Semiótica

Retropost (2007): Linguistics and Persuasive Communication

The XIV Susanne Hübner international seminar, "Linguistics and persuasive communication", will take place in Zaragoza,14-17 November 2007.

CALL FOR PAPERS:

The XIV Susanne Hübner international seminar (Department of English and German philology, University of Zaragoza, Spain), will welcome paper proposals in the traditional disciplines of linguistics as well as in neighbouring disciplines insofar as these are deemed to be of interest to linguists and students of natural language.

With Plenary lectures and papers as its main Scientific Events, this international seminar aims to focus on the ways in which Linguistics and persuasive communication matter in the realms of language, higher education, literature and the arts, culture, history and sociology, etc., transnationally and globally.

The following list of topics (proposals for 20 minute papers) is meant to be suggestive rather than restrictive; we welcome inter/transdisciplinary proposals:

- Linguistics and linguistic diversity.

- Cognitive linguistics and higher education (language as an instrument for
organizing, processing and conveying information in the context of the European
Space for HE).

- Linguistics and ESP (English for specific purposes)

- Linguistics and literature,

- Linguistics, media and arts

- Applied Linguistics

- Rethinking persuasive communication (does rhetoric face new challenges in the 21st century?).

- Cultural production and persuasive communication (literature, film, visual art, performance, music, blog-culture, web-art, etc.).

- Persuasive communication, language learning and language acquisition.


We welcome proposals for 20 minute papers -with a 150-word abstract  (including 3-5 keywords).

DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: 29 April 2007.

Further details

Scientific committee:

Professor Jane Arnold (University of Sevilla-Spain)
Professor Francisco Fernández (University of Valencia-Spain).
Dr José Ángel García Landa (University of Zaragoza-Spain).
Professor John Joseph (University of Edinburgh-UK)
Dr Purificación Ribes (University of Valencia-Spain).

Opening lecture: "English Lexicology & Lexicography Today: The heritage of 20th century linguistics", by Professor F. Fernández (University of Valencia-Spain).

Registration Fees:

Deadline for payment of registration fee is July 5, 2007

Participants:  70 Euros (90 Euros beyond the deadline for payment)

Students:  25 Euros (30 Euros beyond the deadline for payment)

XIV Susanne Hübner international seminar, "Linguistics and persuasive
communication" Key Dates:

Deadline for submission of paper abstracts is 29 April 2007 (to be sent to [e-mail])
Notification of acceptance will be sent by June 30, 2007
Deadline for payment of registration fee is July 5, 2007
Deadline for receipt of full papers is September 3, 2007
Seminar starts/finishes: 14-17 November 2007.

For further details, please contact the organizing committee:

Dr Marta Conejero López (coordinator),
[e-mail]
Department of English and German Philology,
University of Zaragoza (Spain).
C/. Pedro Cerbuna, 12. 50009 Zaragoza (Spain).

Netiqueta, Cortesía, Estrategia y Sabiduría

—oOo—

El ojo y el microscopio (Lingüística y Filosofía del lenguaje)

miércoles, 22 de marzo de 2017

El ojo y el microscopio (Lingüística y Filosofía del lenguaje)

 

Narrations linguistiques et mentales

Narrations linguistiques et mentales

 

 

 

(Jérôme Dokic)







CRAL  (EHESS, Paris)

Colloque "Arts, littérature et sciences sociales" 20 juin 2015
(à l’occasion du 40e anniversaire de l’EHESS)

Art et cognition :
Jérôme Dokic : Narrations linguistiques et mentales : perspectives croisées
Denis Laborde : La Musique au pluriel : enquête sur l'institution des catégories
Claude Calame : Création poétique et savoir partagé : pragmatique des formes poétiques grecques

Si les sciences humaines et sociales se sont constituées en s'arrachant à la littérature, celle-ci est devenue, tout comme l'art, la musique, le théâtre et le cinéma, à la fois une source et un objet à part entière de l'histoire, de la sociologie, de l'anthropologie, de la philosophie, du droit, voire de l'économie, qui dialoguent plus ou moins avec les disciplines spécialisées dans ces domaines, à savoir les études littéraires, l'histoire de l'art, la musicologie, les études théâtrales et cinématographiques. Mais l'apport des arts et de la littérature aux sciences humaines et sociales ne se limite pas à leur usage comme source ou leur constitution comme objet. Ils contribuent à structurer notre perception, nos catégorisations cognitives et nos valeurs, donc notre connaissance du monde et nos formes de vie. A l'inverse, les arts et la littérature n'ont cessé de se nourrir des sciences humaines et sociales. L'EHESS a joué et joue encore aujourd'hui un rôle pivot dans ce dialogue interdisciplinaire. Son anniversaire est l'occasion de dresser un état des lieux des acquis de ce dialogue.

The Body in the Mind

The Body in the Mind (a book by Mark Johnson)

 

Estratificación del texto narrativo

Estratificación del texto narrativo

 

El análisis de los estratos del texto narrativo una cuestión de fenomenología discursiva, o de narratología estructural, que arranca de Aristóteles o Platón, arrastrándose a través de la poética medieval y neoclásica, para desarrollarse más en los formalistas alemanes y rusos y en fenomenólogos de la literatura como Roman Ingarden. También yo le dediqué atención en Acción, Relato, Discurso, y en escritos preliminares, anejos y derivados de mi tesis, como Narrative Theory o Structural Narratology.

Un par de ellos me cita este artículo de la Revista de Literatura del CSIC, que vuelve sobre la cuestión con nuevas aportaciones:

José R. Valles Calatrava (Universidad de Almería) “Hacia una nueva propuesta teórica de sistematización de los estratos del texto narrativo. : Fábula, trama y  relato como planos funcional, actuacional y discursivo.” Revista de Literatura (Instituto de Lengua, Literatura y Antropología, CSIC)  vol. LXXVIII, no. 156 (julio-diciembre 2016), págs. 345-367.

doi: 10.3989/revliteratura.2016.02.014

En red en Ebsco.

