields has developed independently, which has led to some fragmentation of the theoretical achievements. This circumstance leads to the necessity of an interdisciplinary field, which can ensure uniform conceptual development of knowledge about communication, culture and human intercourse. Such a field, as we already pointed out above, considers to semiotics. This is the field of the theoretical and empirical investigation of signs, the investigation of the sign and communicative behaviour.
The information processing is done during the communicative act. In communication, the organism, respectively man, responds differently to the stimulus it perceives. The differentiated response to a stimulus converts it into a sign according to the semiotic terminology. Sign is every event which either independently or as part of a structure bears some information. Signs make up the sign systems by which humans communicate with the others in the surrounding environment. Communication with the others is subjected to rules made up on the basis of conventions (agreement).
Two terms have been used to describe the communicative events. On the one hand, these events are extra subjective -words, symbols, pictures, sounds, hunches of nature, etc. which seem to possess the magic ability to bear meanings, and on the other hand - intersubjective, which are related to states and processes like thinking, knowledge, presuppositions, expectations, wishes, intentions, proofs.
One of the processes studied in semiotics is the relationship between communication, culture, language and speech. Generally, language, speech and communication processes determine, in a broadest sense, the essence of the culture of a given place and a given time.
The relation between language and culture underlies the process of understanding of text.
This paper is dedicated to the understanding of the educational text.
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Anita Kasabova, NBU, Sofia (anita.kasabova@gmail.com)
Analyzing Autobiographical Narrative
Autobiography is defined as: “retrospective prose narrative written by a real person concerning their own existence, where the focus is their individual life, in particular the story of their personality” (Lejeune, 1972, 120). Autobiography, it is said, relies on a pact between author and reader, requiring “identity between the author, the narrator, and the protagonist” (Lejeune,1982: 193). Autobiography, it is argued, is self-narrative and therefore the self is a narrative construct (Bruner, 1987; Eakin, 2005, 2008).
My claim is that these three views are problematic and, following Maria Popova’s proposal for the round table on semiotics and narrative, I suggest that the notion of autobiographical narrative requires further analysis of narratological ‘figures’ (to use Genette’s [1966] term), such as ‘first-person narrator’, ‘character’, ‘narrative time’, ‘perspective’ (following Bal [1985]), and ‘storyworld’ (Herman, 2002, 2009). Consider the following passage in tennis champion Li Na’s self-narrative:
“In 1998, when I was an idealistic 16-year old girl, a television station in Beijing interviewed me and asked what my biggest dream was. […] I tilted my sun-darkened face to the lens and said: ‘My biggest dream? I hope I can be a top ten tennis player. I know it’s extremely difficult, but I’ll work hard’. God knows how much courage it took for me to make that statement back then. But now, I wish I could say one thing to that little girl: ‘Hey! We made it!’” (Li Na, 2014: loc. 113).
Through which ‘I’-perspective does the reader see Li Na? How does the ‘possible’ storyworld overlap with the ‘actual’ world inhabited by author Li Na and her readers? I examine these questions by re-defining three autobiographical figures: (1) the ‘narrating I’ as timekeeper, (2) Genette’s [1966, 1972, 1983, 1991, 2002]) figures of narrative time and narrative order as the narrativetime-space of actions and events and (3) the autobiographical story(-‘plot’/μῦθος) as wish fulfillment.
Keywords: autobiography, self-narrative, first person, perspective, storyworld.
4) Oscar Bastiaens, Master in Media Innovation
Hans Bouwknegt, visiting professor digital media concepts
NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences (NL), oscarbastiaens@gmail.com
Transmedia and semiotics, a structural model for transmedia dynamics
Developments in media have occurred at a fast pace since the beginning of the 21st century and, with these new developments, come new challenges and new ways of entertaining audiences. One of these developments has been transmedia storytelling, a new storytelling technique in which a storyworld is told across multiple media platforms that all give a unique and valuable contribution in the unfolding and understanding of the storyworld. Even though Jenkins popularized this term in 2006, many definitions and developments have arisen in the years subsequent to this. Despite Jenkins' success, a structural model of transmedia seems to be missing; a model that explains how transmedia structurally works and how we motivate audiences to travel across platforms. This paper will demonstrate that by developing such a structural model, which can explain and illustrate the works of a transmedia narrative, the use of semiotics proves to be a relevant approach. The model is derived by examining the associative relations model of Ferdinand de Saussure and re-building this to reflect new media and transmedia standards.
