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Actantial Model
__NOTOC__ In structural semantics, the actantial model, also called the actantial narrative schema, is a tool used to analyze the action that takes place in a story, whether real or fictional.Herbert 2006 ''Tools'', Ch.5, ''Origins and function''Herbert 2006 ''Actantial'' It was developed in 1966 by semiotician Algirdas Julien Greimas. The model considers an action as divided into six facets, called actants. Those actants are a combined framework inspired mainly between Vladimir Propp's and Étienne Souriau's actantial theories. Greimas took the term ''actant'' from linguist Lucien Tesnière, who coined the term in his discussion of the grammar of noun phrases A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently ....David Herman, Manfred Jahn, Marie-Laure Ryan (2005''Routledge enc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Semantics
Structural semantics (also structuralist semantics) is a linguistic school and paradigm that emerged in Europe from the 1930s, inspired by the structuralist linguistic movement started by Ferdinand de Saussure's 1916 work "'' Cours De Linguistique Generale''" (A Course in General Linguistics).Geeraerts, D. (2009) Structuralist Semantics' in Geeraerts (2009) ''Theories of Lexical Semantics'' ch.2 Examples of approaches within structural semantics are Lexical field theory (1931-1960s), relational semantics (from the 1960s by John Lyons) and componential analysis (from the 1960s by Eugenio Coseriu, Bernard Pottier and Algirdas Greimas). From the 1960s these approaches were incorporated into generative linguistics. Other prominent developer of structural semantics have been Louis Hjelmslev, Émile Benveniste, Klaus Heger, Kurt Baldinger and Horst Geckeler.Rastier, F. (1987) ''Sémantique interprétative'' (3rd edition 2009) Logical positivism asserts that structural seman ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Action (fiction)
Action fiction is a literary genre, genre in literature that focuses on stories involving high-stakes, high-energy, and fast-paced events. This genre includes a wide range of subgenres, such as Spy fiction, spy novels, Adventure fiction, adventure stories, tales of terror, intrigue ("cloak and dagger"), and Mystery fiction, mysteries. These kinds of stories utilize Thriller (genre), suspense, the tension that is built up when the reader wishes to know how the Conflict (narrative), conflict between the protagonist and antagonist is going to be resolved or the solution to a mystery of a Thriller (genre), thriller. The intricacies of human relationships or the nuances of philosophy and psychology are rarely explored in action fiction, typically being fast-paced mysteries that merely seek to provide the reader with an exhilarating experience. Action fiction can also be a plot element of Literature, non-literary works such as graphic novels and film. Genre fiction Action genre is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Storytelling
Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing narrative, stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatre, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation or instilling moral values. Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include Plot (narrative), plot, Character (arts), characters and point of view (literature), narrative point of view. The term "storytelling" can refer specifically to oral storytelling but also broadly to techniques used in other media to unfold or disclose the narrative of a story. Historical perspective Storytelling, intertwined with the development of mythology, mythologies, predates writing. The earliest forms of storytelling were usually oral literature, oral, combined with gestures and expressions. Storytelling often has a prominent educational and performative role in religious rituals (for example, the Passover Seder), and some archaeo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semiotician
Semiotics ( ) is the systematic study of sign processes and the communication of meaning. In semiotics, a sign is defined as anything that communicates intentional and unintentional meaning or feelings to the sign's interpreter. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs. Signs often are communicated by verbal language, but also by gestures, or by other forms of language, e.g. artistic ones (music, painting, sculpture, etc.). Contemporary semiotics is a branch of science that generally studies meaning-making (whether communicated or not) and various types of knowledge. Unlike linguistics, semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign systems. Semiotics includes the study of indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication. Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological and sociological dimensions. Some semioticians regard every cultural phenomenon as being able to be stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algirdas Julien Greimas
Algirdas Julien Greimas (; born ; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France. Greimas is known among other things for the Semiotic square, Greimas Square (). He is, along with Roland Barthes, considered the most prominent of the French semiotics, semioticians. With his training in structural linguistics, he added to the theory of Sign (semiotics), signification, plastic semiotics, and laid the foundations for the Parisian school of semiotics. Among Greimas's major contributions to semiotics are the concepts of Isotopy (semiotics), isotopy, the actantial model, the narrative program, and the semiotics of the natural world. He also researched Lithuanian mythology and Proto-Indo-European religion, and was influential in semiotic literary criticism. Biography Greimas's father, Julius Greimas, 1882–1942, a teacher and later school inspector, was from Liudvinavas in the Suvalkija region o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Actant
