scholarly journals МАССОВАЯ ЛИТЕРАТУРА: К ИСТОРИИ ВОПРОСА ИССЛЕДОВАНИЙ НА ПОСТСОВЕТСКОМ ПРОСТРАНСТВЕ

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (XIX) ◽  
pp. 117-131
Author(s):  
Татьяна Хайдер
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Mass Literature ◽  
Philosophical Criticism ◽  
Literary Process ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Literary Methods

At the end of the twentieth century, the phenomenon of mass culture was the focusof scholarly attention with an ever increasing frequency: theorists of literature andcultural studies, as well as philosophers have developed a number of approaches to thestudy of popular culture: social, ideological and semiotic. Contemporary researchersare increasingly attracted to the question of the semiotic culture. In this regard, mass culture and accordingly literature are more and more frequently treated not only asa system of signs, but in fact as a sign itself.J. Lotman conducts his analysis through the prism of the literary process and hisresearch methodology is based on literary methods. Once marginal (from the standpointof the official literary and philosophical criticism), mass literature is going throughthe phase of ennoblement. It is dual-track in its “intergrowth” and is already facingup the oversignificant new system of modern cultural codes, while still being rootedin the low culture with its specific character of the text encoding. Therefore, followingthe principle of semiotic analysis, it is inevitable to take into account the interactionof several sign systems while considering the formative dynamics of the modern genrethemedversion of popular literature.

Beyond the tragedy: Hamlet in popular literature

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-136
Author(s):  
В. О. Коркішко
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Narrative Strategies ◽  
Postmodern Literature ◽  
Mass Literature ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Right ◽  
Shakespearean Tragedy

The present paper examines the analysis of narrative strategies of mass literature in the novels ‘Something Rotten’ by Jasper Fforde and ‘Gertrude and Claudius’ by J. Updike, in particular, the study of the implementation of the metatextual potential of classical literature in the sphere of mass culture. The article describes the phenomenon of narrative structures of mass literature, used in the texts studied. It is noted that Hamlet as a literary character appears in one of a series of novels by the British fantastic fiction writer Jasper Fforde, which the author refers to the genre of alternative history. The author of the article shows that Jasper Fforde uses irony and techniques of literary play in the imaging of the image-cliche of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, which was formed in the mass cultural consciousness. There are harmonious philosophical reflections, in particular reasoning about the causes of the inexhaustible attractiveness and popularity of the Shakespearean tragedy, the many-sidedness of the living image of Hamlet, the importance of each unique interpretation of this image, secret places and artistic uniqueness of the Shakespearean tragedy, but disguises them with plot and imaginative schematic in the analyzed text. Studies of also indicate that in the Fforde’s novel Shakespeare’s text gets to a number of changes by the forces of his characters. The article states that in the Updike’s text features of the melodramatic genre appear the most prominently, in particular the ‘pink’ female novel: in the top of the plot — a sensual and passionate adultery, the psychology of the female protagonist, her intimate thoughts and feelings. The author proves that the fact of the transformation of the plot and image system of Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ in the novel of the Updike is not in doubt. It is shown that it is successfully implemented both as a means of postmodern literature and by the use of narrative strategies of mass literature. Updike’s novel controverts with Shakespeare primarily at the moral and ethical level, justifying the power of love and the right to happiness. He justifies Gertrude and Claudius due to the custom of time: the medieval traditions of marriage, bequest, upbringing, revenge, etc. There is the artistic time shifts in the novel. The study traces the activation of the metatextual resource of ‘Hamlet’ by Shakespeare in mass literature on the example of the texts of Fforde and Updike and in the mass consciousness that manifests itself in culture. The realization of this potential can take place in various ways: from a literary game with cultural stereotypes to transformation, a kind of ‘posting’ of the plot and changing the angle of the narrative that we observe in the analysed creative works.

scholarly journals AN ANALYSIS OF TITLE FUNCTIONS (ON THE MATERIAL OF DARYA DONTSOVA’S IRONIC DETECTIVE NOVELS)