5) Silja Nikula, silja.nikula@ulapland.fi, Doctor of Arts, University Lecturer in Graphic Design, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland
Is it a story – or just artwork? Graphic Image as a Narration
My aim is to define the concept of narrativity in the context of static images. I use my own artworks as examples and see the process of image making as visual storytelling. The artworks were presented in three exhibitions during 2009–2011.
In this practice-based research the theoretical discussion and methodological choices were focused while working. Because my own background is graphic designer´s, the research is in the domain of visual communication design. My aim is to shed light on images as producers of meanings and as their own kind of language. On the basis of my own material, I produce a model for narrative layers, combining semiotic concepts and principles from the narrative theory of literary studies.
Meanings arise from both the properties of the elements and their composition. Images are able to reproduce the selected parts of appearances in reality. For the same reason, one of the surest ways to attract viewer´s attention is to violate reality. Compositional structures have become established as conventions in the course of history. However, a picture stays interpretively open.
The study pays special attention to the ways in which symbols and metaphoric expression can give rise to connotations and thus increase the variety of meanings construed from a picture. Also drawing and woodcutting as an illustration method added its connotations, and enabled me to simplify and thus compress the expression.
Keywords: image, picture, practice-based design, semiotics, narrative, visual narration, composition
6) Affonso C. de Miranda Neto
7) Smilen Antonov SAVOV, smilen.savov@abv.bg, ASEGA Dream & UNESCO CID (International Dance Council), Bulgaria, Sofia
Dance Narratology
The aim of this paper is to focus on some narratological issues of understanding and interpreting the „dance language”, or „text”. Is dance an abstract medium or literal description of events, myths, stories, and feelings? How can we convey such an emotional impact upon the spectators, that remains deeply in their hearts? Useing the „language of the body”, or „body language”, and gestures, the folk dance and modern dance today become an universal medium of communication. But is it modern? The answer is NOT, because the dance is known to be „the first form of non-verbal communcation” before the verbal language communication.
However, the dance tells stories and communicates to us via its „non-verbal code”, but we still need to educate the viewers how to interpret its code, secretly hidden in the „dance narrative”.
Point of view is that dance is an icredible source for semiotics material research subject, since in dance there are always present: source codes, various signs, interpretants, interpreters, and rich meanings.
Key-words: Dance, Bulgarian Folk Dance, Modern Dance, Ballet, Narratology, Semiotics, Folklore, Non-verbal Communication, Psychology of Perception.
8) Maria Katsaridou, Ph.D. student, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, mkatsaridou@gmail.com
Adaptation of video games into films: the adventures of narrative.
In the past, the most common adaptations were first made from literary texts to films and only after that, to video games. Recently, this order started to reverse and more and more frequently, video games are produced first and then transferred to film. The reason that makes games being transferred easily to movies is their many similarities: games incorporate many cinematic features, aesthetics, and narrative. But while there are so many similarities between games and films, there is a big difference, that is interactivity or in the words of Brown and Krzywinska (2009): “…that a game has to be played”.
This paper takes as a case study the adaptations of survival horror games into films and more specifically the adaptations of Resident Evil (original title Biohazard, Capcom) video games. Through a Greimasian narratological/semiotic analysis of the Resident Evil’s texts, this paper aims first to examine the adaptation of an interactive medium such as games into films, as well as the narratological consequences of the process and second to address theoretical issues concerning video games’ narrative.
Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland and Trough the Looking Glass And What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll’s most famous books, have been widely intersemiotically transposed and translated throughout the last 150 years. Carroll himself helped write the script for a musical a few years after publication. Internet Movie Database lists over 80 films directly adapted from Lewis Carroll’s work. Even surrealist painter Salvador Dali illustrated some passages in 1969.
Among notable examples, two seem to have escaped more usual analysis: a famous TV series, The Muppet Show, aired from 1976 to 1981 featuring puppets and a human guest, created by Jim Henson, in which an episode from the fifth season starred Brooke Shields playing Alice in 1980; and 1988 film with a blend of stop motion animation by multiple prize winner Czech director Jan Švankmajer, called Neco z Alenky.
Here we intend to compare these transpositions of Alice’s stories, capturing very distinct characteristics, but both of fundamental importance to the source: (i) Linguistic games such as paronomasia, and (ii) The oneiric ambience in wich the story is set and the permissiveness that it creates, allowing, for example, nonsense, amorality and lack of objective.
Keywords: ALICE, intersemiotic transposition, intermediality, Lewis Carroll
10) PAUL COBLEY
Children and narrative: modelling and causality
In recent narrative theory, ‘cognitive narratology’ in particular has become fixated on the developed adult human’s use of literary narratives and, often, invokes narrative to attempt to prove the evolutionary benefits of ‘Art’ and ‘Literature’. In contrast, this paper will consider the status of narrative in modelling – not as modelling, or as some kind of ‘instinct’ but, after Lotman and Sebeok, as part of a repertoire of phylogenetic and ontogenetic semiosic development. It will draw evidence from studies of parent-neonate interaction (e.g. Delafield-Butt and Trevarthen 2013), as well as published observations of antenatal development, to demonstrate the strong narrative bearing in human nonverbal semiosis. It will also suggest that narrative, when viewed in terms of its role in the development of the semiotic subject in culture, presents the kind of opportunities, threats and imperatives for culture outlined in Hutto’s ‘Narrative Practice Thesis’ (2011). It will show that the unwitting or witting refusal to operate with a broader theory of semiosis such as that offered by biosemiotics threatens to condemn much contemporary narrative theory to rehashing vulgar Darwinism.
11) Prof. Assoc. Tatiana Stoitchkova, Ph.D. Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of Arts, South-West University, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
The Production and Consumption of Signs and Sign value in the Museum of Socialist Art in Sofia
This paper aims at giving some theoretical reflections and possible clarifications to theories on museum display and reception of socialist art in Bulgaria.
It is argued that the production of sign art products generate various kinds of values, which also differ from those produced in previous times. The opening of the museum of socialist art in Sofia, Bulgaria on September in 2011 was highly contested accomplished with lots of debates and critics. The debates raged on whether the museum was some kind of nostalgia and romanticizes the communist regime or teaches new generations about its dictatorships. With the example of the museum of socialist art this paper puts forth the idea of the reception a socialist art as signs, artifacts made up of sign structures, produced by semiotic labour.
The paper is based on research carried out through the collection of secondary data, with resources that provide information which is relevant to the topic.
12) Lucia Trezova (PhDr.), Freelance Brand Consultant, Market and Culture Analyst
Body or brain, together or alone: Czecho-Slovak differences in popular folk fairy-tales
Fairy-tales as folk products represent the collective memory of communities; the legacy passed from one generation to the next and thus they can be considered the condensed vehicle of those symbolic meanings which are deeply rooted in a given culture – its collective "wisdom".
The way of how the protagonists solve their trials and overcomes obstacles in fairy-tales show us the legitimate ways of how to solve life difficulties, problems and conflicts in a given culture. They present us culturally successful strategies of how to assert ourselves in the world. Also, from the way how the main hero reaches his or her “triumph” we can imply what a particular society values and admires.
Fairy-tales thus not only mirror deeply embodied culturally accepted strategies of acting and reflect prevalent values and norms but also, through the main hero, with whom the audience must identify, they clearly communicate what are common, highly praised and respected character traits of members of that culture.
