Computing perspective shift in narratives

2021 ◽  
pp. 325-348
Author(s):  
Márta Abrusán
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse

Natural language allows changing the point of view in narrative texts without overt perspective-shifting operators. A well-known example of such a perspective shift is free indirect discourse. But how do hearers (readers) know that they need to change the point of view in the first place? And when there are reasons to believe that the point of view is not that of the narrator, how do they know whose perspective is being developed? These questions have been rarely addressed in the literature, with the notable exceptions of Wiebe (1990, 1994) and Hinterwimmer (2019). This chapter reviews these proposals, adds a few new observations about the importance of rhetorical structure, and proposes to incorporate all the previous insights into one unified framework.

Language shifts in free indirect discourse

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emar Maier
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Context ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Formal Semantic ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Direct Discourse ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Mixed Quotation

AbstractFree indirect discourse is a way of reporting what a protagonist thinks or says that is distinct from both direct and indirect discourse. In particular, while pronouns and tenses are presented from the narrator's perspective, as in indirect discourse, other indexical and expressive elements reflect the protagonist's point of view, as in direct discourse. In this paper I discuss a number of literary examples of free indirect discourse in which the narrator slips into the language, dialect or idiolect of the protagonist. I argue that the leading formal semantic analyses of free indirect discourse, which rely on semantic context shifting, fail to account for such language shifts. I then present an alternative account that treats free indirect discourse as a form of mixed quotation.

The ‘dual voice’ of free indirect discourse: a reading experiment

2007 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Bray
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Reading Process ◽  
Focused Attention ◽  
Cognitive Poetics ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Reading Experiment

The emergence of cognitive poetics has focused attention on how stylistic features are processed by readers. One area ripe for empirical investigation in this respect is point of view. Little attention has previously been paid in cognitive science to the specifics of how point of view is identified during reading. This essay reports on an experiment designed to examine how readers respond to a narrative style that has attracted a great deal of interest from both stylisticians and literary critics: free indirect discourse. The experiment tested two questions in particular: (1) Do readers hear a ‘dual voice’ when reading passages of free indirect discourse? and (2) What kind of ‘contexts’ influence the identification of point of view? Some critics have noted the importance of the preceding co-text in deciding whose point of view is present in ambiguous passages; this experiment suggests that the succeeding co-text might also be relevant. This in turn has implications for the flexibility of the reading process, especially when more than one point of view may be present.

The use of deictic reference in identifying point of view in Grazia Deledda’s Canne al Vento and its translation into English

Target ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Johnson
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Functional Model ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Grazia Deledda

Point of view in narrative has been identified in literary stylistics through the use of deixis, modality, transitivity and Free Indirect Discourse. These findings have also been applied to literature in translation (Bosseaux 2007). This article focuses on deictic cues in the narrative structure of Canne al Vento by Grazia Deledda in the original Italian and the English translation, following an earlier study focussing on constructing a particular point of view through mental processes of perception, the translation of which did not always reflect that point of view (Johnson 2010). Data emerging from a corpus-assisted study is examined qualitatively using a systemic-functional model in order to assess to what extent the point of view constructed by these cues in the ST is conveyed in the novel in translation.

Narrated perception revisited: The case of Jane Austen’sEmma

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Pallarés-García
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Narrative Technique ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Objective Fact ◽  
And Function

Jane Austen’s Emma (1816) is generally considered an ambiguous and unreliable narrative in terms of point of view (Morini, 2009: 53–57; Wallace, 1995: 77–97). These qualities are often attributed to the extensive use of free indirect discourse (Finch and Bowen, 1990: 5–6; Mezei, 1996: 72–75). This article aims to demonstrate that another narrative technique is also responsible for the ambiguity and unreliability of the novel. ‘Narrated perception’ (NP) portrays the sensory perceptions of a fictional character by describing events as they are experienced by that character (Fludernik, 1993: 305–309). NP has been pointed out by some critics to be a distinct narrative technique, but in general perception is included within the broader category of free indirect discourse (FID), and occasionally as an aspect of free indirect thought (FIT). This article suggests that there are some subtle differences between NP and FID/FIT, and thus it can be beneficial to examine NP separately. In fact, NP is frequently similar to pure narration in terms of form and function. As a case study, this article presents a stylistic analysis of a number of passages containing NP in Emma which do not typically feature in studies of FID/FIT. The analysis provides textual evidence of (1) the presence of Emma’s sensory perceptions within what looks like narration, (2) the close connection between perception, thought and emotion, and (3) the difficulty of distinguishing between perception and narration in some cases, which suggests the potential of NP to mislead the reader by presenting as a seemingly objective fact what later on turns out to be Emma’s mistaken assessment.

scholarly journals Derogatory terms in free indirect discourse

2021 ◽  
pp. 349-378
Author(s):  
Isidora Stojanovic
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Underlying Theory ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Mixed Quotation

Free indirect discourse (FID) is a style of reporting speech and thought that combines third-personal narration with direct, first-personal discourse. Expressive terms, such as “idiot” or “asshole”, are known to occur in FID. When so used, the pejorative content reflects the protagonist’s rather than the narrator’s point of view. This chapter broadens the discussion of derogatory terms in FID by investigating occurrences of slurring terms, such as the N-word. The two main approaches to FID, namely the two-context approach and the mixed-quotation approach, are discussed in light of these novel findings. The chapter shows that both are able to account for the data; however, the choice between them imposes constraints on the underlying theory of derogatory terms.