PDF en el sitio de la revista en el CSIC.

http://revistadeliteratura.revistas.csic.es/index.php/revistadeliteratura/article/download/392/407

—oOo—

Retropost (2007): Implied Author(s) in Film and Literature

Lunes 26 de febrero de 2007

Implied author(s) in film and literature

My reply to a question in the Narrative-List (from Ellen Peel, San Francisco State University) concerning the possibility of multiple implied authors in film and fiction:

On the issue of implied authors in film / novel:

Perhaps two separate issues need clarification.

1) If the implied author is taken to be an interpretive construct, and is as such dependent on a reader's construction of the text, it is of course to be expected that different readers may construct different implied authors (or different implied authorial values, attitudes, etc.). That would seem to apply to both written fiction and film.

2) Perhaps the term is not ideal for use in film studies, given that it is an import from literature, and is as such tailor-made for the standard literary situation in fiction, that is: a text as the product of an individual author. That said, there may be much more common ground than this would lead us to assume, in particular in marginal or non-standard cases: auteur film, pseudonymous multi-authored novels, etc.

As to myself, I think that "showing" (a story, values, etc.) the way a film does may be more conducive to multiple constructions of intent, value, etc.; and that would seem to provide a rationale for "multiple implied authors" as in (1) above. But a given interpretation of an individual case need not assume multiple implied authorship in the sense of a multiplicity or indeterminacy of authorial stance, implied values, political outlook, etc . "Collaborative authorship" is quite a different problem—though not without interesting connections with this issue, I should say.

Among the replies, Marie-Laure Ryan wrote:

> The posts on the implied author in film seem to take it for granted that the notion of implied author is essential to the understanding of verbal narrative; but in fact its theoretical necessity is far from established. See the entry "implied author" in the Routledge Encylopedia of Narrative, as well as the recent book by Tom Kindt and hans Harald Mueller, The Implied Author: Concept and Controversy," Berlin: Walter De Gruyter 2006.

My reply to the list (Feb. 27):

There is much debate on the implied author, to be sure. The argument that we need to get rid of "anthropomorphic" concepts in textual analysis has alwas struck me as a surprising one, though, given that only anthropomorphic creatures communicate through texts.

As to the Routledge Encyclopedia article on the matter, it concludes that it is a problematic concept which continues to generate controversial debate, which is probably true. On the way, though, the article seems to take for granted a definition of the implied author as "a 'voiceless' and depersonified phenomenon . . . which is neither speaker, voice, subject, nor participant in the narrative communicative situation" —which does not seem to have much to do with Booth's original notion. The implied author should be understood as a communicative textual voice: the one responsible for the text as a whole, as an intentional communicative (and rhetorical, and artistic) construct. The implied author is far from silent: s/he speaks using the protocols and conventions of literary and narrative communication—and this does not seem to be part of the assumptions of many of the critics of the concept. No wonder such a concept (of their own making, I should say) will appear to be controversial or problematic!

On the other hand, film, while being a narrative phenomenon, cannot be reduced to a linguistic communicative situation. And that may account for some of the problems which crop up when the concept of the implied author is applied to film. There is much common ground, but also some significant differences.

The conversation goes on...  Marie-Laure RYAN writes:

> When I was young and gullible and soaked up the theory of the day uncritically, I did not dare use the a-word “author” in my papers for fear of being laughed at as hopelessly naive: haven’t Barthes and Foucault convincingly demonstrated that the author is dead? Isn’t intention a fallacy and shouldn’t the text be a self-enclosed system of meaning? Whenever I had to mention the author, I prefixed the a-word with “implied” and that was much more respectable. Yet, I don’t see why I cannot attribute intents/beliefs/values to the author(s) rather than to a mysterious “implied” double of the author. Sure, the author as I imagine him/her is my own construction, but do I imagine a human being who writes a text, or do I imagine an abstract theoretical entity whose sole reason to exist is to prevent the real author from expressing opinions? Is it illicit to ask questions about what the author might have meant when reading a text? And is it illicit to use one’s knowledge about biographical authors and what one knows of their other works when interpreting a text? When I say that in the late works of Camus there is a mystical trend that is not present in the earlier works, am I speaking of an “implied” or am I attributing a change in world-view to Camus himself? And finally, about the anthropomorphic question: if I attribute belief, intents, values, etc. to an author, whether implied or real, then of course this will be an anthropomorphic construct. Pure theoretical constructs do not have a mental life.
>
> As for language-dependency: I think that narration is a verbal act, so I would get rid of the concept of narrator in any mimetic form of narrative (drama, film, compute games) and retain it for the diegetic forms. It is perhaps unfortunate that our field of narratology developed as the study of literary narrative and is burdened with terms that presuppose language. In fact, even ordinary language does: one speaks of storytelling. So it seems natural to ask: who tells? But what would narratology be like if instead of story-telling one spoke of story-showing, which is much more appropriate for film and drama?
> If there are narrators in fim, besides the source of voiced-over narration, are there narrators in drama, and who are they?


Answer:

Dear Marie-Laure: more views on the implied author...

- Yes, one may attribute values, a world-view, etc., to the author; only, insofar as you are doing that on the basis of a given work, you are attributing them to the implied author of a work. In many contexts there is no practical sense in differentiating the two, but sometimes you do need the implied author: if a socialist writer is forced to write conservative pamphlets, say, for his job, then you need to differentiate the ideology of the writer of those pamphlets (an implied author, possibly a pseudonymous or anonymous writer or a ghost-author) from the person who holds other beliefs in other contexts and perhaps in other works.

