scholarly journals On literary narratives, fictionality, and the rules of conversation

Linguistica ◽  
1981 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 227-250
Author(s):  
Anna Buckett
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
Laurence Sterne ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Recent Developments

"Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I thirik mine is) is but a different name for conversation" - "thus Laurence Sterne in Trist Shandy ( 1767). Such statements provoke an examination of possible links between literary narratives and iinguistic models of oral communication. Recent developments in the field of pragmatics, in particular Speech Acts, Deixis and H. P.Grice's Logic and Conversation, provide concepts and structurai principles which could prove useful to literary criticism. This comment, for instance, by Roland Barthes might suggest the need to resort to the theory of deixis: Il ne peut y avoir de recit sans narratetir et sans auditeur.

New Work on Speech Acts

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
New Work ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Relationship

The essays collected in this book represent recent advances in our understanding of speech acts-actions like asserting, asking, and commanding that speakers perform when producing an utterance. The study of speech acts spans disciplines, and embraces both the theoretical and scientific concerns proper to linguistics and philosophy as well as the normative questions that speech acts raise for our politics, our societies, and our ethical lives generally. It is the goal of this book to reflect the diversity of current thinking on speech acts as well as to bring these conversations together, so that they may better inform one another. Topics explored in this book include the relationship between sentence grammar and speech act potential; the fate of traditional frameworks in speech act theory, such as the content-force distinction and the taxonomy of speech acts; and the ways in which speech act theory can illuminate the dynamics of hostile and harmful speech. The book takes stock of well over a half century of thinking about speech acts, bringing this classicwork in linewith recent developments in semantics and pragmatics, and pointing the way forward to further debate and research.

Milton in China ‘Yet Once More’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bing Yan
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Collaborative Context ◽  
Chinese Literary Criticism ◽  
Near Future

This chapter overviews Chinese reception of Milton, with an emphasis on some of the most well-known Chinese translations of Paradise Lost. Close readings of these translations against Milton’s original demonstrate the difficulties of and resolutions for rendering Milton’s verse specific to Chinese. The subsequent discussion of the paratexts accompanying Chinese translations and of ‘introduction to world literature’ series gives a sense of the collaborative context that has shaped and continues to shape today’s general reception of Milton in China. That politically charged reception, eager to view Milton’s Satan as the embodiment of the poet’s revolutionary spirit, also dominates some recent works of Chinese literary criticism. The chapter ends by conceding that, while Milton scholarship in China has been relatively univocal and is still young, recent developments in world literature promise that innovative and intriguing work on Milton can be expected from China in the near future.

On Not Being an Author: De Quincey's ‘Confessions’ and the Performance of Romantic Translatorship

Romanticism ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 262-271
Author(s):  
Brecht de Groote
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Thomas De Quincey ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Successes And Failures

Through his ‘Confessions of an English Opium-Eater’, Thomas De Quincey effects a meticulously crafted entrance onto the literary scene: less a series of confidential notes than a stage-managed performance, the ‘Confessions’ serve as a stage on which he announces his literary ambitions. One such set of performative acts has received little attention: it pertains less to establishing a ground from which to authoritatively create, than it does to laying down a structure through which to mediate. Acting on recent developments within literary criticism and translation studies, this article examines the ways in which the ‘Confessions’ launch their writer on a career in interlingual and intercultural transfer, and how this performance of minority is designed to operate alongside other Romantic writers. The article ponders the successes and failures of mediation on display in emblematic scenes, and attends to how these chart the uneasy relationship between authorship and translatorship.

scholarly journals Metaphysics, Universal Irony, and Richard Rorty’s “We Ironists”

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Timo Airaksinen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Richard Rorty ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
English Departments ◽  
Work And Life