In 1992, Czechoslovakia went through a peaceful split, leaving two separate states behind and a lot of sentiments in people who used to live in the common state. Czechs and Slovaks still consider each other to be the closest nations, liking each other, due to similar language and a mutual history. For many years these two nations were considered to be the same and taken as the one compact unit, nation, dispite many facts e.g in politics, marketing, indicating the opposite.
The aim of my paper is to show significant cultural differences between these two nations by comparing two popular fairy-tales: Slovak and the Czech ones.
I will analyze the meanings embedded in both stories and present how particular identities of main heroes were created, which character traits were worshiped, which values were embraced and followed, which behavioral strategies of the main heroes were considered to be legitimate and successful, by which means main heroes overcome their obstacles, which kind of transformations the main heroes went through and which morale were passed by the stories. I will link these meanings to Slovak and Czech culture and will suggest their implications in the wider social contexts.
Key words: culture, cultural differences, fairytales, storytelling, identity, narrative, values
13) Stephane Gravanis , Doctorant - Université Aristotte de Thessalonique/ Enseignant de langue et de civilisation françaises à la Faculte de Droit , Université Démocrite de Thrace.
La narration de la rupture avec le passé et l’emergence d’un nouveau monde dans Le Manifeste Futuriste (1909) de Filippo Marinetti et L’Espritlibre (1929) de Georges Theotokas :Une analyse structurale barthesienne.
Les premières décennies du XXème siècle furent une période de bouleversements et de changements dans tous les domaines de la vie sociale, politique et économique. Ces changements influencèrent, surtout avec l’ évolution scientifique et industrielle, la production littéraire et artistique. Ainsi, les mouvements modernistes et avant-gardistes qui firent leur apparition à la fin du XIXème siècle et au début du XXème siècle , voulurent non seulement exprimer ces changements mais tentèrent aussi de proposer de nouveaux modes de représentation et de narration. Ces conceptions modernistes et avant-gardistes furent exposées dans les manifestes , textes théoriques qui démontrent les positions idéologiques et le programme d’ actions élaboré par un groupe avant-gardiste.
Dans notre cas, nous avons choisi d’étudier cette double revendication telle qu’ elle a été exprimée, dans le Manifeste Futuriste (1909) de Filippo Marinetti en Italie et L’ esprit Libre (1929) de Georges Theotokas en Grèce. Le choix de ces deux textes est dû au fait que non seulement ils exercent une vive critique de la tradition intellectuelle de leurs pays , mais leur rhétorique du renouveau est présentée à l’ aide d’images métaphoriques et allégoriques donnant l’ impression d’ un récit ; Ceci les différencie d’ autres manifestes qui exposent leur idées subversives à travers un discours argumentatif et qui ont la forme d’ un essai ou d’ articles de forme traditionnelle. (v. les manifestes symbolistes, expressionnistes , dadaïstes, surréalistes).Ainsi, pour procéder à notre étude nous nous appuierons sur l’analyse structurale du récit élaborée par Roland Barthes dans ses divers essais et articles. Il est nécessaire de préciser qu’il ne faut pas confondre l’analyse structurale avec l’ analyse historique ou littéraire de l’argumentation du texte. Avec l’analyse structurale nous tenterons d’analyser la structure du texte et l’ articulation du système des codes à travers lesquelles sont exprimées les notions de rupture et de renouveau. Dans un premier temps a) nous découperons chaque texte en séquence et b) nous procéderons au repérage i) des fonctions, ii) des codes et iii) à l’analyse de leurs multiples connotations.
Dans un deuxième temps , après avoir étudié la structuration de l' idéologie des deux manifestes, nous parviendrons à une analyse comparatiste : Nous présenterons , au niveau des signifiés, les convergences et divergences des connotations dans les deux textes , afin de démontrer de quelle façon, les deux intellectuels expriment leur revendication pour une nouvelle forme esthétique dans les arts et la littérature des deux pays, la Grèce et l’ Italie.
