Discourse and Narrative Transmission (LV3)

-Linguistics

a unit longer than a sentence, spoken & written communication

-Cultural Studies

comprised knowledge about a certain topic, deeply connected with the system of power

-Literary Studies

the ways in which a narrative is presented to us

Discourse...

-is "a way of thinking about the relationship between power, knowledge & language"

-is a body of knowledge about a certain topic

-is "a set of 'rues' which determine the sorts of statements that can be made"

-explains how meanings are circulated in society

-presents ideologies as natural, facilitating their dominance

-narrative prose

(Erzählprosa)

-poetry

(Lyrik)

-drama

(Drama)

-story (histoire)

=what is happening? who is there? where & when?

(action, characters, temporal setting, local setting)

-> events -> existence

the story always stays the same

-discourse (discours)

=how is the text crafted?

(temporal order, duration, frequency; space, characterization, style, speech & thought, representation, narrative situation)

->way of presenting events

everyone has a different style of telling

-story

->the sequences of events in their temporal chronology

-plot (= Handlungsstruktur)

->the causal & logical sequence of the events

(how the events are combined)

-mode of constructing a fictional reality

-compromises the functions of all narrators & focalisers

(How is the narrative transmitted?, Who narrates?, Who perceives the events?)

!author ≠ narrator!

-Homodiegetic narrator

-Autodiegetic narrator

-Heterodiegetic narrator

-is part of the story

=Stanzel's '1st person narration'

-tells their own story/is protagonist of the story

=Stanzel's '1st person narration'

!Autodiegetic is homodiegetic as well!

-is outside the narrated story

-isn't a character in the story but in a way 'hovers above' it

=Stanzel's '3rd person narration'

applies only to frame narratives

-Extradiegetic

narrator = tells the frame

The Time Machine: Dinner Party guest is the extradiegetic narrator

-Intradiegetic

narrator = within a frame (a story within a story)

The Time Machine: the Time Traveller is the intradiegetic narrator

-Overt

narrator:

*appears as individualized speaker

*shares thoughts

*"intrudes" the story

*you realize the narrator is here

-Covert

*narrating voice for which no information is provided

*more neutral

*you don't even realize they are there

Who Perceives the Events?

-Internal focalisation

-External focalisation

-Zero focalisation

-locates the perspective within a character

-limiting the information to his/her perceptual & conceptual grasp of the world

-> knowledge: focaliser = character

-focaliser: character within the story whose focus is (temporarily) taken over by the narrator (Stanzel: "Reflektor")

-inside one character's head

-fixed focalisation:

*restricted to one & the same perspective throughout the narrative

-variable focalisation:

*presents different scenes through different perspectives

-multiple focalisation:

*invites comparisons between several persspectives of the same event

-presents information of characters' external behavior (e.g. speech, action; excluding feelings & thoughts)

-> knowledge: focaliser < characters

-mere observer

-the perspective can't be attributed to someone in particular or has no restriction -> can vary (such as that of Stanzel's omniscient narrator (allwissender Erzähler))

-one comprehensive or monologic view or conflicting or dialogue perspectives

-they can jump into others head, know a lot about the world

-> knowledge: focaliser > character

-god-like knowledge about anything & everything

(only knowing the definitions is important)

-fixed focalisation

restricted to one & the same perspective throughout the narrative

-variable focalisation

presents different scenes through different perspectives

-multiple focalisation

invites comparisons between several perspectives of the same event

-heterodiegetic

-covert

-internal focalisation

->narrator is invisible, almost as if he is assuming the perspective of a character

-heterodiegetic

-overt

-zero focalisation

-omniscience

-prolapses & analepsis

->narrator very present, can move through the story as he pleases

-alphabetically by author's surname?

-alphabetically by tiitle?

-geographically by country of origin?

-historically by century/literary period?

-"serious" literature versus "ttrash"?

-canonical authors versus popular writers?

-dead vs. living authors

-primary versus secondary reading?

-by hardcover or paperback?

-by author's gender? age? class? skin color?

-by the intended audience's age or gender?

-by content?

-by genre?

-adventure stories

-paranormal romances

-victorian novels

-detective fiction

-Bidlungsroman

-science fiction stories

-fantasy series

-post-apocalyptic dystopias

-New Adult Novels

-..

-Limericks

-Ballads

-Sonnets

-Haikus

-imagist poetry

-confessional poetry

-epic poems

-concrette poetry

-..

-comedy

-tragedy

-history play

-one-acter

-theatre of the absurd

-in-your-face drama

-comedy of errors

-tragicomedy

-well-made play

-..