Richard Rorty speaks of “we ironists” who use irony as the primary tool in their scholarly work and life. We cannot approach irony in terms of truth, simply because, due to its ironies, the context no longer is metaphysical. This is Rorty’s challenge. Rorty’s promise focuses on top English Departments: they are hegemonic, they rule over the humanities, philosophy, and some social sciences using their superior method of ironizing dialectic. I refer to Hegel, Gerald Doherty’s “pornographic” writings, and Gore Vidal’s non-academic critique of academic literary criticism. My conclusion is that extensive use of irony is costly; an ironist must regulate her relevant ideas and speech acts—Hegel makes this clear. Irony is essentially confusing and contestable. Why would we want to use irony in a way that trumps metaphysics? Metaphysics, as defined by Rorty, is a problematic field, but irony can hardly replace it. At the same time, I admit that universal irony is possible, that is, everything can be seen in ironic light, or ironized. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and criticize Rorty’s idea of irony by using his own methodology, that is, ironic redescription. We can see the shallowness of his approach to irony by contextualizing it. This also dictates the style of the essay.

scholarly journals Soziales System statt Ökosystem: Für eine gesellschaftstheoretische Grundierung des Ecocriticism

2010 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Hofer
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
German Literature ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Niklas Luhmann ◽  
Palabras Clave ◽  
Adequate Understanding ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Soziales System ◽  
Ecological Communication

Keywords: ökologisch orientierte Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft, gesellschaftstheoretische Grundierung, ökologische Kommunikation, diskurstheoretischer Ansatz, Niklas Luhmann, prekäre Erkenntnismöglichkeiten. Why has ecocriticism yet to gain recognition in German literature departments? One reason is that fundamental questions about literature as a form of ecological communication and its function in society have yet to be satisfactorily answered. Even significant recent developments in ecocritical theory like Zapf’s “Cultural Ecology” are problematic, inasmuch as they are based on an over-simplified conception of ecology and the harmony of ecosystems. A more robust theoretical grounding for ecocriticism can be found in social theory. Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory provides the theoretical framework for an adequate understanding of ecological crisis and of the role of literature and literary criticism in addressing it. Palabras clave: literatura ecológica y ciencias culturales, fundamentos de la teoría social, comunicación ecológica, principios de la teoría discursiva, Niklas Luhmann, precario descubrimiento de posibilidades ¿Por qué la ecocrítica todavía tiene que obtener reconocimiento en los departamentos de literatura Germánica? Una razón es que las preguntas fundamentales sobre la literatura como forma de comunicación ecológica y su función en la sociedad aún no han obtenido una respuesta satisfactoria. Incluso los desarrollos recientes en teoría ecocrítica como la “Ecología Cultural” de Zapf son problemáticos  en tanto que se basan en un concepto de ecología y en una armonía de los ecosistemas excesivamente simplificado. Puede encontrarse una base teórica más consistente para la ecocrítica en la teoría social. La teoría de sistemas de Niklas Luhmann proporciona el marco teórico para una interpretación adecuada de la crisis ecológica y del papel de la literatura y de la crítica literaria en su tratamiento de ésta

scholarly journals Resente Matteusnavorsing in Suid-Afrika

1994 ◽  
Vol 50 (1/2) ◽  
Author(s):  
H. J.B. Combrink
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
South African ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Sermon On The Mount ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
African Context ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Specific Contribution

Recent Matthean-research in South Africa This article deals with recent developments in Matthean research, mostly by members of the New Testament Society of South Africa. Initially, research on Matthew was influenced to a large degree by discourse analysis. Literary criticism and narratology also made an impact on this research, as well as speech-act theory, pragmatics and rhetoric. Social-scientific criticism also played a role, and the Sermon on the Mount has also been read as littérature engagée. Recently, the specific contribution of Matthew to the subjects of Theology and Ethics has also received attention. A growing sensitivity to the South African and the broader African context is also currently being seen..

scholarly journals Ideologie, ‘egte’ norme en literêre taalhandelinge

Literator ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 37-54
Author(s):  
M. Rossouw
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
South African ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Speech Act ◽  
Literary Text ◽  
Speech Act Theory ◽  
The Other ◽  
African Community ◽  
Ethical Norms ◽  
Different Levels