14) Esma Dumanlı Kadızade, Associate Professor, Mersin University, Faculty of Education, The Department of Turkish Education, Mersin/ Turkey, esma-dumanli@hotmail.com
Semiotic Analysis of “Keloğlan ile İki Padişah”: A selected tale of Turkish Children’s Literature
This study is a semiotic analysis of the tale “Keloğlan ile İki Padişah” included in the book “Keloğlan Masalları” compiled by Tahir Alangu, aiming to create a theoretical structure for the Turkish children’s literature. Another purpose of this study is to posit a more theoretical ground for the Turkish children’s literature which is gradually developing and additionally, to prepare a diverse theoretical ground for the analysis of other children’s literature texts in terms of narratology, structuralism, intertextuality, reader response and psychoanalytic approaches, etc. Furthermore, to extract the deeper meaning of the text, it is aimed to reveal the relationship between narrative level and discourse level by means of the sectionalisation method. In this study the tale is sectionalized into six main sections according to the actions and the functions of narrative structures and discourse structures in the tale are presented by the terminology of semiotic analysis. The analysis are based on Greimas's approach. Greimas’s model states the forms of internal actions of a text and articulation of the semantic structures in the system of signs (Uçan,2002). Depending on this model, “Keloğlan ile İki Padişah" story was analysed in terms of narrative, discourse and logical-semantic levels.
References:
Alangu, Tahir (2013) “Keloğlan ile İki Padişah”, Keloğlan Masalları, YKY. 216S.
Çıkla Selçuk (2005) “Tanzimattan Günümüze Çocuk Edebiyatı ve Bazı Öneriler.” Hece DergisiÇocuk Edebiyatı Özel Sayısı, Hece Yayınları, Ankara 2005.
Erkman-Akerson, F. (2005). Göstergebilime Giriş. İstanbul: Multilingual.
Günay, V.D. (2002). Göstergebilim Yazıları. İstanbul: Multilingual.
Hjelmslev, L. (1999). Anlatım ve içerik. Çev. Gül Işık. Yirminci Yüzyıl Dilbilimi içinde. s.180-187.
Kıran, Z. ve Kıran (Eziler), A. (2000). Yazınsal Okuma Süreçleri: Dilbilim, Göstergebilim ve Yazınbilim Yöntemleriyle Çözümlemeler. Ankara: Seçkin Yayınevi.
Man Paul de,(1994) “Semiology and Rhetoric.” Donald Keesey. (Ed.) Contexts for Criticism, Mayfield Publishing, USA
Propp, V. (2001). Masalın Biçimbilimi: Olağanüstü Masalların Yapısı. Çev. Mehmet Rifat-Sema Rifat. İstanbul: Om Yayınevi.
Rıfat Mehmet (1999) Gösterge Elestirisi, Kaf Yayınları, İstanbul
Rifat, M. (2009). Göstergebilimin ABC’si. İstanbul: Say Yayınları.
Saussure, F. de (1998). Genel Dilbilim Dersleri. Çev. Berke Vardar. İstanbul: Multilingual.
Stam, Robert, Robert Burgoyne, Sandy Flitterman Lewis,(1992) New Vocabularies in Film Semiotics, Routledge, London
Uçan, Hilmi (2006) Yazınsal Elestiri ve Göstergebilimi. Hece Yayınları, Ankara.
Uçan, Hilmi (2002). Yazınsal Eleştiri ve Göstergebilim. İstanbul: Perşembe Kitapları.
Vardar, Berke, Dilbilimin Temel Kavram ve İlkeleri, Multilingual Yayınları, İstanbul
Yıldırım, A. ve Şimşek, H. (2011). Sosyal Bilimlerde Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri. Ankara: Seçkin Yayınevi.
Yücel Tahsin (2007) Elestiri Kuramları, Türkiye İs Bankası Kültür Yayınları, İstanbul 2007.
Yücel, T. (2005). Yapısalcılık. İstanbul: Can Sanat Yayınları.