- And, as to narration: VERBAL narration is a verbal act, but narration in images, in choreographed action-verbal or otherwise-as in drama, is not a verbal act, it is a compositional act. If the net result is a narrative, though (in the extended sense of "a sequential representation of a sequence of actions, etc.") it makes some sense to speak of the act of composition as a narrative act, even though the term "narration" does create some confusion. Anyway, there is lot of verbal storytelling in drama and in film, but what makes these genres central to narratology is not that verbal storytelling they include: it is, rather, the fact that dramatic and cinematic composition is a narrative act (though not a verbal act).

PS: In early March, the debate goes on. In a message I've lost, M.-L. Ryan notes that narratologists do not usually include in their toolkit both the author and the implied author, and that in any case they do not use the implied author in order to explain such cases as unreliable narration, etc. In her example, although Booth would interpret the implied author of A Modest Proposal to be an ironist rather than an advocate of cannibalism, this is not the use which is made of the concept nowadays: narratologists would assume the implied author is in favour of eating babies... My answer:

Dear Marie-Laure:

- It is perhaps the case that some (or many) narratologists do not use the concept of implied author to analyze such cases as unreliable narrators, ghost writing, etc. Well, I don't think such analyses can go very far, for they would lack an essential concept. Which is in any case no more than a tool, to be used in practical analysis of a given text as flexibly as necessary. But sometimes you just need a monkey wrench, or whatever: in literature, you need implied authors all the time. Which shouldn't lead us to forget real authors: if narratologists (not me!) do that all the time, bad for them. Such narratological analyses will be restricted to a predefined set of laboratory phenomena, and will not deal with the actual dynamics of communication.

As to the Swift example: that would be, for Booth, the standard case in which we need to use the concept of an implied author. Of course someone may interpret that the implied author is advocating cannibalism... but that would be a misreading of the text, one which of course Swift invites in order to let his audience classify themselves between those who know how to read and those who don't... but I shouldn't expect narratologists to fall in the second group!

Dear Jose,
Back from a short trip, this explains why I haven't posted on the list. A few thoughts on the implied author: if the implied author of "A Modest Proposal" is NOT the one who advocates Cannibalism, as I thing Booth would say, what are we going to call the one who advocates cannibalism? For surely they should be differentiated. But if we do differentiate them, we add one more entity to that already cumbersome model of author-implied author-??-narrator.
My stance of this is as follows: ALL utterances--whether literary or not, fictional or not--have an implied speaker  and a real speaker. The implied speaker is the one who fulfills the felicity conditions of the speech act taken literally. It is the speaker in Swift who advocates cannibalism. This implied speaker never lies, never uses irony or sarcasm. Then there is the real speaker, constructed by the hearer on the basis of the content of the utterance, the context, what he knows about the personality of the speaker and his intent in producing the speech act. Of course this speaker is inferred--we cannot read minds--but this speaker is assumed to be a real person. Sometimes the implied speaker and the real speaker differ, sometimes they do not. They differ not only in the case of irony and lie, but also in the case of incompatence: "I know what you mean, even though it's not what you said."
In literature--fiction, to be more precise--we add a narrator.  The narrator tells the story as true, while the author does not. That's why we need the concept of narrator even in 3rd person. But why do we need to add the concept of an implied author who is neither the narrator not the real author? Is the implied author specific to literature? To fiction? Do we need him in a biography of Napoleon?
I said above we need an implied speaker in ordinary language to distinguish lie from sincere language and irony from literal language. It would seem then that we need him in fiction too, since such ways of speaking do occur in novels. But it seems to me that there is no need to add an implied author: irony and lies and unreliability can be attributed to the narrator. But narrator's irony can be transferred to author when narrator is not an individuated human being. So my model of what the reader needs to imagine goes like this:
1 Author(what author means)--2 Narrator (what narrator means)--3 Implied narrator (what narrator says literally), with 1 and 2 collapsing in non-fiction, and 2 and 3 collapsing  in straighforward expression.
The concept of imnplied author would only be useful if it were potentially distinct from real author AND the reader would be able to judge the difference, but since advocates of the implied author forbid attributing any belief and intent to the real author, the notion becomes totally non-operational.
I guess my main gripe about much of what is done in narratology is that it is trying to complicate rather than simplify things and does not adhere to the principle of Ockham's razor. The implied author, to me, is a hedge that critics use to avoid committig themselves to saying anything about the authoir. And yet, critical literature is full of "Austen tells us that", "Sartre teaches us that," etc. Is there something to be gained by outlawing these expressions?
The whole discussion of the number of implied authors in film takes the theory to its absurd limits! Will we some day have multiple unreliable implied authors in painting?
Cheers
Marie-Laure

Dear Marie-Laure,
I hope you've had a nice trip. And thanks for answering in such detail to my ruminations: if you don't mind an additional spell of intellectual ping-pong, I'll answer back between the lines:

> Dear Jose,
> Back from a short trip, this explains why I haven't posted on the list. A few thoughts on the implied author: if the implied author of "A Modest Proposal" is NOT the one who advocates Cannibalism, as I thing Booth would say, what are we going to call the one who advocates cannibalism? For surely they should be differentiated. But if we do differentiate them, we add one more entity to that already cumbersome model of author-implied author-??-narrator.

Well, as I take it, we would call the one who advocates cannibalism "the narrator" or perhaps "the speaker" since this is not a narrative proper. And the one who doesn't, the implied author. Whom we know as Swift, or rather, Swift-in-his-text. Should Swift have advocated cannibalism in his final madness, that would be a matter relevant to the biographical author, not to the implied author of this text. Anyway, we are constructing, perhaps, a simplified model of Swift's irony here, for the sake of the argument, because the actual Modest Proposal, or Gulliver, or any other text by Swift, exhibit ambiguities and imperceptible transitions between voices which would need to be analysed in greater detail.

