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Actantial Model
__NOTOC__ In structural semantics, the actantial model, also called the actantial narrative schema, is a tool used to analyze the action that takes place in a story, whether real or fictional.Herbert 2006 ''Tools'', Ch.5, ''Origins and function''Herbert 2006 ''Actantial'' It was developed in 1966 by semiotician Algirdas Julien Greimas. The model considers an action as divided into six facets, called actants. Those actants are a combined framework inspired mainly between Vladimir Propp's and Étienne Souriau's actantial theories. Greimas took the term ''actant'' from linguist Lucien Tesnière, who coined the term in his discussion of the grammar of noun phrases.David Herman, Manfred Jahn, Marie-Laure Ryan (2005''Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory'' p. 574 Basic Summary Greimas actantial model distinguishes characters and action elements according to their function within the plot. The model differentiates between *Subject / Object *Helper / Opponent *Sender / Receiver * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Semantics
Structural semantics (also structuralist semantics) is a linguistic school and paradigm that emerged in Europe from the 1930s, inspired by the structuralist linguistic movement started by Ferdinand de Saussure's 1916 work "'' Cours De Linguistique Generale''" (A Course in General Linguistics).Geeraerts, D. (2009) Structuralist Semantics' in Geeraerts (2009) ''Theories of Lexical Semantics'' ch.2 Examples of approaches within structural semantics are Lexical field theory (1931-1960s), relational semantics (from the 1960s by John Lyons) and componential analysis (from the 1960s by Eugenio Coseriu, Bernard Pottier and Algirdas Greimas). From the 1960s these approaches were incorporated into generative linguistics. Other prominent developer of structural semantics have been Louis Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste, Klaus Heger, Kurt Baldinger and Horst Geckeler.Rastier, F. (1987) ''Sémantique interprétative'' (3rd edition 2009) Logical positivism asserts that structural se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Action (fiction)
Action fiction is a literary genre that focuses on stories that involve high-stakes, high-energy, and fast-paced events. This genre includes a wide range of sub-genres, such as spy novels, adventure stories, tales of terror and intrigue ("cloak and dagger") and mysteries. This kind of story utilizes suspense, the tension that is built up when the reader wishes to know how the conflict between the protagonist and antagonist is going to be resolved or what the solution to the puzzle of a thriller is. Genre fiction Action fiction is a form of genre fiction whose subject matter is characterized by emphasis on exciting action sequences. This does not always mean they exclude character development or story-telling. Action fiction is related to other forms of fiction, including action films, action games and analogous media in other formats such as manga and anime. It includes martial arts action, extreme sports action, car chases and vehicles, suspense action, and action co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storytelling
Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation or instilling moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative point of view. The term "storytelling" can refer specifically to oral storytelling but also broadly to techniques used in other media to unfold or disclose the narrative of a story. Historical perspective Storytelling, intertwined with the development of mythologies, predates writing. The earliest forms of storytelling were usually oral, combined with gestures and expressions. Some archaeologists believe that rock art, in addition to a role in religious rituals, may have served as a form of storytelling for many ancient cultures. The Australian aboriginal people painted symbols which also appear in stories on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semiotician
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, usually called a meaning, to the sign's interpreter. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can also communicate feelings (which are usually not considered meanings) and may communicate internally (through thought itself) or through any of the senses: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory (taste). Contemporary semiotics is a branch of science that studies meaning-making and various types of knowledge. The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications. Unlike linguistics, semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign systems. Semiotics includes t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algirdas Julien Greimas
Algirdas Julien Greimas (; born ''Algirdas Julius Greimas''; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France. Greimas is known among other things for the Greimas Square (''le carré sémiotique''). He is, along with Roland Barthes, considered the most prominent of the French semioticians. With his training in structural linguistics, he added to the theory of signification, plastic semiotics, and laid the foundations for the Parisian school of semiotics. Among Greimas's major contributions to semiotics are the concepts of isotopy, the actantial model, the narrative program, and the semiotics of the natural world. He also researched Lithuanian mythology and Proto-Indo-European religion, and was influential in semiotic literary criticism. Biography Greimas's father, Julius Greimas, 1882–1942, a teacher and later school inspector, was from Liudvinavas in the Suvalkija region of presen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actant