2021 ◽  
pp. 157-179
Author(s):  
Елена Александровна Селиванова ◽  
Валентина Владимировна Калько
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Basic Function ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Integral Sign ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Detective Novels ◽  
Literary Process

Целью нашей статьи является исследование семиотической природы заголовков детективных романов Д. Донцовой исходя из трех измерений семиозиса: семантики, синтактики и прагматики. Главным методом исследования служит семиотический анализ. Вспомогательными являются методики контекстуально-интерпретационного, структурного, лингвостилистического и прагматического анализа, метафорического моделирования и жанрового анкетирования. Гипотеза исследования − предположение о том, что основная функция заголовка художественного текста, в отличие от масс-медийного или научного и др., маркирующая, индексирующая текст как целостный знак, информативная же функция может быть реализована лишь в результате понимания целого произведения, установления его жанровой принадлежности, с учетом всеобъемлющей диалогичности текста с творчеством автора в целом, интертекстом литературного процесса. В рекламных целях в заглавиях некоторых произведений может вообще отсутствовать какая-либо ориентация на прогнозирование смысла последующего текста. Особенностями заголовков романов Д. Донцовой являются парадоксальность, проявляющаяся в семантической несовместимости составляющих библионима, насыщенность прецедентными знаками, интертекстуальность и интерсемиотичность, карнавализация, языковая игра, пародирование, персуазивность и суггестивность. Семантический параметр семиозиса библионимов предполагает установление их содержательной связи не только с последующим текстом, но и с фондом интертекстовых и интерсемиотических знаний читателя. Семантика заглавий иронических детективов Д. Донцовой соотносится со структурными компонентами жанра иронического детектива, нередко второстепенными, характеризуется метафорическим заимствованием лексем из различных донорских доменов. Синтактика библионимов реализуется в связях с различными компонентами озаглавленного текста, с мегатекстом, интертекстом, невербальными семиосферами культуры, в том числе и с прецедентными феноменами. Прагматика библионимов Д. Донцовой ориентирована на возбуждение интереса, любопытства, желания разрешить парадоксы заглавия путем прочтения и понимания содержания книги. Свойственная заголовкам иронических детективов парадоксальность служит мощным суггестогеном, воздействующим не только на сознание читателей, но и на бессознательные ресурсы психики. Перспективы изучения данной проблематики заключаются в выявлении стратегических программ коммуникативного воздействия заглавий произведений массовой литературы, проведении экспериментальных исследований по выявлению индекса информативности библионимов и их прогностичности по отношению к последующему тексту. The aim of the article is to examine the semiotic nature of the titles of detective novels by Darya Dontsova based on the three dimensions of semiosis: semantics, syntactics and pragmat-ics. Semiotic analysis serves as the main research method. Contextual interpretation, structural, stylistic and pragmatic analysis, metaphorical modeling and genre questionnaire are auxiliary methods. The research hypothesis lies in a supposition that the basic function of the title of a lit-erary text, unlike that of a mass media, scientific, etc. text, is to label, index a text as an integral sign. An informative function of the title can be realized after understanding the whole text, de-termining its genre, and taking into consideration the overall dialogism of the text with the au-thor’s oeuvre and with the intertext of the literary process. For advertising purposes, some titles are not intended to predict the sense of subsequent texts. The features of Dontsova’s titles are paradoxicality (elements of titles are semantically incompatible), abundance of precedent signs, intertextuality, intersemioticity, carnivalization, language game, parody, persuasion, and sug-gestiveness. The semantic parameter of title semiosis presupposes clarifying the content-related link of the titles not only with subsequent texts but also with the reader’s intertextual and in-tersemiotic knowledge. The semantics of the titles of Dontsova’s ironic detective novels is corre-lated with the frequently secondary structural components of this genre and is characterized by the metaphorical borrowing of lexemes from different source domains. The syntactics of the ti-tles is realized through relations with different components of the texts, with megatext and in-tertext, with nonverbal cultural semiospheres, including precedent phenomena. The pragmatics of the titles is to spark interest, curiosity, desire to resolve the paradoxes of the title by reading and understanding the content of the book. Paradoxicality, inherent to titles of ironic detective novels, serves as a powerful means of suggestiveness, affecting both readers’ consciousness and the unconscious resources of the psyche. The prospects of this research are to focus on the stra-tegic programs of the communicative influence of titles of popular literature, to conduct experi-mental studies on the index of the title informing properties and on the title predictive value for subsequent texts.