> My stance of this is as follows: ALL utterances--whether literary or not, fictional or not--have an implied speaker  and a real speaker. The implied speaker is the one who fulfills the felicity conditions of the speech act taken literally. It is the speaker in Swift who advocates cannibalism. This implied speaker never lies, never uses irony or sarcasm. Then there is the real speaker, constructed by the hearer on the basis of the content of the utterance, the context, what he knows about the personality of the speaker and his intent in producing the speech act. Of course this speaker is inferred--we cannot read minds--but this speaker is assumed to be a real person. Sometimes the implied speaker and the real speaker differ, sometimes they do not. They differ not only in the case of irony and lie, but also in the case of incompatence: "I know what you mean, even though it's not what you said."

I agree, of course, though there are some terminological problems. In your account here, the "implied speaker" of an ironic utterance is not using irony (Swift's cannibal), while the "real speaker" of an ironic utterance is the ironist (Swift). The problem is that (as you stated before concerning the differences with Booth's usage) your "implied" refers to the level would call the (unreliable) narrator, and your "real" refers to Booth's implied plus real author. This is understandable, because any speaker/writer is "implied" in his text: the cannibal in his cannibalistic text, and the ironist in his ironic text, when read as irony.

> In literature--fiction, to be more precise--we add a narrator.  The narrator tells the story as true, while the author does not. That's why we need the concept of narrator even in 3rd person. But why do we need to add the concept of an implied author who is neither the narrator not the real author? Is the implied author specific to literature? To fiction? Do we need him in a biography of Napoleon?

Not specific to literature; this is a matter of general communication, especially writing. In a biography of Napoleon? Well... perhaps. It depends on what you are trying to do. If you are comparing the author-in-the-text (implied author) to another expression or text of the same author, you might need to distinguish the author you construct on the basis of this text from the one you construct on the basis of his journalistic articles, etc.

> I said above we need an implied speaker in ordinary language to distinguish lie from sincere language and irony from literal language. It would seem then that we need him in fiction too, since such ways of speaking do occur in novels. But it seems to me that there is no need to add an implied author: irony and lies and unreliability can be attributed to the narrator.

OK, fictional narrators can do anything authors can do (since fictional narrative may be motivated as fictional authorship). But in order to interpret unreliability, you need to contrast the unreliable narrator (e.g. Jason in The Sound and the Fury) with someone who holds a reliable moral (intellectual, etc.) position: and that is the author. The author-in-the-text, as you construct his position, that is, the implied author. ("Faulkner", for Booth). If you're a good reader, you don't read Jason's text as being endorsed by the author, you read an implied evaluation between the lines. And insofar as that is a textual, implied, constructed position, we're speaking of an implied author, irrespective of our knowledge of other Faulkner texts or anything about Faulkner as a person ("the real author") apart from this novel.

> But narrator's irony can be transferred to author when narrator is not an individuated human being. So my model of what the reader needs to imagine goes like this:
> 1 Author(what author means)--2 Narrator (what narrator means)--3 Implied narrator (what narrator says literally), with 1 and 2 collapsing in non-fiction, and 2 and 3 collapsing  in straighforward expression.
> The concept of imnplied author would only be useful if it were potentially distinct from real author AND the reader would be able to judge the difference, but since advocates of the implied author forbid attributing any belief and intent to the real author, the notion becomes totally non-operational.

But it is potentially distinct from the implied author, there are many possible examples in which it is not only operational, but necessary. Unwanted juvenilia. Recantations. Conversions. Etc.—to take just one possible line of difference.  I don't know about "advocates of the implied author", but Booth, in Critical Understanding, often contrasts the implied author in a given work and the author in other works or communicative interactions. And me too!

> I guess my main gripe about much of what is done in narratology is that it is trying to complicate rather than simplify things and does not adhere to the principle of Ockham's razor.

But sometimes we need to multiply the entities in order to deal with a complex case, because in verbal art, art consists in a multiplication of such levels of utterance. So, I'm all for simplification, but where it is advisable, or possible, one should not simplify one's toolkit so that an essential tool is missing. BTW, I read the other day an interesting paper (almost a hundred years old) on Ockham's razor: I'm enclosing it in case you feel curious about it.

> The implied author, to me, is a hedge that critics use to avoid committig themselves to saying anything about the authoir. And yet, critical literature is full of "Austen tells us that", "Sartre teaches us that," etc. Is there something to be gained by outlawing these expressions?
I'm not at all for outlawing. Rather, we need to speak of the author as a figure in the text, the "implied author" and as someone who has designed (not always in a fully conscious or controlled way) the appearance and features of such a figure, and that would be "the author". The one who is bored to death with writing potboilers is also the author, not the implied author!
> The whole discussion of the number of implied authors in film takes the theory to its absurd limits! Will we some day have multiple unreliable implied authors in painting?

Hahah! well you never know! That's beyond myself for the moment, though. As to film, yesterday I read at the end of the credits in a theater, "Columbia Pictures is the Author of this film"... so yet one more candidate, and an authoritative one!  Cheers! JOSE ANGEL

Anyway, we both stood our ground in the end.
Thus far narrativeness or narrativity... Now for literariness. Fatemeh Nemati writes:

> Dear members of Narrative group
> Narratives told everyday everywhere by everyone are much similar to literaray narratives. It seems that they follow the same principle of representing the world. What makes the difference between a literary and a non-literary narrative if they are alike in every aspects of representing experiences of the real world? What happens to a narrative when it is branded as literary in contrast to non-literary? Do they differ in the meaning they convey or the way they convey it? Is it fictionality that promotes a narrative to the status of being literary rather than non-literary? Is it a magical transformation? How do you recognize that this narrative is literary rather than non-literary? are there yardsticks to measure it or are we again to depend on our intuition? What is the elixir that causes a narrative to transcend beyond the mundane reality, to enter the world of literature? I'm so perplexed that i feel i will die in the maze if nobody comes to my help. Kind regards
> Nemati