In narrative theory, actant is a term from the actantial model of semiotic analysis of narratives. The term also has uses in linguistics, sociology, computer programming theory, and astrology. In narratology Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1992), professor of semiotics, is widely credited with producing the actantial model in 1966. This model reveals the structural roles typically performed in story telling; such as "hero, villain (opponent of hero), object (of quest), helper (of hero) and sender (who initiates the quest)." Each of these roles fulfills an integral component of the story, or, narrative. Without the contribution of each actant, the story may be incomplete. Thus, an "actant" is not simply a character in a story, but an integral structural element upon which the narrative revolves. An actant can also be described as a binary opposition pairing, such as a hero paired with a villain, a dragon paired with a dragon-slaying sword, a helper paired with an opponent. Actantia ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (russian: Владимир Яковлевич Пропп; – 22 August 1970) was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analysed the basic structural elements of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible structural units. Biography Vladimir Propp was born on 29 April 1895 in Saint Petersburg to an assimilated Russian family of German descent. His parents, Yakov Philippovich Propp and Anna-Elizaveta Fridrikhovna Propp (née Beisel), were Volga German wealthy peasants from Saratov Governorate. He attended Saint Petersburg University (1913–1918), majoring in Russian and German philology.Propp, Vladimir. "Introduction." ''Theory and History of Folklore.'' Ed. Anatoly Liberman. University of Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. pg ix Upon graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and then became a college teacher of German. His ''Morphology of the Folktale'' was published in Russian in 1928. Althoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne Souriau
Étienne Souriau (; April 26, 1892 – November 19, 1979) was a French philosopher, best known for his work in aesthetics. Biography Son of Paul Souriau, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure and received his '' agrégation of philosophy'' in 1925. After teaching at the universities of Aix-en-Provence and Lyon he eventually became a professor at the Sorbonne, where he held a chair in aesthetics. He was the editor of the '' Revue d'esthétique'' and was elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1958. Recently, the works of Bruno Latour have reawoken interests on Souriau's oeuvre, specially his works on ontology and metaphysics regarding his theories of different modes of existence. Works * ''L'Abstraction sentimentale'', 1925 * ''L'Avenir de l'esthétique : essai sur l'objet d'une science naissante'', F. Alcan, Coll. « Biblio. de Philosophie Contemporaine », 1929 * ''L'Instauration philosophique'', 1939 * ''Les Différents modes d'existence, 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucien Tesnière
Lucien Tesnière (; May 13, 1893 – December 6, 1954) was a prominent and influential French linguist. He was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan on May 13, 1893. As a maître de conférences (senior lecturer) in University of Strasbourg (1924), and later professor in University of Montpellier (1937), he published many papers and books on Slavic languages. However, his importance in the history of linguistics is based mainly on his development of an approach to the syntax of natural languages that would become known as dependency grammar. He presented his theory in his book ''Éléments de syntaxe structurale'' (Elements of Structural Syntax), published posthumously in 1959. In the book he proposes a sophisticated formalization of syntactic structures, supported by many examples from a diversity of languages. Tesnière died in Montpellier on December 6, 1954. Many central concepts that the modern study of syntax takes for granted were developed and presented in ''Éléments''. For inst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noun Phrases
In linguistics, a noun phrase, or nominal (phrase), is a phrase that has a noun or pronoun as its head (linguistics), head or performs the same Grammar, grammatical function as a noun. Noun phrases are very common linguistic typology, cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently occurring phrase type. Noun phrases often function as verb Subject (grammar), subjects and Object (grammar), objects, as predicative expressions and as the complements of preposition and postposition, prepositions. Noun phrases can be embedded inside each other; for instance, the noun phrase ''some of his constituents'' contains the shorter noun phrase ''his constituents''. In some more modern theories of grammar, noun phrases with determiners are analyzed as having the determiner as the head of the phrase, see for instance Noam Chomsky, Chomsky (1995) and Richard Hudson (linguist), Hudson (1990). Identification Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semiotic Square
The semiotic square, also known as the Greimas square, is a tool used in structural analysis of the relationships between semiotic signs through the opposition of concepts, such as feminine-masculine or beautiful-ugly, and of extending the relevant ontology. The semiotic square, derived from Aristotle's logical square of opposition, was developed by Algirdas J. Greimas, a Lithuanian-French linguist and semiotician, who considered the semiotic square to be the elementary structure of meaning. Greimas first presented the square in ''Semantique Structurale'' (1966), a book which was later published as ''Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method'' (1983). He further developed the semiotic square with Francois Rastier in "The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints" (1968). Basic structure The Greimas square is a model based on relationships: *S1 = positive seme *S2 = negative seme *S = complex axis (S1 + S2) *~S = neutral axis (neither S1 nor S2) # The semiotic square is forme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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