The textual analysis of dramatic discourse revisited

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 200-225
Author(s):  
Allan James ◽  
Nursen Gömceli
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Semiotics ◽  
Linguistic Model ◽  
Lexical Richness ◽  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
Stage Directions ◽  
Further Development

Abstract This article explores dimensions of dramatic structure which the literary linguistic analysis of a play text can illuminate within an integrated model of dramatic significance. The play to be examined is John Millington Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World, known for its lexical richness, denseness of dramatic expression and not least the structural creativity of its Hiberno-English, all of which provide an abundant fund of textual semiotics for the present drama-specific literary linguistic analysis. The dimensions of the play investigated are (i) those of its ‘constitution’, which linguistically comprises dialogue and stage directions, and characterisation, plot and setting as traditional constituents of dramatic structure in their own right; and (ii) those of its ‘realisation’ as literary work, staging production and theatre performance and the associated addressivity of materially the same play text at each of these levels. As such, it will be shown that the employment of, and further development of, a linguistic model of social semiotics (after Halliday 1978; Fairclough 2003) enables a unified account to be given of the dramatic meanings a play text expresses at these two levels of its internal construction and its external actualisation.

The situatedness of meaning construction in Wisława Szymborska’s “Cat in an Empty Apartment”

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Stadnik
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
Cultural Factors ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Cultural Milieu ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors

AbstractSo far the cognitively-oriented study of literature has largely missed out on the cognitive conception of situatedness, which holds that human mental activity should be seen through the lens of its grounding in the physical, social and cultural milieu of the individual. Accordingly, the article shows the value of this approach in a Cognitive Linguistic analysis of Wisława Szymborska’s poem “Cat in an Empty Apartment”, setting out the ways in which situatedness underlies dynamic meaning construction in the production and reception of the work, giving rise to the singularity (Attridge 2004. The singularity of literature. London-New York: Routledge) of the poem. The paper concludes that situatedness can illuminate how the interplay of cognitive, linguistic, social and cultural factors might be brought to bear on the singularity of a literary work.

Textualitätsannahmen und die Analyse literarischer Texte

2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Winko
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Surface Level ◽  
Linguistic Model

AbstractThis article analyses genre-specific methods of textual analysis that are considered to be elementary and ‘close’ to the surface level of literary texts. It focuses on two questions: How do these methods explicitly and implicitly make use of the concept of textuality? And what kind of knowledge do they presuppose? A linguistic model of textuality is taken as the frame of this analysis. The article argues for the utilization of linguistic concepts in literary studies, both in theory and practice. At the same time it is assumed that historical and genre-oriented studies of literary texts focussing on the prerequisites of textuality will contribute to a differentiated view of a prototypical concept of textuality.

scholarly journals A Stylistic Investigation of the Act of Murder in Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ujjal Jeet ◽  
Keyword(s):  
White Woman ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Systemic Functional Linguistics ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
White Community ◽  
Functional Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical System ◽  
Nature And Nurture

This paper is a functional stylistic study of a selected passage from Doris Lessing’s novel The Grass is Singing. In the novel The Grass is Singing, a white woman in Rhodesia is killed by her black servant but surprisingly the murder instead of bringing a stir spreads a silence in the local white community. Further, the text on an intuitive reading seems to absolve the murderer of the crime which forms the research question of the paper. Thus, close and systematic textual analysis of the text representing the murder scene was conducted and it was found that the linguistic choices of the text does create a semantic universe where the murder and the murdered are allegorical figures representing nature and nurture in a mutual conflict. The methodology for linguistic analysis of the selected text is borrowed from Michael Halliday’s theoretical system Systemic Functional Linguistics. The text is analysed by means of transitivity system which provides the investigative tools to study the representational choices of the text.

scholarly journals When the Unspoken Speaks: As Seen in Andriani Marshanda’s You Used Me and Letter to God

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 135
Author(s):  
Akun Akun
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Additional Data ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Electronic Media ◽  
The Real ◽  
Library Research

Repressed unresolved psychological conflicts for some people can be safely channeled into a poetical literary work as—despite its short and audio-visually framed and limited form— it could speak of bigger ideas with more freedom, and English as a medium had its own capacity to truthfully communicate the ideas. The goal of this study was to reveal the spoken and the unspoken truths behind Andriani Marshanda’s poetic expressions and their visualization in The Unspoken 1: You Used Me and The Unspoken 2: Letter to God. This research focused on how English played an important role in safely channeling the ideas and how oxymoronic metaphors used in the poems speak more of the unspoken words and worlds within the poems. It used library research by employing a textual analysis of the selected poems using Macherey’s concept of the spoken and unspoken. The additional data were also taken from the real life of the author found in printed and electronic media. The analysis will be focused on the revelation of the silence or unspoken that unconsciously infiltrates the spoken or expressed lines of the poems. It is concluded that the poems speak more bluntly of the persona’s lack of freedom, feelings of being exploited, incongruous and dilemmatic state of mentality, and a newly perceived, happily anticipated, and more truly liberated life. 

scholarly journals Preispitivanje položaja Marije Jurić Zagorke u hrvatskoj književnosti

2021 ◽  
pp. 432-447
Author(s):  
Jelena Đorđević
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Literary Canon ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Style Of Writing

The emphasis of the paper is on the linguistic analysis of fragments from the novel Grička vještica written by Marija Jurić Zagorka. The paper objective is to answer how much linguistic craftsmanship defined this novel, and thus the literary work of Zagorka in general. It has been shown how language and literature in Zagorka’s writing intertwine. The language of the novel was analysed by extracting concrete fragments in which the lexics, stylistic figures and additional features of Zagorka’s style of writing were analysed. We researched how much attention was given to the language in building the plot. The arising question is how justified the position of Zagorka outside the literary canon is if her writing style does not differ significantly from the writers who are included in the canon.