Dear Nemati:
I agree there is much common ground, certainly, between everyday conversational storytelling and literary narratives. In the last analysis, literary narrative derives from such oral stories. So there is in fact a continuum between literary and non-literary narratives. And what makes a story more or less literary (I would like to emphasize the "more or less", because it is not a matter of either/or, but a question of degree, context, etc.), what makes a story more or less literary is in part the use it is put to, and in part whether it shares a number of characteristics, none of which is in itself determinant. For instance, you mention fictionality, and well, yes, there is much common ground between literature and fiction, and a fictional conversational story would rate in principle as more "literary" than an instrumental one (conveying practical information, for instance). There are many other such parameters: whether a story has a status as a cultural icon or reference point (e.g. classical historical works, which nevertheless are supposed to be "factual"). Whether we are focusing on the story for the sake of narrative pleasure, and not for practical information. Whether the story uses language in a distinct, creative, rhetorically effective way. Whether it is tellable, repeatable... Whether it is written using literary conventions, and published as "literature". Etc. As I say, I see this as a number of criss-crossing parameters, none of which determines whether a story is to count as literary. The context of use is all-important. And the story's story: some stories are born literary, some become literary, and some have literariness thrown upon them!


Robert Scholes wrote:

The literary vs. non-literary distinction has nothing to do with fictional vs. real.  It has to do with highbrow narrative vs. low-brow narrative, the stuff in "little" magazines vs. the stuff in "pulps," for example.

The distinction was used to distinguished "quality" fiction from cheap, popular stuff.  Personally, I rejected that distinction long ago.

Bob Scholes



...and I reply:


There are many different notions as to what literature is, and many different contexts in which literature is distinguished from non-literature, so there is no way a clear-cut definition of literature can possibly be provided, from a "bird's eye view" of cultural phenomena. That doesn't mean that in a given context, or for one given person, the line between literature and non-literature may be quite sharply drawn; my point is that this would be just one context, or one notion, among many. That's why we need a fuzzy definition of literature according to a number of criss-crossing and grading scales.

Nonetheless, some notions are more widely shared than others, and some are more influential than others. For instance, more people would agree that "the book which inspired the film" is literature (good or bad, etc.), while "the film based on the book" is not literature (but film). And more people (more influential contexts, etc.) would agree that a highbrow, culturally valued text is literature, while a joke I happen to invent and tell my friends is not literature. Which is not to say that a given theorist may refuse to make that difference, in a given context. Or, again, many people will find it strange that Winston Churchill should be given the Nobel Prize for literature (quite apart from the quality of his style), while not many people will find it strange that Faulkner should be given the Nobel Prize for literature (whether they like his fiction or not), because "creative fictional writing" tends to be associated with literature in the minds of many people, while "history" tends to be put on another shelf by many people, libraries, bookstores, etc. I think it is useful to keep in mind which are the usual senses given to words, and uses given to books, whatever our theoretical preferences may be. Our theoretical proposals will have to intervene and make sense in (or try to change) that "real" cultural world, after all...

The list goes on...

Retropost (2007): Abstract

 

Y nunca mejor dicho lo de abstract. Esta abstracción la he escrito hoy, estilo César, en tercera persona, tras releer mi artículo "Narrating Narrating: Twisting the Twice-Told Tale". Que aparecerá en la serie "Narratologia" de Walter de Gruyter este año, espero. Conforme a mi teoría, la autorelectura me ha aportado ciertas cosas que no sabía que había dicho en mi artículo. Si es que las había dicho. Bueno, en todo caso, ahora leídas están, y el abstract escrito, post hoc et propter hoc: José Ángel García Landa approaches narrativity from the vantage point of narrativization and narrative doubling, understood as interactional communicative phenomena. Narrative, as a dialogic phenomenon, is a rearrangement of previous narratives in order to articulate a new one, more complex or more to the point in a given interactional exchange. Effects of doubling ('narrated narratings', stories within the story, etc.) add semiotic intensity, and suggest that repetition and retelling are basic to narrativity. Narrativization is therefore a remaking of previously narrativized events. Notions like "tellability", "point of view" and "event" need to be redefined in view of this interactional situatedness of narratives. Discursive phenomena involving the response to narratives, their use in conversation or criticism, or their theoretical analysis, also partake of this interactional situatedness. The connectedness between events characteristic of narratives (and which is subject to reinterpretation and retelling) is shown to be relative to the communicative dynamics of discourse interaction. Some definitions of narrativity are examined and criticised in order to emphasize the configurational dynamics of narrativity—a dynamics of constant remaking through communicative interaction. In this light, García Landa addresses the retrospective dimension of narrative, in particular the "narrative fallacy" and its diverse aspects, such as the post hoc/propter hocconfusion, hindsight bias, foreshadowing, sideshadowing, the double logic of narrative, simulated contingency, etc. His narratological analysis extends into intertextuality, cognitive theory and hermeneutics, and ends by retaking the question of narratives which retell or represent narrative acts. Literary works which narrate acts of narrating keep us aware of the continuity between everyday conversation and elaborate literary genres, and build bridges between them, re-appropriating orality for literature and constructing complex interactional forms precisely through a return, with a difference, to the source of narrative interaction. Emergent Narrativity —oOo—

Retropost (2007): Goffman: El teatro de la interioridad

Continúo releyendo y comentando aquí la conclusión de Frame Analysis de Goffman. Comienza la segunda parte diciendo que es tentador establecer una oposición simplista entre la actividad efectiva y sus "formas transformadas": por ejemplo, entre realidad y ficción. Es tentador creer que las formas derivadas de la realidad son copias de un original localizable. Y entonces el análisis de marcos se limitaría al análisis de estas transformaciones, partiendo de un nivel de base simple e inanalizable, la realidad efectiva, no enmarcada.

Pero ya se ha mostrado a lo largo de todo el libro cómo la realidad, al incluir esos marcos, no puede aislarse de ellos. La realidad incluye a la ficción, con o cual se establece entre ellas una relación paradójica, o, si se prefiere, dialéctica. Totus mundus agit histrionem. La realidad, siendo una estructuración semiótica, no puede comprenderse sin analizar estas estructuraciones que la invaden, complican o constituyen.

