Abstract
This paper argues that the examination of representational (formal) and semantic (referential) features of fictional and factual narratives would be incomplete without discussing specific pragmatic (communicative, performative, heuristic, and cognitive) functions of fiction – how and why “fictions” are used in literature and arts, but also in scientific, philosophical, and everyday discourses. On the one hand, the pragmatic approach blurs the fictional/ factual divide and identifies similarities in the use of fiction across disciplinary borders. On the other, as we argue, to avoid panfictionalism inherent in Vaihinger’s philosophy of “as if” the pragmatic act of boundary-crossing should be accompanied by mapping out new “cross-territorial” forms and distinctions. The paper revises and recasts the “cross-territorial” concept of scenario as a narrative structure and a type of fictional modeling and explores its semantic and pragmatic features.
Note
Research for this paper was supported by the Estonian Research Council (Grant 1481, “The Role of Imaginary Narrative Scenarios in Cultural Dynamics”) and by the European Union Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence in Estonian Studies). Some hypotheses presented here serve as a rationale for the volume on imaginary scenarios (in progress).
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Rhetorical Theory of Narrative and Contemporary Narrative Poetics: A Conversation with James Phelan
- Introduction: Sameness and difference in narratology
- The critique of the common theory of narrative fiction in narratology: Pursuing difference
- The art of narrative – narrative as art: Sameness or difference?
- Sameness, difference, or continuity?
- Beyond sameness and difference: Narrative sense-making in life and literature
- Conflicts between founder and CEO narratives: Counter-narrative, character and identification in organisational changes
- Imaginary scenarios: On the use and misuse of fiction
- Sameness and difference in narrative modes and narrative sense making: The case of Ramsey Campbell’s “The Scar”
- “I’ll teach you differences.” A meta-theoretical approach to narrative theory
- Corrigendum
- Corrigendum to: Mapped stories: Cartography, history, and the representation of time in space
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Frontmatter
- Rhetorical Theory of Narrative and Contemporary Narrative Poetics: A Conversation with James Phelan
- Introduction: Sameness and difference in narratology
- The critique of the common theory of narrative fiction in narratology: Pursuing difference
- The art of narrative – narrative as art: Sameness or difference?
- Sameness, difference, or continuity?
- Beyond sameness and difference: Narrative sense-making in life and literature
- Conflicts between founder and CEO narratives: Counter-narrative, character and identification in organisational changes
- Imaginary scenarios: On the use and misuse of fiction
- Sameness and difference in narrative modes and narrative sense making: The case of Ramsey Campbell’s “The Scar”
- “I’ll teach you differences.” A meta-theoretical approach to narrative theory
- Corrigendum
- Corrigendum to: Mapped stories: Cartography, history, and the representation of time in space