-author - narrator

-narrator - narrative situation/narrative voice

-omniscience vs. limited point of view

-reliable vs. unreliable narrators

-narrator (who tells) - focallizer (who sees?) (Genette)

-diegesis = level of narrative

-homodiegetic vs. heterodiegetic narrator

-autodiegetic narrator

-retrospection vs. immediacy

-narrating self vs. experiencing self

-overt vs. covert narrator

-origin of narrative texts

-distinctly reveal central narrative features

-typical features of oral storytelling:

the teller...

1) introduces the story by mentioning what it is about

2) specifies who takes part in it at which place & time

3) talks about the development of a conflict

4) its evaluation

5) its resolution

6) finally marks that the story has come to an end & takes the listener back to the here & now

-serve to inform

-serve to entertain

-serve to provide identity

-serve to provide meaning & orientation in the world

-combines discourse & story

discourse (= Diskurs, Erzählweise; form of how sth is told by whom to whom)

story (= Geschichte; the content of what is told)

-distinguish between the real author & her readder - the implied author & reader - the narrator & the narratee

-resemble oral stories in small size, flexible subject matter, style, form

-often concentrate on one character, action, place, time

-select a particular moment of crisis, reverse, insight

-tend to be less explicit than oral stories ->demand greater attention to details, images, beginnings, endings

-compensate for brevity by being ambiguous, allusvie, suggestive

-present a great number of characters & strands of action

-comprehensive descriptions of external settings & "internal experientiality" (e.g. scenes of consciousness)

-probe the depth of characters

-discuss a range of different perspectives

-give a large panorama on society

-tell sth (story) to someone in particular ways (discourse)

-describe characters & objects

-tell/show character's speech & thought

-report actions & happenings

-comment on the story world

-Who speaks to whom?

-Which position does the narrator have inside or outside the world of the story?

-In which way & in which order does the narrator speak about which characters & events?

-Franz K. Stanzel's concept

*three narrative situations

(first-person narrator, authorial narrator, figural narrative situation)

-structuralists' analysis (following Seymour Chatman & Gérard Genette among others)

*verbal, visual & temporal organization of narrative discourse

=Ich-Erzähler

-share the characters' world

-narrator is involved in the world of the story (subjective presentations of the world)

-extend & variation of the temporal & cognitive distance between the narrating I (=erzählendes Ich) & the experiencing I (=erlbendes Ich) determines the quality of the narrative

-distinction

*I-as-protagoonist

*I-as-witness

-chaaracter forms the center of his own story

-first person is used as a minor character & observerr

-narrator often juxtaposes hiss own point of view with that of the protagonist & of society, revealing interesting contradictions & conflicts between positions

-rose between the 16th & 19th century

-oral stories about personal experience privilege the first person

-diaaries, letters, essays, autobiographies offer models of writting in the firrst person, which are connnected to teh central position of the individual since the early modern age in Western culture

*Puritanism (demands individual inspiration & responsibility for moral acts, sobriety & a personal relation to God, inspiring soul-seearching diaries & spiritual autobiograaphies)

*Empirism (favors individual experience as against traditional authority)

*Capitalism (idealizes the individual homo oecconomicus, whose self-interest would also promote public welfare)

-burgeois society does away with the absolutist external control of its subjects & demands the citizen's internal discipline & civilised behavior

-religious, philosophical, social, economic ideas ->stress the prominence of the individual

individual (finds an appropriatee form of self-expressen in first-personn narratives)

= auktorialer Erzähler

-is bbeyond the characters' world

-looks at it from the outside has the ability to look into characters; is detached from the characters & their concerns

-'offer a godlike panoramic view from an Olympic position outsside and above the story world'

-isn't identical with the real autthor

behave like the creators of their world ->artistic choice

-mediate between the world of the characters& of the reader, creating the illusion of a fictional world but also breaking it by intrusive comments & reader addresses

-omnipresent (=überall anwesend)

-omniscient (=allwissend)

-can see into the future, read characters' thoughts & their subconscious

-can expose secrets ->reader gains an insight into hypocrisy & blindness

-'superior insight conveys the notion that the worlld is transparent and comprehensible'

->can be seen as an imitation of the divine perspective on the human world

= personale Erzählsituation

-no visible narrator

-presents events through a character's perspective

-readers get the impression that they share the thoughts, feelings & perceptions of a character

-figural narratives: show scenes in the world through the eyes of characters

-figural narrative texts: show third-person characters' perspectives

-first-person & authorial narrators often foreground their discourse, tell us about the world with a certain distance

-Stanzel arranged the three prototypes of narrative situations in a circle

*circual model allows positions & movements between the first-person, authorial, & the figural narrative