For many years text-immanent approaches to literature have dominated the scene of Afrikaans literary criticism. This article adds a voice to the ‘spontaneous' discourse in which ethical norms (especially socio-political guidelines), too, come into play when a literary text is studied. Since the context in which a text is written and read is of great importance in such an approach, speech act theory is used in order to determine the intentions (illocutions) of the writer in the texts, as well as the reactions (perlocutions) of readers to the text. The purpose of this is mainly to establish whether critique of ideology manifests itself in speech acts directed towards freedom and dignity for all people. On the other hand there may also be signs of unconscious ideological illocutions in the contradictions which occur within or between the different levels of communication (macro, meso and micro). These contradictions are related to socio-political contradictions which are repressed within the South African community. In order to illustrate this kind of approach, three novels of Etienne van Heerden are discussed, viz. Om te awol (1984), Toorberg (1986) and Casspirs en Campari's (1991).

scholarly journals Independent Infinitive in Directive Speech Acts for Direct Communication in the Polish Language and Its Equivalents in the French Language

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 77-97
Author(s):  
Joanna Górnikiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Speech Acts ◽  
Oral Communication ◽  
French Language ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Pragmatic Analysis ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
Functional Equivalent ◽  
Directive Speech Acts ◽  
The One ◽  
Directive Speech

This article discusses the Polish independent infinitive, which constitutes a predicate in imperative utterances, and its French functional equivalents. The analysis was conducted at two levels. In the first part, the author describes the independent infinitive in the Polish language referring to the Polish formal structural syntax (Saloni, Świdziński 2012). This is to determine which place is occupied by this unit in a sentence, both in relation to other uses of the infinitive and in comparison to other units with the function of a predicate in statements of the same modality. The French structural equivalent has been determined on the basis of the same criterion of syntax dependency. However, even though both languages have corresponding structures, they do not use them in the same way. Only in Polish it is possible to form sentences with infinitive predicates in the spoken language, in face-to-face conversation. What are the factors that favour choosing this form? The author answers this question in her semantic and pragmatic analysis, conducted in the methodological framework of speech act theory (Searle 1979, Vanderveken 1988). She presents imperatives as a class of speech acts, which are extensively developed and specifies those, which can be executed by means of utterances with infinitive predicates. Additionally, factors of social and psychological character have been taken into consideration, as those which favour selecting the discussed form. What structure constitutes its functional equivalent in the French language? An analysis of a body composed of examples originating primarily from dialogues in contemporary literary works and their approved translations has allowed, on the one hand, to confirm the intuitive belief that grammar forms perform this function, in face-to-face oral communication the French language has only the command mode forms (l’impératif in French). On the other hand, we can launch a discussion about possibilities to translate them into a language which does not allow for an analogous use of the available infinitive structure.

Barthes, Roland (1915–80)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Risser
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Close Association ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Dynamic Activity ◽  
Language And Culture

In the field of contemporary literary studies, the French essayist and cultural critic Roland Barthes cannot be easily classified. His early work on language and culture was strongly influenced by the intellectual currents of existentialism and Marxism that were dominant in French intellectual life in the mid-twentieth century. Gradually his work turned more to semiology (a general theory of signs), which had a close association with the structuralist tradition in literary criticism. In his later work, Barthes wrote more as a post-structuralist than as a structuralist in an attempt to define the nature and authority of a text. Throughout his writings Barthes rejected the ‘naturalist’ view of language, which takes the sign as a representation of reality. He maintained that language is a dynamic activity that dramatically affects literary and cultural practices.

R/M, 1953

Paragraph ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 67-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Bident
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Roland Barthes ◽  
Single Question

French literary criticism in the twentieth century is marked by two names: those of Roland Barthes andMaurice Blanchot. Each of them cut an individual path through the dense and variegated cultural terrain of their era, and few authors escaped their attention. Their paths generally ran in parallel, and they rarely opposed each other, yet their dialogue was never easy, and the impression remains that between them, there was never really a meeting of minds. Taking 1953 as a crucial year, this article will attempt to situate both the convergences and the divergences which mark their respective careers, by considering them in relation to a single question: that of the neuter.

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