15) Veronika Azarova, PhD
The Reality Show Analysed as a Wonder Tale (Semiotics of a Pop-Cultural Narration)
The topic suggested seems controversal at first glance – on one hand the various “reality” phenomena – competitions, show productions focus on co-existing, TV shows, are considered to present the everyday living and existence of certain groups of people ad hoc, in present time, as they really happen. But, on the other hand, the participants involved in these narratives in fact start to live in the “magical” reality of the scene, out of the traditional stream of their own everyday life. The reality show transforms this everyday life from something private and even intimate to an object of hundreds of interpretations by millions of people of the public.
The aim of the present text is to analyze the participant in reality show in his potential of a hero in a wonder tale (Vladimir Propp), his life before his “first step” in the show, his leading motivations, the overcoming of tasks, the acquiring of the goals, to his return back from the reality show to reality itself.
In spite of our personal and subjective tastes and attitudes towards the pop-culture phenomena, the problems of reality shows are extremely up-to-date from the point of view of socio-cultural perspective, ethnology and even ethics. The semiotic approach to it has the necessary potential to present not only the entertaining and profane aspects but also the existential dramatic conflicts of the participant – citizens of a society in a permanent transition.
16) OKUBO Miki, Universite Paris 8, Esthetique, garcone_mk@yahoo.co.jp, mimi.okb@gmail.com
Autofiction ou parler du « moi » : enjeux esthétiques pour la nouvelle création littéraire - les recherches comparatives à travers l’analyse des ouvres d’Hervé Guibert et d’Hitomi Kanehara
Quant à l’écriture contemporaine, nous sommes fréquemment témoin d’une attitude audacieuse de ceux qui écrivent, même plutôt exhibitionniste pour exposer leur vie intime, non seulement dans le domaine de la littérature mais aussi dans les activités des amateurs. Ce constat phénoménal serait issu de la nouvelle situation environnementale dans notre société de l’information : nous avons souvent des moyens pour publier un texte sur un espace virtuel tels le blog et les réseaux sociaux grâce à l’accès internet, cette ouverture nous encourage de nous engager passionnément dans une activité ludique : écrire sur le moi, ma vie et mon histoire intime.
Comme genres littéraires, le terme d’« autofiction » n’existait pas avant les années 1970. Ce fut Serge Doubrovsky, écrivain français, qui inventa ce nouveau genre littéraire pour définir sa propre œuvre, intitulée « Fils » (1977) dans laquelle l’auteur désira distinguer la fiction autobiographique d’avec l’autobiographie. L’autofiction est donc un terme qui porte un sens transdisciplinaire, notamment ces deux caractéristiques : la fiction et l’autobiographie. Toutefois, la caractéristique de l’« autofiction » elle-même était toujours présente dans les activités humaines à propos de l’écriture.
Par ailleurs, en France, Philippe Lejeune, théoricien de la littérature, notamment spécialiste de l’autobiographie, a publié « Le pacte autobiographique » (1971) dans lequel l’auteur a réalisé ses recherches riches sur une activité historiquement répandue en Europe : tenir un journal intime. Bien entendu, le journal intime n’est pas toujours un recueil des histoires vraies, comme démontra Sophie Calle, artiste française, à travers son ouvrage intitulée « Des histoires vraies » (2002). En jetant un regard sur les lieux de création littéraire, la relation entre l’écriture sur soi comme le journal intime et la littérature contemporaine est interactive et dynamique. À mon avis, il est grand temps de considérer cette problématique : enjeux esthétiques de l’autofiction afin d’interpréter profondément une dernière tendance puissante dans la littérature.
Dans cette communication, j’analyserai certaines œuvres autobiographiques d’Hervé Guibert et le style d’écriture expérimental d’Hitomi Kanehara, ainsi que son œuvre intitulée « Autofiction » (2006).