"Pues la actividad efectiva no ha de contrastarse únicamente con algo obviamente irreal, como los sueños por ejemplo, sino también con los juegos, rituales, experimentaciones, ensayos, y otras disposiciones, incluyendo los engaños, y estas actividades no es que sean tan fantásticas" (563, traduzco).

Conclusión: el análisis no puede establecer una diferencia simplista entre la realidad original y la transformada, y el análisis de marcos se aplica al conjunto de la realidad.

"Sostenemos, pues, que los segmentos de actividad, incluyendo las figuras que los habitan, han de tratarse como un único problema para el análisis. Los ámbitos del ser son aquí los objetos adecuados de estudio, y aquí, lo cotidiano no es un dominio especial que haya de ponerse en contraste con los otros, sino que es meramente otro ámbito" (564).

Aquí Goffman trata en términos de "marcos" lo que otros teorizadores han llamado "mundos posibles". Sí creo que conviene aclarar que por supuesto existe una posición relacional llamada "mundo real", aunque es relacional, precisamente: es decir, ese "mundo real" también existe dentro del marco de una película para los personajes. Y, además de relacionalmente definido, es un ámbito complejo, atravesado y constituido por múltiples marcos no "tan" reales, como aclara Goffman. Y procede a continuación a explicitar la complejidad que subyace al nivel, supuestamente básico, de la "realidad real".

Ejemplo de Goffman: Así como los actores interpretan a su personaje para clarificar de cara al público el sentido de los actos y pensamientos del personaje, de la misma manera nosotros interpretamos a nuestro personaje ("playing himself", interpretando el papel de sí mismo, como diría Shakespeare) especialmente cuando nos sentimos observados por un público no familiarizado con nosotros y que podría malinterpretar nuestros actos, "most evidently when an individual finds he must do something that might be misconstrued as blameworthy by strangers who are merely exercising their right to glance at him before glancing away" (564). Verbigracia, hablamos ostentosa o innecesariamente con algún acompañante nuestro, para que nos oigan terceras personas, cuando se produce algún tipo de confusión interactiva en el grupo que formamos conocidos y desconocidos. O cuando, bajo la mirada de la señora de la limpieza, pasamos por su suelo recién fregado con aspavientos de humildad y precaución, para que no se sienta ofendida por nuestra indiferencia a su trabajo.

En un caso de interacción "real", "efectiva", "cotidiana", puede haber marcos entrecruzados delimitando secuencias de actividad diferenciables.

1). Primero, marcos que delimitan las secuencias de actividad, simultáneas, como en una grabación de varias pistas:
- La actividad principal, la "historia" oficial de lo que está pasando, compartida por todos. Por ejemplo, una reunión de trabajo en una oficina.
- Hasta cuatro canales de actividad subordinados:
    a) Uno relativo a acontecimientos ignorados. Por ejemplo, los ruidos de tripas de uno de los participantes.
    b) Una secuencia de actividad direccional, que orienta y regula la línea de actividad principal pero no es en sí misma objeto de atención. Por ejemplo, los rituales establecidos de toma de palabra, posición en la mesa según la jerarquía, etc., en la reunión de trabajo.
    c) Una secuencia  relativa a la comunicación superpuesta: lo que para los participantes queda fuera de su ámbito perceptual. Por ejemplo, los participantes suponen mutuamente que ninguno de los participantes puede ver lo que está pasando en otra habitación de la oficina.
    d) Un canal de ocultación. Por ejemplo, si un jefe antipático interrumpe la reunión con un telefonazo, mientras uno de los participantes le habla, todos pueden hacer caras o gestos de fastidio al respecto.

2) Al margen de las secuencias de actividad, están los marcos relativos a laminaciones. Por ejemplo, la reunión podría ser no una reunión tal cual, sino estar sometida a algún tipo de modulación o derivación: un ensayo de reunión, una reunión ficticia en el marco de una obra de teatro, etc. Una determinada secuencia de acción, con sus canales de actividad subordinados, puede así verse modulada y reenmarcada en otro contexto de actividad.

3) La actividad puede verse atravesada por diferentes marcos relativos al status de participación de los interactuantes. Por ejemplo, en una conversación entre dos personas, ambas son participantes en igual medida y pueden intercambiarse los papeles de hablante y oyente. Si se añade un tercero, puede mantenerse la plena participación de todos, o puede aparecer en mayor o menor medida el papel del participante sin alocución: si la conversación se centra en dos, el tercero presente puede convertirse en una especie de espectador del marco comunicativo formado por los otros dos. También pueden aparecer modalidades de comunicación limitada entre algunos participantes y que excluya, por connivencia, a parte de los presentes:

"Con un tercer participante, se ha creado también la posibilidad de una red colusiva y una distinción entre colusionadores y excolusionados. Añadamos, en lugar de eso, a un tercero que sea un extraño no participante y tenemos el papel del transeúnte que pasaba por allí, y su actor está aislado de los demás por la falta de atención que dicta la cortesía. Si hacemos un guión con esa situación de dos personas o cualquiera de las situaciones de tres personas, y lo representamos sobre un escenario, ya tenemos, además, los roles del actor y del público." (565)

Bien, pues una vez establecida la posibilidad de este análisis en marcos de la interacción comunicativa, Goffman pasa a aplicarlos al teatro interior del sujeto. Con toda lógica, pues (según nos enseña el interaccionalismo simbólico) la subjetividad emerge por interiorización de la interacción. La interacción consigo mismo, la auto-interacción, es una dimensión esencial del comportamiento. Según Blumer, el sujeto se dirige continuamente a sí mismo self-indications, señales relativas a su propio comportamiento. No olvidemos que las señales dirigidas por el organismo a sí mismo son un elemento crucial en el surgimiento de una consciencia compleja y reflexiva, ya al nivel de las estructuras cerebrales evolucionadas. El sujeto consciente y complejo es sólo posible gracias a la multiplicidad originaria de sistemas de señales internos, en comunicación unos con otros. De ahí que el análisis de la interacción y su estructura de marcos pueda aplicarse también a la actividad subjetiva de cada uno de los participantes en un encuentro comunicativo—aunque el encuentro sea de una sola persona consigo misma, claro.

