Translating from monosemiotic to polysemiotic narratives: A study of Finnish speech and gestures

Human communication can be either monosemiotic or polysemiotic, depending on whether it combines ensembles of representations from one or more semiotic systems such as language, gesture and depiction. Each semiotic system has its unique storytelling potentials, which makes intersemiotic translation from one system to another challenging. We investigated the influence of the source semiotic system, realised in speech and a sequence of pictures, respectively, on the way the same story was retold using speech and co-speech gestures. The story was the content of the picture book Frog, Where Are You?. A group of Finnish speakers saw the story in pictures, and another group heard it in matched oral narration. Each participant retold the story to an addressee and all narrations were video-recorded and analysed for both speech and gestures. Given the high degree of iconicity in depiction, we expected more iconic gestures (especially enactments) in the narratives translated from pictures than in those translated from speech. Conversely, we expected greater narrative coherence in the narratives translated from speech. The results showed that more iconic gestures were produced in the narratives translated from speech, but these were primarily not from the enactment subtype. As expected, iconic enactments were more frequent in the narratives translated from the story presented in pictures. The narratives produced by participants who had only heard the story did not have a greater variety of connective devices, yet the type of devices differed slightly between the groups. Together with some additional differences between the groups that had not been anticipated, the results indicate that a story presented in different semiotic systems tends to be translated into different polysemiotic narratives.

La noción de "skaz" y la dimensión crítica del relato oral según Borís Éichenbaum

The notion of skaz and the critical dimension of oral narration in Boris EikhenbaumIn this paper we try to recover for contemporary critical debate the notion of skaz elaborated by literary theorist Boris Eikhenbaum. For this, we will study four different texts written between 1918 and 1925. In them we will try to appreciate an evolution that leads from a certain initial “essentialismˮ the voice as the hidden essence of the narrative to a much more historicist and relativist position, in which it is especially important how skaz appears and is combined with other techniques and procedures in each concrete literary context, in order to produce the effect of “deautomatisation.” In this way, it seems to us that the notion of skaz can still make a valid contribution in the ongoing discussions about the forms of oral transmission of literature, and its radical potential for resistance in contexts of cultural inequality and oppression.

Review of Kargashin, I. (2017). Russian poetic narrations in the 17th–21st centuries: Genesis. Evolution. Poetics. Moscow: Yazyki slavyanskoy kultury. 336 pages.

The review is concerned with detailed analysis of I. Kargashin’s monograph on Russian poetic narrations in the 17th–21st centuries. Normally applied to the epic genre, the concept of skaz [oral narration, tale] is extrapolated by the scholar to describe lyrical poetry. Hence the broad scope of issues discussed in the book: how accurately can the term be applied to lyrical works, since poetry is anti-narrative in its ‘pure form’? How can one structure the subjective sphere of poems, given that a skaz recreates a consciousness other than that of the author, unlike in lyrical poetry, where the author and the hero are inseparable? Following the questions, the scholar identifies typological characteristics of the examined phenomenon (appropriation of another’s consciousness, realization of this consciousness through a colloquial monologue, and depiction of the subject’s speech in verse), uncovers the reasons for its emergence (including ‘emancipation’ of the hero and transition to the spoken word), and traces its history and development.

Narração e Storytelling em Mysterious Object at Noon, de Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Este texto propõe uma leitura de Mysterious Object at Noon (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2000), considerando questões de narração suscitadas pelo lugar central que o ato de storytelling ocupa no filme. Equacionam-se problemas tais como a ausência de texto prévio (argumento) e a atribuição de ordem ao filme pela narração oral, in loco, como se este se escrevesse à medida que vai sendo contado. Atentar-se-á em como, estruturando-se deste modo, o filme reflete sobre a especificidade do cinema enquanto máquina narrativa.AbstractThis essay is a close analysis of Mysterious Object at Noon, directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, in which are considered questions of narration motivated by the central place the act of storytelling holds in the film structure. Problems such as the nonexistence of a script and the way the film seems structured by oral narration, in loco, as if the film were being written as it is told, will be analyzed. Finally, I describe how, through this structure, the film reflects upon the specificity of cinema as a way of telling/showing stories. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_1-2_4

Testing the Limits of Oral Narration: A Case Study of the Armenian Genocide

This paper incorporates mnemonic, oral-formulaic, and semantic theory to identify a clear, replicable pattern of tropes, memes, and 'phraseological units' in Armenian Genocide oral narratives. The paper is part of a larger project that aims to propose a new theory on the efficacy and structural value of memory-based storytelling and oral transmission.Cette communication incorpore des théories de la mnémonique, de l’oralité et de la sémantique afin d’identifier un ensemble de tropes, de mèmes et d’unités phraséologiques clairs et reproductibles dans le discours narratif oral relatif au génocide arménien. La communication s’inscrit dans un projet plus vaste qui cherche à proposer une nouvelle théorie sur l’efficacité et la valeur structurelle de l’histoire basée sur la mémoire et la transmission orale.