17) Jéssica Ivón Renata González Rallón, Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS)
La Representación discursiva de la Belleza en ‘El Prestigio de la Belleza” de Piedad Bonnett
La belleza ha sido un tema ampliamente estudiado y discutido desde muchas perspectivas culturales, sociales y disciplinarias como la teoría feminista, la biología, la sicología, la antropología y, por supuesto, la disciplina filosófica (estética); sin embargo, esta temática no deja de ser una preocupación vigente que puede ayudar a entender las dinámicas sociales y culturales que rigen el hacer de toda una colectividad en torno a las experiencias sensibles con el mundo. Ahora, ya que una producción literaria es una forma de conocimiento del mundo en el que emerge, es pertinente concebir al capital literario dentro de la semiosfera que nos da cuenta de posibles sistemas de valores que se hallan movilizando el ser y el hacer de los sujetos pertenecientes a dicha cultura.
Por lo anterior, se ha escogido el texto literario colombiano “El prestigio de la belleza” escrito por Piedad Bonnett y publicado en el año 2010 ya que aborda una concepción amplia y problemática acerca de la belleza que es susceptible de ser analizada mediante un método semiótico que dé cuenta de cómo se representa discursivamente la belleza en dicha novela, con el objetivo de caracterizar el fenómeno de la representación de la belleza como una forma de representación social de las formas de vida.
De acuerdo a esto, lo que se va a presentar, como resultado parcial de una investigación semiótica, es cómo se representa discursivamente la belleza en el personaje mamá en relación con el personaje niña. Para ello se dará cuenta de un análisis figurativo, semio-narrativo y axiológico con miras a develar la construcción discursiva de la belleza en estos personajes y las cargas axiológicas que median en estas prácticas discursivas literarias, que pueden llegar a configurarse a su vez como representaciones sociales del mundo en el que emerge dicha obra literaria.
Palabras clave: “El prestigio de la belleza”, representación, representación discursiva, representación social, belleza.
Jéssica Ivón Renata González Rallón, licenciada en Español y Literatura, estudiante de la Maestría en Semiótica de la Universidad Industrial de Santander (UIS). Perteneciente al grupo de investigación Cultura y Narración en Colombia (CUYNACO). Actualmente docente cátedra de la UIS.
18) Luis Fernando Arévalo Viveros, Profesor e investigador de la Escuela de Idiomas y de la Maestría en Semiótica de la Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia. (lfaviveros@gmail.com)
Novela Negra e Identidad Criminal: Entre Ficción y Realidad
A través de un análisis semiótico discursivo, en esta ponencia se realiza una comparación entre las identidades de tres actores criminales de las novelas Scorpio City, Relato de un asesino y Satanás del escritor colombiano Mario Mendoza con las características identitarias de sujetos asesinos documentadas en el reporte de investigación, “Los monstruos en Colombia sí existen” del antropólogo, Esteban Cruz Niño.
Este ejercicio analítico permite evidenciar la difusa frontera existente entre el concepto de ficción, propio del género novela, y el de realidad, característico de géneros como los informes de investigación. Tal amalgama entre ficción y realidad es coherente con la perspectiva teórica y metodológica adoptada, la cual corresponde a la semiótica discursiva de la Escuela de París, que desde Greimas ha sugerido la enunciación como un “hacer parecer verdad”, en el que finalmente es el juicio epistémico y veridictorio el que define la realidad o la ficción.
La comparación citada resulta de la investigación doctoral, “Negación del yo y destrucción del otro en Scorpio City, Relato de un asesino y Satanás de Mario Mendoza”, en la cual se evidencia cómo la auto-negación de la identidad de los criminales es un proceso de construcción discursiva que conduce a la destrucción de otros como representaciones del yo rechazado. La exploración, ubicada en una perspectiva teórica y metodológica semiótico - discursiva, tiene como hipótesis centrales que la identidad es un signo discursivo erigido en la interacción social y que la negación de ella puede conducir a la ruptura del principio de regulación del discurso, entendido, desde Charaudeau (2003), como un mecanismo vital de contención de las relaciones sociales.