Revisiting Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker: a Semiotic Study of the Dramatis Personae

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1B) ◽  
Author(s):  
Khaled Besbes
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Analytical Method ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Positive Outcomes ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Stage Props

Abstract: The present article sought to offer a semiotic analysis of Pinter’s The Caretaker’s characters as signifers in their own right. The article also aimed at studying the play’s dramatis personae as loci of multi-coded expressions, with a focus on the various modes of signifcation associated with them. Using semiotics as an analytical method, the author explored the linguistic and paralinguistic features of the characters’ discourses as signs in relation to the play’s pivotal themes, their kinesic and body expressions as indexical signs, as well as their distinctive proxemic behavior(s) onstage. Some attention was also given to the characters’ handling of stage props and the special meanings attached to them as replicators of character personality. The results of the discussion showed that using a semiotic approach to analyze The Caretaker’s characters can yield positive outcomes in terms of comprehensive analysis and interpretation of the characters as dynamic unities of interrelated sign-systems. Keywords: Pinter, semiotics, dramatis personae, linguistic, kinesic, proxemic

scholarly journals Social Stigma of COVID-19: A Semiotic Analysis of WHO Campaign Posters

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Intan Siti Nugraha ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Social Stigma ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Health Campaign ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Related Stigma ◽  
Visual Sign

COVID-19 has been reported to be risen in numbers of infected cases and deaths. The massive report by media and social network which focus on the spreading and infection may affect not only physical health but also individual’s and general population’s mental health, isolation and stigma. To eradicate COVID-19-related stigma and discrimination perpetuated by both individual and group of people, WHO exhibits some anti-stigma campaign posters. This study employs qualitative method to acquire deep investigation of meaning and to involve the social context. Thus, by using Roland Barthes’s semiotic approach, analyzing signifiers and signifieds, this study was aimed to unmask both denotative and connotative meanings of the stigma embed within the six health campaign posters of COVID-19 by Southeast Asia WHO. The analysis was focused not only on the verbal sign of posters (linguistic text), but also its relation to their visual sign (imagery messages). From the analysis of the two sign systems of posters, the result shows that the six posters connote acts of discriminatory behaviours, stigmatization, stereotype and blaming. Through the posters, WHO propagates people to work together to fight COVID-19 and to bring out the best humanity, to have better awareness and positive attitudes and appeals governments, citizens, media, key influencers of communities to have a role in preventing and to stop stigma surrounding in South-Asia and specifically in Indonesia which becomes the target of the poster viewers during the pandemic. Those messages are connoted through different font colors and sizes and the illustration on each poster.

scholarly journals Vital signs: An ecosemiotic perspective on the human ecology of Amazonia

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-152
Author(s):  
Alf Hornborg
Keyword(s):  
Human Ecology ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Vital Signs ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Natural Environments ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Environmental Relations

Ecosemiotics represents a theoretical approach to human ecology that can be applied across several disciplines. lts primary justification lies inthe ambition to transcend "Cartesian", conceptual dichotomies such as culture/nature. society/nature, mental/material. etc. It argues that ecosystems areconstituted no less by flows of signs than by flows of matter and energy. This paper discusses the roles of different kinds of hmnan sign systems in the ecologyof Amazonia, ranging from the phenomenology of unconscious sensations. through linguistic signs such as metaphors and ethnobiological taxonomies, to money and the political economy of environmental destruction. Human-environmental relations mediated by direct, sensory and (oral) linguistic communication have tended to enhance biological diversity, suggesting modes of calibrating the long-term co-evolution of human and non-human populations. Economic sign systems, on the other hand, have rapidly and drastically transfonned human-environmental relations in Amazonia to the point where the entire rainforest ecosystem is illlder threat. In detaching themselves from the direct, "face-to-face" communication between humans and their natural environments, flows of money and commodities - and the decontextualized knowledge systems that they engender - have no means of staying geared to the long-term negotiation of local, ecological co-existence. It is argued that the ongoing deterioration of the biosphere can be viewed as a problem of communication, deserving semiotic analysis.