Así pues, Goffman complica los sujetos "simples" presupuestos en el análisis anterior, con este elemento de autointeracción. La comunicación colusiva puede por tanto darse aun entre dos personas:

"Puede darse la comunicación colusiva en la conversación entre dos personas ya sea bajo la forma de la auto-colusión, cuando uno de los participantes hace apartes gestuales durante el turno de habla de la otra persona, o (por así decirlo) en forma de comunicación colusivo-colusiva, con los dos participantes jugando los papeles de colusionador y excolusionado. También un participante puede estilizar la externalización de su respuesta de modo que se estimule al otro para percibirla pero sin embargo actuar como si no lo hubiese hecho; se anima así al otro a aportar dos modos de funcionamiento, no uno, y se expande así de hecho la situación bipersonal para convertirse en algo más complicado". (565)

La vida cotidiana incluye una teatralidad, como bien supo ver Shakespeare, que potenciaba con el teatro de la vida cotidiana la teatralidad de su propio drama, para devolver al público esa teatralidad social reinterpretada, exteriorizada y comentada. Esa teatralidad nos vuelve actores y da profundidad a nuestros personajes, como comenta Goffman en relación a un caso frecuente: cuando repetimos o contamos las palabras y acciones de una persona a un tercero, o cuando narramos sin más:

"Y cuando un hablante re-presenta una secuencia de experiencia para deleite de su interlocutor, éste último (y hasta cierto punto también el hablante) puede ponerse a contemplar y funcionar de manera no distinta a un público; el oyente y el hablante pueden dar señales de su aprecio a lo que el hablante les está presentando.
   En suma, las situaciones que articulan la interacción multipersonal pueden plegarse y pasar al interior de la conversación entre dos personas, para recibir allí un papel estructural." (565-66).

Todavía enfatiza poco Goffman en este punto, me parece, la naturaleza interactiva de la interioridad. Pensemos en un ejemplo clásico de interioridad, la intimidad, ejemplificada en los secretos que no se cuentan ni salen a la luz en la interacción comunicativa con el otro. Pues bien, el sujeto que se estructura alrededor de un secreto ya ha interiorizado la situación comunicativa consistente en la ocultación del secreto. En sí mismo ha de regular, por supuesto en la interacción con otros, pero también en su economía interna, la representación de dos papeles, el del sujeto-con-secreto y la del sujeto-que-oculta-el-secreto, y ha de ser los dos. No es sino un ejemplo bastante claro de interacción internalizada que ayuda a constituir al sujeto como un ente esencialmente relacional. Generalizando la denuncia del bolero, podríamos decir que según Goffman, lo nuestro es puro teatro.

"Igual que en un escenario", la actividad supuestamente espontánea o natural es inherentemente teatral para Goffman. La organizamos de modo comunicativamente eficaz; y así a veces reímos o lloramos (actos corporales, vitales, supuestamente "descontrolados") en el momento que resulta comunicativamente más adecuado. La narración ordena secuencialmente acontecimientos simultáneos, para comunicarlos. El teatro o el cine clásico, algo menos los modernos, secuencian ordenadamente los turnos conversacionales que en la práctica se solapan. Pues bien, en esto nos dan la forma idealizada de la interacción: y también somos teatrales (aunque menos) fuera del escenario,  dejando que cada cual interprete su papel y colaborando con ellos para que lo redondeen bien, y nos dejen luego hacer bien el nuestro—aun en medio de una confrontación, a veces.

"Y aquí, en lugar de seguir la práctica habitual de 'secuencializar' lo que de hecho sucede a la vez, nos permitimos ver como si estuviese solapado lo que de hecho se ha organizado de modo secuencial—y con eso utilizamos los procedimientos de enmarcación para comprometerlos profundamente en la conspiración general para mantener las creencias existentes sobre nuestra naturaleza humana, en este caso, la creencia en que detrás de nuestras cortesías melindrosas, se halla un elemento indisciplinado y animal" (566)

En la acción social, el cuerpo no se utiliza como una presencia inmediata, sino que se ve implicado en la organización interaccional de la acción, orquestada mediante el juego de cuatro posiciones de sujeto, o funciones de interacción, diferenciables:

- La figura o personaje representado
- El estratega que diseña la acción
- El animador que lleva la acción a cabo
- El "principal" cuyos intereses se sirven mediante la acción

A veces los cuatro papeles están representados por "una misma" persona; otras veces se disocian. Por ejemplo, un cantante puede interpretar a un determinado personaje, cantando las palabras escritas por un autor, y sirviendo los intereses de tal o cual productor, ideólogo, etc.

En las actividades reguladas y organizadas, como trabajo, deportes, ceremonias y rituales, etc. hay diferentes reglamentaciones en cuanto a la presencia y uso del cuerpo: comparemos así una competición deportiva, con sus reglas, etc., a un debate, por ejemplo: en cada actividad hay unos límites y convenciones en cuanto al uso que se da al cuerpo. Eso está regulado, con lo cual la actividad podría parecer totalmente convencionalizada. No es así, sin embargo, y se produce lo que podríamos llamar un efecto de realidad, pues al margen de la actividad oficialmente regulada y usos "oficiales" del cuerpo, hay toda una serie de acciones adicionales, producción de signos y emisión de señales colaterales, realización simultánea de otros rituales interpersonales.