19) Mme. Dr. Socorro MERLÍN. México
Analyse du discours de la pièce Palabras verticales (Des mots verticaux) de Rafael López Malo
Le modèle d’action dramatique de la pièce Palabras verticales « Des mots verticaux » de Rafael López Malo, écrivain Mexicain, réalise une combinaison de théâtre et de narration. Les didascalies sont écrites avec un langage à la fois narrative et poétique. Le discours des minces dialogues des personnages (six personnes et un tapis) montrent une charge idéologique investie sur la critique d’Art, le théâtre et les coutumes de l’époque de sa création (1931). L’auteur signale que la pièce doit être jouée derrière le rideau ayant comme seule publique les techniciens du théâtre et les acteurs. En laissant en dehors la figure du tiers comme publique l’activité du Moi du locuteur relaye la relation avec l’Autre de façon inter-subjective ; le Moi de l´auteur joue et est joué dans la relation avec les techniciens et les acteurs (CHAREAUDEAU). Le discours de López Malo est imprégné de métaphores. Le décor est signalé avec un récit poétique redevable d’une analyse sémiotique. Ce récit reflet la relation du Moi de l’auteur avec le monde. La métonymie permet ainsi au personnage « le tapis » d’assassiner le Temps avec un couteau. Cette pièce était très en avance pour son époque, et elle peut être mis en parallèle avec le théâtre « post-dramatique » de nos jours qui refuse le model aristotélicien.
20) Taras Boyko, PhD Student, Department of Semiotics, Tartu University
History & Semiotics. Semiotization of History
Semiotics at the peak of its popularity was very attractive field a lot due to the broad research agenda and perhaps even certain (un)successful tries to encompass the totality of the various cultural (and not only) processes. And although such broad agenda at the same time turned out to be also a source of some constant critique against semiotics, it did not stop many scholars associated with the field from transgressing traditional disciplinary boundaries, formulating universal in nature general principles and even turning semiotics into some sort of theoretical “umbrella”, “bridge” and so on.
Traditionally “involvement” of semiotics was (and to some extent still is) very strong in areas like literary studies, linguistics and culture studies, but over the course of the late 1970’s and especially during 1980’s a number of semioticians also turned their attention to the realm of history and historiography. Current paper will try to glance over these tries to semiotisize history and in way look at history, historical writing, and historian’s craft from the semiotic point of view. Special focus will be put on two cases – mid-1980’s discussions on the relations between history and semiotics on the pages of IASS journal Semiotica (Brooke Willams, Peter Haidu, Marike Finlay-Pelinski) and multiple history related works associated with prominent members of the so-called Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics (e.g. Yuri Lotman, Boris Uspensky, Vladimir Toropov). It seems that in both cases (which happen to be in some sense very similar, but at the same time quite different) scholars intended to go beyond pure res gestae literatur/kulturwissenshaft type of history and instead try to discuss questions falling into the sphere of theory/philosophy of history.
21) Rumjana Stefanova
Logotype and Narrative
The aim of this study is show the semiotic perspective on the denotative and connotative aspects and pathways, including the concept, analysis, design and logo reproduction of a series of elements, which is one of the most challenging and complex task for graphic designers. The creation of a bright, recognizable and memorable logo is a difficult project, often requiring multiple recombinations and redesigns to recreate the maximum expressiveness while keeping a certain "lightness“ and elegance. The creative process in creating a particular sign - logo, includes a number of time-consuming stages, mostly in the conceptual, creative and narrative plan. The end result incorporates a combination of different graphic elements that express the original idea of the author-artist, as a series of stories or narratives: what will the character serve for (and its target group), what provokes at first glance (recognition), the subject of its expressiveness, its form and size (graphic particularities and requirements), etc. All this wide range of features makes logos an extensive semiotic material for analysis and research, which promotes positive understanding of the entire creative process, from a different perspective including from the perspective of the graphic designer.
Key words: semiotics, logo, narrative, graphic sign, graphic design.