Egīla Ventera fenomens latviešu literatūrā

2021 ◽  
pp. 181-196
Author(s):  
Laimdota Ločmele
Keyword(s):  
Popular Literature ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Innovative Work ◽  
Reading Texts

The article aims to study Egīls Venters’s latest works from the point of view of text semiotics and interpretation to make conclusions about the possibilities of interpretation of texts written by this author and his place in Latvian literature. In this article, a semiotic analysis of Venters’s fiction is applied as well as research of the book reviews on his recent prose texts. The present paper deals with the factors determining the popularity of a work of fiction; these factors may be related to the text itself or the readers’ ability and desire to read such texts. The most innovative work of Venters, “Mainīgā intervence” (2012), which received Dzintars Sodums Prize for Innovation in Literature, has been semiotically analysed in terms of its literary form. This work of fiction is a complex, multi-layered message, although outwardly it seems laconic and aphoristic. The possibilities of interpreting fiction depend on the language used by the author to express the content and the language available to the reader for decoding the text. Thus, the reader needs the experience of reading texts, a desire to gain new unprecedented experience, and the ability to evaluate the language and form of the work of fiction. Venters’s writing does not belong to the popular literature of easy reading; it has fewer readers who can accept the world created by Venters’s texts and are open to the unpredictable in literature.

Russian Emigration's Literary Heritage in China: a Cultural Code

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-124
Author(s):  
Natalya V. Kim ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Middle Kingdom ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Integrated Research ◽  
Literary Heritage ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
Literary Methods

The article is devoted to the literary heritage of the Russian emigration in China and the Russian cultural code, which was preserved in the works of emigrants. A brief overview of the scientific literature, which formed the basis of the research methodology, and a description of the centers of Russian emigration in the Middle Kingdom - Harbin and Shanghai, the living conditions of emigrants are given. The relevance of the topic is due to the attention of modern researchers to the insufficiently studied literary heritage of the “eastern branch” of the Russian emigration.The material for the research was the works from the ten-volume “Literature of Russian emigrants in China” published in 2005 in Beijing. In this work, an integrated research approach is used, when various literary methods are combined with general scientific, linguistic, and private ones. The ten-volume collection includes the works of almost a hundred of Russian writers and poets in China, who for various reasons found themselves in emigration in Harbin, Shanghai and other Chinese cities. This work reveals the frequency themes of emigre creativity: Motherland, China-stepmother, historical events, faith in God, separation, longing for the Fatherland, etc. Basically, these are cultural codes, encoded information transmitted to us by our ancestors and allowing us to identify Russian culture: “Motherland”， “Holy Russia”，“Faith”，“God”，“Icon”，“Love”，“Home”， “Family”，“Soul”，“Hope”，“War”，“Separation”，“Foreign”， “Longing for the Homeland”，etc., as well as concepts (code units) that make up the concept sphere of the Russian picture of the world.The peculiar cultural mission of the Russian writers and poets of the “eastern branch” is that their literature is as much a cultural monument of their time as the works of emigrant writers of the “western branch”. Russian emigrants not only preserved their native culture, language, traditions, religion in exile but also increased the cultural heritage of Russia. The literary work of Russian emigrants in China should become a full-fledged part of the great Russian literature. Keywords: Russian emigrant literature, Russia, China, cultural heritage, cultural code, theme

scholarly journals Language and cultural codes: their interaction in linguo-cultural space

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-193
Author(s):  
N. V. Myronova
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Space ◽  
Language And Culture ◽  
Genetic Codes ◽  
Cultural Codes ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
The People ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Human Thinking ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
Linguistic Units