*position & shifting between first person & third persson, telling & showing, external & internal perspective create mixed forms of narrative situations

-first-person narrator

*can hardly become an authorial one (perspective will always be limited & never omniscient in realistic fiction)

*may shift the focus from the present to the pastt experiencing self (if the inner world of thee past self predominates ->perspective comes close to the reflector of the figural narrative)

-authorial narrator:

*may occassionally suggest that he is close to the fictional world

he is by definition omniscient & outside the fictional world ->step into the character's world would break the reader's illusion of sharing the highly artificial omniscience established so far

-shading of authorial into figural narrative situation:

*most frequent case of mixing

*after having introduced the reader to the story & established the setting -> authorial narrator occassionally recedes from explicit mediation

*narrator can yield his prominent position of telling & commenting to

a scenic presentation of dialogue & action

the presentation of the world from a character's point of views as in figural narrative

-Gérard Genette

*was neither happy with Stanzel's concept of the narrative situation nor with the broad use of the term point of view (=Gesichtspunkt, Standpunkt)

-made a difference between the question "Who speaks?" (voice) & "Who perceives?" (focalisation)

-voice: "Who speaks to whom from which position in relation to the story?"

-focalisation: has "perpetual, psychological & ideological facets" (sense impressions, emotional & cognitive processes & a system of norms)

-criticism: difficult to clearly separate voice from focalisation because the words voiced are hardly neutral & free from connotations

->Genette's terms are very useful for the analysis of time in narrative

-covert narrator (=verborgener Erzähler)

-overt narrator (=expliziter Erzähler)

..from which position ..

-heterodiegetic narrator

-homodiegetic narrator

*autodiegetic narrator

..in which part of a narrative?

-an embedded narrative (=Binnenerzählung), told by the intradiegetic narrator

-within a frame narrative (=Rahmenerzählung) told by the extradiegetic narrator

=narrative report of thought/indirect thought

-represents a character's thought in the narrator's style

-reader gets an insight into a character with a certain distance marked by tagged phrases

(=erlebte Rede)

-lies on the border between telling & showing

-narrator marks mediation by transforrming the first person & present/future tense to the third person & past tense/conditional

-it mixes the narrator's & the character's voices =>"dual voices"

(=innerer Monolog)

-free direct representation of thought

-"quotes" the character's inner language/mental images

-can take the shape of complete sentencess or the fragmentary phrasses of stream of consciousness

-we trust in the reliability of information as the default mode

-we only question the reliability of a speaker if we assume that he intends to falsify the truth/isn't able to tell the truth due to:

*a lack of memory

*the influence of drugs

*mental problems

-suspiscion of unreliability ->we need to make a greater effort atat interpretation

reading the more/less obvious message + take a gues at hidden tuths

-unreliability:

*nuisance in real life

*of great aesthetic interest in fiction

-omniscient & detached heterodiegetic narrator: inspires confidence

-homodiegetic narrators: be more ccareful because of their limited perception & insight

(1) consistency

consistent narrative doesn't reveal contradiction between

*narrator's words & acts

*values & judgements

*his version of events & those of others

(2) coherence

coherent narrative presents a story in which one event leads to another without significant temporal or logical gaps

(3) correspondence

no direct correspondence between reality & fiction

direct correspondence between the fictional models of rreality & the dominant view of the world at the time of writing

contextual frames of reference (historical background) define im- & explicit norms

->criterion of correspondence: more hellpful with realistic stories than fantastic ones

-a present narrator tells a past sstory at a variable point of time after its last evennt

(utopian novvels/science fiction: deal with the future but usually tell stories as if they happened in the past)

-'The narrator has many options to shape the story by manipulating the temporal duration, order & frequency of relating story elements.'

-duration of a narrative (=Erzähldauer) results from the relationship between the discourse time (=Erzählzeit, time you need to tell & listen/read the story) & the story time (=erzählte Zeit)

-expectations of the narrator:

*omit aspects of no importance (ellipse =Auflassuung)

*telescope/zoom events of average/minor importancee (summary =Raffung)

*show events of importance in the same time of their occurrence (scene =szenische Darstellung)

*show events of importance in slow-motion (stretch =Zeitdehnung)

-a pause in relation of the events occurs at the description of the setting, reflections or comments

->techniques can be turned into particular uses

*omit an important feature ffor reasons of suspense

*briefly mention fundamental incidents in order to focus on their effects

*expand short events for comic/symbolic purposes

-associative digression =Abschweifung

-anachronic =non-chronological

-flashforward, prolepsis =Vorausdeutung

-flashback, analepsis =Rückgriff