Introduction to Literary and Cultural Studies, Stritzke

measurable time

subjective experience of time

Narration: focus on narrator=agent telling the story

homodiegetic narrator= double existence (narrating I, experiencing I) experiencing I is part of contenc as character

heterodiegetic narrator= only narrating I, tells story without being part of it, not one of the characters

texplicit/over= addresses reader directly, addresses himself as "I"

neutral/covert= doesn´t address reader or himself as "I"

Focalization: observer/perceiver/focalizer= agent perceiving the story

focalizer= subject of focalization  -->someone perceives, words of perceiption

focalized= object of focalization  -->someone or something is perceived

character focalizer= internal focalization, level of character -->charcter perceives

narrator focalizer= external focalization  -->narrator perceives

fixed focalization= only one character becomes agent of perceiption

variable/multiple focalization

psycho narration, free-indirect discourse, interior monolog

psycho narration: narrator is reporting thoughts --> he thought, she thought

free-indirect discourse: tries to imitate subjectivity of character -->!?...  loose syntax

interior monlog: tries to imitate thoughts of character without narrator present  --> no verbs of thinking ot feeling

primary text: meant to be spoken secondary text:gives necessary information

open action: scenic presentation on stage

hidden action: spatially and temporally  through hidden action we learn more about characters

spatially: something happens simoultaneously but we don´t see it

temporally: what happens before or in between acts

a succession of remarks and counterremarks between two or more characters

the convention of a character thinking aloud on stage

monological aside: character voices thoughts in a way only the audience undertsands

dialogical aside: a group of characters conduct a conversation in whsiper

aside ad spectatores: a character addresses a comment directly at the audience

characters speak for themselves, there is no mediation needed. in aside ad spectatores you create the mediating level and in a monolog you compensate the mediating level

in the performance in a theatre we have verbal (dialog, monolog, aside) as well as non-verbal modes of communication

non-verbal modes: acoustic dimension -->ring of phone, voices

                                   optical dimension -->facial expressions, age,appearance

                                   other modes of sensory perceiption --> temperature, vibration, smell

-therefore it is a multimedial form of presentation

-in a written text we do not have non-verbal modes of communication, we only have verbal modes of communication.

The literary system can be described schematically as a network of relations consisting not only of literary texts, but also of the people that produce, mediate, read and process these texts, including authors, publishers, readers and critics.

A society with a specific mentality based on a civilisation

"subject domain" includes author, readers, critics, publisher and literary texts. These 5 factors build up our subject domain or field of inquiry.

The 3 dimensions of culture as introduced by Posner are:

social dimension: refers to individual sign users, to a community and all sign useres and decoders

mental dimension: refers to the mindset, mentality, mentefacts and conventionalized codes

material dimension: refers to all kinds of artefacts of the society

The dimensions are interlinked

Semiotics is the discipline that deals with the structure and use of signs in a general sense. It examins sign processes (semiosis) of all kinds.

Paradigm: is the axis of selection. Whenever we speak we choose from the paradigm. refers to relationship between linguistic levels

Syntagma: is the axis of combination. Utterance we make, refers to relations to contiguity

A sign is a combination of signifier and signifien (Saussures Model)

At the beginning of the 20th century general scepticism towards language arose. The linguistic turn powerfully is recognized in Saussures Model, who says that the relation between signifiér and signifiént is arbitrary. The linguistic turn is seen as a paradigm shift.

Before the linguistic turn language was not to be questioned and language was seen as a reliable tool to analyze surroundings.

Interactive way of communicating.

expressive function, appelative function, referential function, phatic function, metalingual function, poetic function

expressive: addresser

appelative: addresse

referential: subject/issue

phatic: channel of communication

metalingual: linguistic code

poetic: the message itself

in every speech act these functions are involved but one is always the predominant one

textual communication is: unidirectional, author and reader are not present at the same time, text becomes only link between addresser and addresse, there is a time lag between production and receiption

broad definition: anything that is written is literature, entire corpus of written and printed works

narrow definition:  in order to reach an adequate definition of the subject-matter, we need reliable criteria which allow us to differentiate between literary-texts and non-literary-texts.

certain criteria to define literature are needed --> working definiton

no claim for truthfulness, ambiguity and fictionality

no claim for truthfulness: referential texts claim to be true and they pretend to have a direct reference to reality

                                               if literary texts are not truthful, they are fictional

fictionality: signals of fictionality

                      textual --> within the text, part of the content

                      paratextual --> features literally related to the text but not part of content (genre, name of author)

                      contextual --> context in which text is represented (library section)

ambiguity: literature is ambiguis, it leaves room for interpretaion

                    language use within text makes literature ambiguis --> connotative language use in literature

signals of fictionality are all those signs that indicate something to be fictional.