For a long time, the study of ethno-language and ethno-culture was conducted based on the use of different conceptual and terminological devices, despite the significant commonality and the research possibilities in mutual connection with applying a single system of instrumental categories – universal methodological basis – semiotics. The semiotics of culture made it possible to interpret the phenomena of language and culture as phenomena of the same order. Culture is explored as a polyglot phenomenon, as a system of sign systems. In the dynamic aspect, culture, formed in the process of sociohistorical development of the people, appears as a set of schemes or programs of subjectpractical and spiritual-theoretical behaviour of people. By analogy with biological heredity, we refer to cultural heritage, in the frame of which individual behavioural programs are considered as a kind of “cultural genes”, whose systems, like genetic codes, form cultural codes. In this article, we consider the language and cultural code, namely their interaction in the linguo-cultural space. Thus, behavioural programs function in society in a signed form: in the form of social symbolism systems, in the form of etiquette signs, various kinds of signals, in the form of language. From these perspectives, we consider language as a mega program that regulates human thinking and behaviour. This approach allows us to identify the connection between language and culture. From the standpoint of the semiotics of culture, verbal speech is the main, nuclear sign system of ethno-culture, over which all other sign systems of this culture are built as its auxiliary mechanisms. The article deals with the connection between the concepts of language and code, as well as a number of related concepts. The concept of “linguistic image” is specified. The cultural code is divided into subcodes with a multi-level hierarchy. The system of cultural codes with its “vertical” and “horizontal” relations represents the figurative system of culture. Units of linguo-cultural code are formed under the interaction of cultural codes with the generally accepted code. A unit of linguo-cultural code consists of any number of lexemes, but it is a natural language embodiment of only one unit of cultural code (a separate image). Figurative codes of culture are embodied only in such linguistic units that have a figurative basis.

scholarly journals ’We Have Become Niggers!’: Josephine Baker as a Threat to Viennese Culture

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-530
Author(s):  
Roman Horak
Keyword(s):  
Mass Culture ◽  
Perceived Threat ◽  
Cultural Expression ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Low Culture ◽  
Josephine Baker ◽  
The Waves

Early 1928 Josephine Baker, by that time a famous dancer and singer, came to Vienna to be part of a vaudeville show. Even before her arrival the waves went high – her possible presence in Vienna caused a major uproar there. Various commentators constructed an image of Baker that was based on the assumption that she was seriously attacked on the values of traditional European culture and, furthermore, true Viennese culture. In my essay, where I address the Viennese Negerskandal more directly, I explore the various discourses that produced this ‘event’ along the interface of mass culture/avant-garde and high/low culture. It is evident that these events centre on a construction of ‘blackness’ and of ‘black cultural expression’; it goes without saying that racism and sexism play a central role. I will, however, try to contextualize the ‘nigger scandal’ in a broader setting: against the background of Vienna in the late 1920s the perceived threat of ‘Americanisation’ will be discussed.

scholarly journals Refleksje o powieści milicyjnej (na marginesie książki Doroty Skotarczak „Otwierać, milicja! O powieści kryminalnej w PRL”)

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 93-103
Author(s):  
Paweł Kaczyński
Keyword(s):  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Historical Source ◽  
The Social ◽  
Literary Convention ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Literary Methods

The paper is a set of thoughts on the milicja-novel, inspired by the book Otwierać, milicja! O powieści kryminalnej w PRL by Dorota Skotarczak. This book, being a work of a historian, treats the milicja-novel as a specific historical source, transformations of which are a reflection of changes in the social and political environment of the Polish People’s Republic. The author of the paper suggests other methodological possibilities, showing via chosen examples, that using methods of literary studies, e.g. considering the category of the literary convention or the rhetorical formation of the discourse, allows one to find complete responses to many research questions. Considering the literary methods of forming the message can also prevent an oversimplified view of the milicja-novel as a historical source. As a conclusion, further research on this genre of popular literature is postulated, while the author considers an interdisciplinary approach, connecting methods of at least two sciences: history and literary studies, and additionally others (e.g. bibliology), to be the most appropriate.

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