ROUTINE VS. ROUTINIZATION IN A. BIERCE’S STORY «AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL CREEK BRIDGE»

The article introduces a phenomenological approach to the analysis of A. Bierce’s story «An occurrence at Owl creek bridge». The category of routine is studied within the frames of Husserl’s interpretation of transcendental inter-subjectivity according to which «realized experience» is presented on two levels. The first is connected with a single flood of consciousness, and, to be more precise,with a possible perception of a single ego-subject. In the story it is Peyton Farquhar. The second represents the constructed unity of a higher level and is a multitude of subjects which are in a state of agreement and mutual understanding. These are soldiers and officers of the Unionist Army, who are involved into the procedure of a hanging which acquires the status of a ritualized routine, daily occurrence. Bierce’s approach to routinization of death is explicitly ironic. Irony is applied on both stylistic and linguistic levels. On linguistic level it is used as traditional incompatibility between what is said and what is meant. On stylistic one– it accentuates the contrast between textual reality and its possible perception by reading audience. This contrast is also revealed through the opposition of two temporal layers – physical and psychological. The first has system forming narrative function, and the latter – system differentiating one. These two levels have a cross-section – internal existential perception of time and space by the person condemned to the execution and his temporal victory over death. At the same time the narrative mechanism of probing deep into the main character’s state of mind is being analysed. This mechanism helps the writer to express implicitly his real attitude to this «occurrence», which reflected paradoxality of civil conflict. On the one hand, it is an attempt to routinize the execution of enemies, on the other, – futile desire to return to the routine.

Mythological Signification in Smetana’s Tábor and Blaník and its Implications on Personal Compositional Output

<p>The presented thesis is an examination of the mythology and literary narrative that is present within the two orchestral tone poems of Bedřich Smetana, Tábor and Blaník, and how ideas pertaining to the examination of Smetana’s compositions may be applied to my own compositional output. In my research, I propose potential source materials, and have a brief discussion about how literary narrative may be applied to musical narrative, particularly with compositions of the 19th century. In the analysis of Tábor and Blaník, I examine Smetana’s use of the chorale Kdož jsú Boží bojovníci and how he utilizes this chorale as the compositional foundation of both pieces, as well as looking at the musical elements and structure that combine to suggest narrative function being present within both compositions. The latter portion of my thesis contains an analysis of the compositions that I wrote throughout the course of my study that were inspired by, or were direct reflections of, issues and ideas that came up during the course of my research. All of my own compositions presented are based on ideas of mythology and the presence of a literary narrative. Accompanying this analysis, are copies of the scores of my compositions.</p>

Mythological Signification in Smetana’s Tábor and Blaník and its Implications on Personal Compositional Output

<p>The presented thesis is an examination of the mythology and literary narrative that is present within the two orchestral tone poems of Bedřich Smetana, Tábor and Blaník, and how ideas pertaining to the examination of Smetana’s compositions may be applied to my own compositional output. In my research, I propose potential source materials, and have a brief discussion about how literary narrative may be applied to musical narrative, particularly with compositions of the 19th century. In the analysis of Tábor and Blaník, I examine Smetana’s use of the chorale Kdož jsú Boží bojovníci and how he utilizes this chorale as the compositional foundation of both pieces, as well as looking at the musical elements and structure that combine to suggest narrative function being present within both compositions. The latter portion of my thesis contains an analysis of the compositions that I wrote throughout the course of my study that were inspired by, or were direct reflections of, issues and ideas that came up during the course of my research. All of my own compositions presented are based on ideas of mythology and the presence of a literary narrative. Accompanying this analysis, are copies of the scores of my compositions.</p>

The Language of Engagement and the Projection of Storyworld Possible Selves in Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives

In this contribution, María-Ángeles Martínez explores the language of engagement in a short extract from Los Detectives Salvajes (Roberto Bolaño, 1998) and its English translation, The Savage Detectives (2007) within the framework of storyworld possible selves (SPSs). Her analysis focuses on the first cluster of SPS linguistics anchors, or linguistic expressions requiring a hybrid mental referent, inclusive of an intra- and an extra-diegetic perspectivizer, in the novel, and discusses its bearing on storyworld possible selves projection and narrative construal. The main narrative function of this first SPS cluster seems to be to invite the activation of readers' past selves as young, restless university students as the part of their self-concepts with a stronger engagement potential in this specific narrative experience.