In narrative theory, an actant in the actantial model of semiotic narrative analysis is a type of role that a character may have in a narrative. Bruno Latour writes, The term ''actant'' also has uses in linguistics, sociology, computer programming theory, and astrology. In narratology Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917–1992), professor of semiotics, is widely credited with producing the actantial model in 1966. This model reveals the structural roles typically performed in story telling; such as "hero, villain (opponent of hero), object (of quest), helper (of hero) and sender (who initiates the quest)." Each of these roles fulfills an integral component of the story, or, narrative. Without the contribution of each actant, the story may be incomplete. Thus, an "actant" is not simply a character in a story, but an integral structural element upon which the narrative revolves. An actant can also be described as a binary opposition pairing, such as a hero paired with a villain, a dragon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vladimir Propp
Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp (; – 22 August 1970) was a Soviet folklorist and scholar who analysed the basic structural elements of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible structural units. Biography Vladimir Propp was born on 29 April 1895 in Saint Petersburg to an assimilated Russian family of German descent. His parents, Yakov Philippovich Propp and Anna-Elizaveta Fridrikhovna Propp (née Beisel), were Volga German wealthy peasants from Saratov Governorate. He attended Saint Petersburg University (1913–1918), majoring in Russian and German philology.Propp, Vladimir. "Introduction." ''Theory and History of Folklore.'' Ed. Anatoly Liberman. University of Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1984. pg ix Upon graduation he taught Russian and German at a secondary school and then became a college teacher of German. His ''Morphology of the Folktale'' was published in Russian in 1928. Although it represented a breakthrough in both folkloristics ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Étienne Souriau
Étienne Souriau (; April 26, 1892 – November 19, 1979) was a French philosopher, best known for his work in aesthetics. Biography Son of Paul Souriau, he studied at the École Normale Supérieure and received his '' agrégation of philosophy'' in 1925. After teaching at the universities of Aix-en-Provence and Lyon he eventually became a professor at the Sorbonne, where he held a chair in aesthetics. He was the editor of the '' Revue d'esthétique'' and was elected to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in 1958. Recently, the works of Bruno Latour Bruno Latour (; ; 22 June 1947 – 9 October 2022) was a French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist.Wheeler, Will. ''Bruno Latour: Documenting Human and Nonhuman Associations'' Critical Theory for Library and Information Science. Librari ... have reawoken interests on Souriau's oeuvre, specially his works on ontology and metaphysics regarding his theories of different modes of existence. Works * ''L'Abs ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucien Tesnière
Lucien Tesnière (; May 13, 1893 – December 6, 1954) was a prominent and influential French linguist. He was born in Mont-Saint-Aignan on May 13, 1893. As a senior lecturer at the University of Strasbourg (1924) and later professor at the University of Montpellier (1937), he published many papers and books on Slavic languages. However, his importance in the history of linguistics is based mainly on his development of an approach to the syntax of natural languages that would become known as dependency grammar. He presented his theory in his book ''Éléments de syntaxe structurale'' (Elements of Structural Syntax), published posthumously in 1959. In the book he proposes a sophisticated formalization of syntactic structures, supported by many examples from a diversity of languages. Tesnière died in Montpellier on December 6, 1954. Many central concepts that the modern study of syntax takes for granted were developed and presented in ''Éléments''. For instance, Tesnière d ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noun Phrases
A noun phrase – or NP or nominal (phrase) – is a phrase that usually has a noun or pronoun as its head, and has the same grammatical functions as a noun. Noun phrases are very common cross-linguistically, and they may be the most frequently occurring phrase type. Noun phrases often function as verb subjects and objects, as predicative expressions, and as complements of prepositions. One NP can be embedded inside another NP; for instance, ''some of his constituents'' has as a constituent the shorter NP ''his constituents''. In some theories of grammar, noun phrases with determiners are analyzed as having the determiner as the head of the phrase, see for instance Chomsky (1995) and Hudson (1990) . Identification Some examples of noun phrases are underlined in the sentences below. The head noun appears in bold. ::This election-year's politics are annoying for many people. ::Almost every sentence contains at least one noun phrase. ::Current economic weakness may be a resul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semiotic Square
The semiotic square, also known as the Greimas square, is a tool used in structural analysis of the relationships between semiotic signs through the opposition of concepts, such as feminine-masculine or beautiful-ugly, and of extending the relevant ontology. The semiotic square, derived from Aristotle's logical square of opposition, was developed by Algirdas J. Greimas, a Lithuanian- French linguist and semiotician, who considered the semiotic square to be the elementary structure of meaning. Greimas first presented the square in ''Semantique Structurale'' (1966), a book which was later published as ''Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method'' (1983). He further developed the semiotic square with Francois Rastier in "The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints" (1968). Basic structure The Greimas square is a model based on relationships: *S1 = positive seme *S2 = negative seme *S = complex axis (S1 + S2) *~S = neutral axis (neither S1 nor S2) # The semiotic square is fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
