Action between plot and discourse
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Thor Grünbaum
His research interests are philosophy of action, narratology, and aesthetics. His publications include ‘Fortælling og indlevelse — En teori om synligheden i det litterære værk’ (2003); ‘Roman Ingarden's theory of schematized profiles: A dynamic version’ (2005); and ‘What do weather watchers see? Perceptual intentionality and agency’ (forthcoming).
Abstract
In this article, I argue that the representation of simple, bodily action has the function of endowing the narrative sequence with a visualizing power. It makes the narrated scenes or situations ready for visualization by the reader or listener. By virtue of this visualizing power or disposition, these narrated actions disrupt the theoretical divisions, on the one hand, between the narrated story and the narrating discourse, and on the other hand, between plot-narratology and discourse-narratology. As narrated actions, they seem to belong to the domain of plot-narratology, but insofar as they serve an important visualizing function, these narrated actions have a communicative function and, as such, they can be said to belong to the domain of discourse-narratology. In the first part of the article, I argue that a certain type of plot-narratology, due to its retrospective epistemology and abstract definition of action, is unable to conceive of this visualizing function. In the second part, I argue that discourse-narratology fares no better since the visualizing function is independent of voice and focalization. In the final part, I sketch a possible account of the visualizing function of simple actions in narratives.
About the author
His research interests are philosophy of action, narratology, and aesthetics. His publications include ‘Fortælling og indlevelse — En teori om synligheden i det litterære værk’ (2003); ‘Roman Ingarden's theory of schematized profiles: A dynamic version’ (2005); and ‘What do weather watchers see? Perceptual intentionality and agency’ (forthcoming).
© Walter de Gruyter
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Diagramming narrative
- The new literary semiotics
- The contributions of Peirce's philosophical disciplines to literary studies
- Literary practice on the immediate horizon of the elaboration of semiotics: Peirce's meetings with a few great authors
- The making of the literary symbol: Taking note of Langer
- A semiotic definition of literary discourse
- Semiosis, art, and literature
- Story (first order predicate) logic
- Narrative self-reference in a literary comic: M.-A. Mathieu's L'Origine
- Recontextualizing character: Role-theoretic frameworks for narrative analysis
- Universal minds
- Reconsidering the unreliable narrator
- The cognitive import of the narrative schema
- The story turned upside down: Meaning effects linked to variations on narrative structure
- The role of Vorstellung in literary semantics
- Action between plot and discourse
- Perception already stylizes: On phenomenological semiotics
- Literary semiotics and cognitive semantics
- The representation of consciousness in language and fiction: A cognitive theory of enunciation
- Laughing brains: On the cognitive mechanisms and reproductive functions of mirth
Articles in the same Issue
- Preface
- Diagramming narrative
- The new literary semiotics
- The contributions of Peirce's philosophical disciplines to literary studies
- Literary practice on the immediate horizon of the elaboration of semiotics: Peirce's meetings with a few great authors
- The making of the literary symbol: Taking note of Langer
- A semiotic definition of literary discourse
- Semiosis, art, and literature
- Story (first order predicate) logic
- Narrative self-reference in a literary comic: M.-A. Mathieu's L'Origine
- Recontextualizing character: Role-theoretic frameworks for narrative analysis
- Universal minds
- Reconsidering the unreliable narrator
- The cognitive import of the narrative schema
- The story turned upside down: Meaning effects linked to variations on narrative structure
- The role of Vorstellung in literary semantics
- Action between plot and discourse
- Perception already stylizes: On phenomenological semiotics
- Literary semiotics and cognitive semantics
- The representation of consciousness in language and fiction: A cognitive theory of enunciation
- Laughing brains: On the cognitive mechanisms and reproductive functions of mirth
