Narrative and Discourse Semiotics: Methods and Practice: Methods and Practice

Author: Kurti
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-07-01
Features: This book serves as an introductory text on general issues in semiotics. It begins with a long preface by the French semiotician A.J. Greimas titled "Achievements and Hypotheses," which, on one hand, outlines the journey of semiotics since the rediscovery of Propp, and on the other hand, attempts to distinguish between the achievements of semiotics and the hypotheses and assumptions made in opening up new research paths, as well as the tricky problems it faces. The book starts by introducing basic concepts and culminates in a semiotic analysis of the story "Cinderella," combining theory and practice. The fundamental theoretical framework of the book draws from the research findings of Greimas and his collaborators, essentially compiling and elaborating on Greimas' theories and those of the entire "Paris School of Semiotics." Please read the excerpt: "Propp's Path" As the preface to an introductory book on general issues in semiotics, it is my intention, on one hand, to highlight the path taken since the rediscovery of Propp, and on the other hand, to clarify one of the most tricky problems while distinguishing between the achievements of semiotics and the hypotheses and assumptions made in opening up new research paths. 1. A critical examination of Propp's Morphology of the Folktale 1. The problem of descriptive speech acts We do not undervalue the importance of Propp's discoveries, but we should point out that his analytical results lack rigor in presentation and have obvious flaws. a) Like Propp, to say that storytelling is a succession of 31 functions (as stated in the original text) requires the prior determination of the concept of "function." Although we can take pride in the intuition that Propp regarded "function" as the "sphere of action" (sphère d'action) of characters, his descriptions of various functions often leave us confused: if "the hero's departure" can be seen as a "function" corresponding to a certain form of activity (activité formée), then "absence" cannot be said to represent an action (faire) but rather a state (état), and thus cannot be considered a function. As a result, when we consider Propp's list of function names, the impression is that in Propp's thought, these names are more used to summarize (résumer) the various variants (variantes) of stories and unify their meanings and various sequences (séquences) than to indicate the types of sequential activities that we can see stories as organized procedures.