scholarly journals Preserved Perspective Taking in Free Indirect Discourse in Autism Spectrum Disorder

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliane T. Zimmermann ◽  
Sara Meuser ◽  
Stefan Hinterwimmer ◽  
Kai Vogeley
Keyword(s):  
Autism Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Spectrum Disorder ◽  
Grammatical Function ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Implicit Processing ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
High Level

Perspective taking has been proposed to be impaired in persons with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), especially when implicit processing is required. In narrative texts, language perception and interpretation is fundamentally guided by taking the perspective of a narrator. We studied perspective taking in the linguistic domain of so-called Free Indirect Discourse (FID), during which certain text segments have to be interpreted as the thoughts or utterances of a protagonist without explicitly being marked as thought or speech representations of that protagonist (as in direct or indirect discourse). Crucially, the correct interpretation of text segments as FID depends on the ability to detect which of the protagonists “stands out” against the others and is therefore identifiable as implicit thinker or speaker. This so-called “prominence” status of a protagonist is based on linguistic properties (e.g., grammatical function, referential expression), in other words, the perspective is “hidden” and has to be inferred from the text material. In order to test whether this implicit perspective taking ability that is required for the interpretation of FID is preserved in persons with ASD, we presented short texts with three sentences to adults with and without ASD. In the last sentence, the perspective was switched either to the more or the less prominent of two protagonists. Participants were asked to rate the texts regarding their naturalness. Both diagnostic groups rated sentences with FID anchored to the less prominent protagonist as less natural than sentences with FID anchored to the more prominent protagonist. Our results that the high-level perspective taking ability in written language that is required for the interpretation of FID is well preserved in persons with ASD supports the conclusion that language skills are highly elaborated in ASD so that even the challenging attribution of utterances to protagonists is possible if they are only implicitly given. We discuss the implications in the context of claims of impaired perspective taking in ASD as well as with regard to the underlying processing of FID.

Becoming-Animal Cinema Narrative

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Rothermel
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Mise En Scene ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Animal Perception ◽  
Film Language

This chapter connects distinctive animal territories to specific uses of film language through a series of case studies, most notably Robert Bresson’s Au hasard Balthazar (1966), Michelangelo Frammartino’s Le Quattro Volte (2011), Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse (2011), and Ang Lee’s Life of Pi (2012). Significantly, becoming-animal cannot be represented by conventional point-of-view and shot-reverse-shot editing (the structural mainstay of filmic suture), because it ties the animal to the conventional (and thus delimiting) human vectorial space of Deleuze’s action-image. Instead, inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini’s seminal essay, ‘The “Cinema of Poetry”’, the chapter notes that all four filmmakers resort to a form of free-indirect discourse, whereby animality fills up the film from the inside as formative of the representation rather than rendering the subject within the structure of representation. Not unlike T.S. Eliot’s objective correlative, where the character’s subjectivity is presented objectively in and through the mise-en-scène as well as individual focalisation (in this case the character is also on-screen), animal perception is able to be expressed by a form of camera self-consciousness, what Deleuze calls ‘cinema a special kind of cinema where the camera makes itself felt.

scholarly journals Two kinds of perspective taking in narrative texts

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hinterwimmer
Keyword(s):  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Doxastic State ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Finite Matrix ◽  
The Common

In this paper, I argue for the existence of two distinct kinds of protagonists’ perspective taking in narrative texts. The first, Free Indirect Discourse, represents conscious thoughts or utterances of protagonists and involves context shifting: All context-sensitive expressions with the exception of pronouns and tenses are interpreted with respect to the fictional context of some salient protagonist (Schlenker 2004; Sharvit 2008; Eckardt 2014, Maier 2015). The second, which I dub viewpoint shifting, does not necessarily represent conscious thoughts or utterances and it does not involve context shifting. Rather, a situation is described as it is perceived by a salient protagonist or in a way that reflects the doxastic state of such a protagonist, not with respect to the Common Ground (CG) of narrator and reader. While FID is only available at the root level, i.e. at the speech act level, viewpoint shifting is available at the level of finite matrix clauses.

Narrative and point of view

2021 ◽  
pp. 221-254
Author(s):  
Samuel Cumming
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse ◽  
Narrative Time

This chapter launches a simultaneous investigation of the conventions of temporal progression and subjective point of view in narratives. Historically, the two have been seen as mutually exclusive, as in Plato’s opposition of diegesis and mimesis, and Benveniste’s of histoire and discours. More recently, Mimo Caenepeel proposes, in the same vein, that subjective clauses of free indirect discourse do not (generally) advance narrative time, and suggests that this is because stative aspect, which does not (generally) induce a temporal update, is obligatory for clauses with a subjective point of view. The chapter will critically examine this interesting proposal.

Temporal relations of free indirect discourse events

Linguistics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakob Egetenmeyer
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Structure ◽  
Temporal Relations ◽  
Free Indirect Discourse ◽  
Indirect Discourse

Abstract In this article, we investigate the role free indirect discourse (FID) plays in temporal discourse structure. In contrast to the most widely accepted account of FID, which compares the content of FID to the surrounding content (two voices or two contexts), we take FID as a discourse entity and, thus, focus on the FID event. We follow a prominence-based approach to temporal discourse structure, through which we are able to describe the temporal relations the FID event maintains to the preceding and the following discourse in a precise manner. We can also account for the temporal developments that may be brought about by FID events. This becomes especially interesting in longer passages where FID events alternate with non-FID parts of discourse. The interaction involves the three levels which together make up our account of temporal discourse structure.

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