"Y, como producto colateral de sus acciones, el actor proporciona indicaciones de, por ejemplo, su personalidad, posición social, salud, intenciones, y afiliación a otros presentes. Así pues, en el caso de la mayoría de las secuencias de actividad ordinaria y no representada, parece perfectamente posible mostrar que aunque el comportamiento corporal del actor es aprendido y convencional, que aunque se esté llevando a cabo una actuación establecida, la acción se percibe sin embargo como directa y no transformada. (...). Esta cualidad de "directo" es un rasgo distintivo del marco de la actividad cotidiana, y en última instancia debe uno recurrir, para entenderla, a explicaciones basadas en marcos, no en cuerpos". (569)

Así pues, hay todo un lenguaje no verbal que acompaña y modula a la actividad "oficialmente realizada" y que apunta constantemente otros posibles usos del cuerpo.

El papel concedido a la emotividad y expresividad corporal está regulado y limitado por el marco de actividad. Una actividad regulada puede verse interrumpida por accesos de emoción que rompen el marco, pero la sintaxis de esta ruptura está en sí regulada (los abrazos o desesperaciones de los futbolistas, por ejemplo, o un músico que falla una nota y continúa con un gesto casi imperceptible de disculpas/complicidad hacia el público. En la interpretación de canciones populares, hay una "sinceridad" convencional, pues en los casos más logrados el intérprete o animador usa su personaje "real" como trasfondo o garante de la "autenticidad" de la emoción expresada:

"En tanto que cantante, un individuo luce el corazón en la garganta; en tanto que interactor cotidiano, es menos probable que se exponga. Y así como se puede decir que se emociona según requerido en tanto que cantante, también se puede decir que no lo hace en tanto que conversador. Ningún comentario no habla de personas en sí; los dos nos hablan de figuras en un marco de actividad" (572).

En el "marco cotidiano" de interacción, sostiene Goffman, la convención a aplicar es que los actores tienen un control incompleto de sus expresiones emocionales. Aun si disimula, ha de traicionarse a sí mismo, o emitir señales que nos permitan interpretar esa ambivalencia. De otro modo, pasa a considerárselo un psicópata. El comunicador cotidiano ha de revelar sus emociones en adición al control impuesto por la actividad en curso: "En suma, en tanto que personas naturales, se supone que somos contenedores limitados epidérmicamente", indicando nuestro contenido mediante la expresión explícita o mediante señales corporales emitidas que indican la supresión de expresión explícita. La simulación perfecta no se consigue, o en todo caso no se considera aceptable. Y sin embargo lo es, y se consigue fácilmente, en otro marco de actividad al que no se aplique esta ley: el juego del póker, por ejemplo. Así pues, la "sinceridad" o "espontaneidad" del sujeto, y la tensión entre expresión explícita y subliminal, está también sujeta a reglas del juego y a contextos de actividad.

El sujeto individual actúa en un contexto u ocasión social determinada. Allí llega con una identidad biográfica y desempeñando un papel socialmente definido. Y representa ese papel pero sin limitarse a él, a la vez dejando traslucir (en esos apartes, señales subordinadas, estilo de representación, etc.) que su personalidad no se ve agotada por el papel: que aparte del rol social hay una personalidad definida, una entidad moral, una pasión animal, etc. Pero la manera en que se orqueste esta disociación entre persona y personaje depende mucho del tipo de actividad social, de las laminaciones o reenmarcaciones a que se haya visto sometida... Y también de las modas:  al igual que varía según contextos sociales o épocas la longitud o anchura de la corbata, también  varía la amplitud y tipo de disociación aceptable o deseable entre persona y personaje, "entre la figura proyectada y el motor humano que la anima" (573):

"Sí existe una relación entre personas y rol. Pero la relación responde al sistema interaccional —al marco—en el cual se representa el rol y se entrevé el yo del actor. Así pues, el yo no es una entidad a medio esconder entre los acontecimientos, sino una fórmula cambiante para manejarse entre ellos. Al igual que la situación en cuestión prescribe la actitud oficial en el seno de la cual nos ocultamos, así también estipula dónde y cómo habremos de desvelarnos algo, y la cultura misma prescribe qué tipo de entidad debemos creer que somos para tener algo que desvelar de esta manera" (574).

A continuación ejemplifica Goffman la manera en que un subastador o una azafata interpretan su papel... algo que recuerda al análisis sartreano del camarero en El ser y la nada, a no ser porque para Goffman, el sujeto no desaparece tras el rol, sino que se constituye en interacción con el rol: en lugar de tener una superficie alienada, una interpretación perfecta, tenemos un complejo juego de interpretarse a sí mismos en el rol y a la vez a otro personaje "real" que trasluce... todos, podríamos decir, seres de papel o entes teatrales. "En suma, a la vez que se nos asigna un uniforme, se nos asigna también una piel. Por su propia naturaleza, los marcos establecen los límites a partir de los cuales son reenmarcados" (575).

El sujeto es una serie de funciones que se superponen o van juntas en la actividad "normal", pero que en otros marcos de acción se desligan: y en lugar de ser nuestra propia figura, animador, estragega y principal, vemos estos papeles distribuidos en una serie de sujetos coordinados para la acción.

Concluye Goffman su libro Frame Analysis citando el análisis que hace Merleau-Ponty (en La prosa del mundo) de la experiencia del "otro" con quien dialogo— alguien que no es propiamente ni la actitud "oficial" del otro, ni el cuerpo que tengo frente a mí. El otro está no propiamente en su cuerpo, sino en la experiencia de interacción que se crea entre yo y él, y que también noto que me desplaza o me crea a mí. Pues bien, Goffman enfatiza ese propio desplazamiento interactivo que me crea a mí a la vez que crea la experiencia del otro. Soi-même comme un autre, también aquí. Y la imagen del yo que se trasluce es, desde luego, un yo relacional, un juego de espejos y situaciones que, en el momento en que queremos anclar en una sustancialidad, no nos remite sino a una identidad significada que se fragmenta en incontables "realidades" de similar sustancia: interacciones, marcos, situaciones, actitudes hacia otros, resignificadas y reenmarcadas, traslucidas y comunicadas incesantemente. No tenemos más sustancia: "me parece que es teatro".

El yo relacional

 

—oOo—