scholarly journals Two approaches to the analysis of spatial and temporal organizations of a literary work (M.M. Bakhtin and V.M. Zhirmunsky)

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-161
Author(s):  
A.V. Filatov
Keyword(s):  
Literary Work ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Temporal Organization ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Philosophical Approach ◽  
Russian Formalism ◽  
Verbal Creativity ◽  
Temporal Aspects ◽  
Poetic Text ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

This article examines two methodologies for analyzing a literary work. The first one was developed by M.M. Bakhtin on the basis of a broad aesthetic and philosophical approach; the second one was developed by V.M. Zhirmunsky on the basis of a more specific formal and poetological approach. These methodologies were applied by both researchers to A.S. Pushkin’s poems in the 1920s. It is argued that Bakhtin’s methodology was worked out in opposition to the main provisions of Zhirmunsky, who was close to the position of Russian formalism, also taking into account L.V. Shcherba’s achievements in the field of the linguistic analysis of a poetic text. This article describes the fundamental differences in the methodological conceptions of the philosopher and the literary critic concerning the nature of verbal creativity and understanding of the spatial and temporal organization of a literary work. The comparison of two analyses of Pushkin’s poem “For the Shores of Distant Homeland…”, shows that Zhirmunsky reduces the spatial and temporal aspects of a work of art to the compositional arrangement of verbal and sound material, since he considers verbal creativity as a linguistic phenomenon, while Bakhtin refers to the space and time of aesthetic reality, drawing a distinction between the composition and the architectonics of the literary work. It appears that the philosopher perceives the work as a field of dialogue between various subjects of consciousness (the author, the characters, the reader), while the literary critic proceeds from the author’s primacy as creator of a system of artistic techniques, giving the reader a position of passive perception. It is concluded that both methods of analysis complement each other organically, Zhirmunsky analyzing the verbal-compositional dimensions of a literary work and Bakhtin its objective-architectonic dimension.

The Evolution of the Garden-Myth? Tales from Eden, Boccaccio, and Fellini

2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 141-164
Author(s):  
Anthony Cristiano
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Western World ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Moral Dimension ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
Literary Forms

The Garden of Eden narrative has been woven, in one form or another in several literary traditions, particularly those of the Western world. The symbolic and socio-cultural significance of the ancient account have continued to inform gender relations, as well as those with the numinous, and/or one’s idealistic aspirations of prowess, sagacity, and overall status of superiority. This is evinced in the literary work of the major periods of the Western Canon. Here we pose the question of whether or not the mythic or mythologized narrative of the Garden of Eden has in the process of centuries undergone any substantial transformation – those ascribable to an evolving myth. To this end a systematic study of a series of later tales is undertaken: a Latin tale, the Boccaccio tale derived from it, and a Boccaccio ‘70 short by Fellini. Of particular interest is the transition from literary forms to time-based visual media. The popularity of film, and now digital media, offers a singular comparativistic look into the dynamics of the Garden myth transposed on screens. To the original title question is added a meta-analytic reflection and the purview of any new moral dimension the innovations brings about. The study involves a targeted examination of aesthetic and ethic elements: the formal strategies, praxis, and dynamics between the protagonists of each tale. The main proposition is intended to re-affirm the substantial immutability of the ancient paradigmatic tale: it appears to have undergone only superficial transformations, which reiterate its universal appeal and significance across time and cultural traditions.

Emily Dickinson’s “My life had stood a loaded gun” – An interdisciplinary analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias Bauer ◽  
Nadine Bade ◽  
Sigrid Beck ◽  
Carmen Dörge ◽  
Burkhard von Eckartsberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Literary Theory ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Literary Analysis ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Second Step ◽  
External Fields ◽  
Compositional Semantics ◽  
Objective Interpretation

AbstractIn this article we analyse Emily Dickinson’s poem “My life had stood a loaded gun” using a specific methodology that combines linguistic and literary theory. The first step is a textual analysis with the methods of compositional semantics. The second step is a literary analysis enriching the literal meaning with information about the wider context of the poem. The division of these two steps reflects the distinction between an objective interpretation of the text based solely on the rules of grammar and a subjective reading which draws on various external fields of reference. In combining both steps, we show why some interpretations of the poem are more plausible than others and how different lines of interpretation are related to each other. However, it is not our aim to provide one definite interpretation of the poem or to favour one reading over the others. Rather, we wish to show how Dickinson’s use of specific grammatical mechanisms leads to a number of interpretations which are more or less plausible. That is, we identify plausible interpretations on the basis of grammatical evidence, and we relate these to each other by pointing at instances in the poem where a divergence of interpretations is possible (cases of ambiguity, for example). This method is helpful for literary studies since formal linguistics helps produce a systematic and non-arbitrary analysis, and it is helpful for linguistic analysis since it uncovers which violations of grammar do or do not disturb the interpretative process, and which kind of structures need pragmatic enrichment.

Five Yurok Songs: A Musical and Textual Analysis

1956 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 592-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Robins ◽  
Norma McLeod
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Musical Structure ◽  
Linguistic Structure

Certain parallels between musical structure and linguistic structure have been insisted on by Professor J. R. Firth in several publications. This is an attempt to illustrate a parallel musical and linguistic analysis within a strictly limited field, and in a ‘restricted language’, and thereby to exhibit in this field a congruence of musical and linguistic structuring. It is hoped that the material employed will be of interest as being the first published, examples of songs from the Yurok community.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document