The narrative function of temporal signs: toward a semio-narratology approach

Both narrative semiotics and semio-narratology are concerned with the relationship between “history” and “structure,” and consequently the academic focus in these areas has shifted to time. Do “temporal signs” exist? How is time semiotized by signs in narration? How do the narrative functions of temporal signs work? This paper answers these questions and explores semio-narratology, in a break with the ahistorical discourses of narrative semiotics, by way of a detailed analysis of The True Story of Ah Q and other works of modern fiction.

The Influence of the Lotus Flower Theme on the Perception of Contemporary Urban Architecture

We live in the visual culture times, when images continuously and daily are transferring some information. A visual message is also an indispensable element of architecture, in the semantic layer as an aesthetic value, sometimes fulfilling a narrative function by means of a symbol, which is an international visual code. Most of the symbols, hidden in painting, sculpture, or architecture, are elements of nature. The article discusses examples of architecture whose form is based on a lotus flower. Unification of urban landscapes leads to a decrease in the value of aesthetic impressions; therefore, the unique architecture builds the unique identity of the place.

Calvin, Shakespeare, and Suspense

Calvin and Shakespeare both share an interest in the work of suspense; in the former case, as a feature of anticipating salvation (or not); in the latter, as a narrative function of a play’s conclusion. The mediation of Calvinist soteriology in England through the experimentalist thought of William Perkins links Shakespeare to Calvin, in a shared project of anticipating the future, an anticipation informed both by older providentialist models of probability (in which an ending simply confirms a prior pattern) and emergent models of statistical probability (in which the possibility of reversal of prior patterns exists). After an exploration of the logic of ending in Puritan deathbed accounts of Katherine Stubbes, the chapter concludes with a survey of the interplay of urgency and assurance in some of Shakespeare’s endings, those of King Lear and The Tempest in particular.

Learning to Use Narrative Function Words for the Organization and Communication of Experience

How do people learn to talk about the causal and temporal relations between events, and the motivation behind why people do what they do? The narrative practice hypothesis of Hutto and Gallagher holds that children are exposed to narratives that provide training for understanding and expressing reasons for why people behave as they do. In this context, we have recently developed a model of narrative processing where a structured model of the developing situation (the situation model) is built up from experienced events, and enriched by sentences in a narrative that describe event meanings. The main interest is to develop a proof of concept for how narrative can be used to structure, organize and describe experience. Narrative sentences describe events, and they also define temporal and causal relations between events. These relations are specified by a class of narrative function words, including “because, before, after, first, finally.” The current research develops a proof of concept that by observing how people describe social events, a developmental robotic system can begin to acquire early knowledge of how to explain the reasons for events. We collect data from naïve subjects who use narrative function words to describe simple scenes of human-robot interaction, and then employ algorithms for extracting the statistical structure of how narrative function words link events in the situation model. By using these statistical regularities, the robot can thus learn from human experience about how to properly employ in question-answering dialogues with the human, and in generating canonical narratives for new experiences. The behavior of the system is demonstrated over several behavioral interactions, and associated narrative interaction sessions, while a more formal extended evaluation and user study will be the subject of future research. Clearly this is far removed from the power of the full blown narrative practice capability, but it provides a first step in the development of an experimental infrastructure for the study of socially situated narrative practice in human-robot interaction.

Future or Movement? The L2 Acquisition of Aller + V Forms

This study aims to advance the understanding of the impact of the discursive context in the form-function mappings of aller + V forms by native speakers (NSs) and learners of French (NNSs), and to further knowledge about the developmental patterns of use of such forms at three proficiency levels (lower intermediate, upper intermediate, and advanced). While aller + V is often referred to as a periphrastic future form, i.e., a way to express temporal reference, it also takes a range of diverse semantic values (including spatial, aspectual, and modal values), and discursive functions. We therefore set out to examine data from a cross-sectional oral narrative and a longitudinal semi-guided interview task to find out to what extent aller + V forms are used by NSs and NNSs in a study abroad context. Our main results show that at lower intermediate level, spatial values dominate, while temporal and modal values emerge at upper intermediate and advanced levels. As regards the discursive functions of aller + V, learners make context appropriate choices (among others, narrative function in oral narratives, and stance-marking in interviews), but even at advanced level, their range of semantic values and discursive functions is more restricted than native speakers’.