Skip to main content
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

A semiotic analysis of anti-identity construction in fictional narratives from the viewpoint of modeling systems theory

  • and EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: March 15, 2016

Abstract

From the standpoint of Modeling Systems Theory formulated by Thomas Sebeok and Marcel Danesi in 2000, the reason why a fictional narrative can be rightly considered outstanding and appreciated by different generations of readers/viewers is not just because it has depicted “typical characters in typical contexts,” but more often because the text itself, understood in the Sebeokian sense as a composite modeling strategy, has achieved relatively higher degrees of fullness in creating these characters as models. As a further result, it has developed a pluralistic space for interpretation and fulfilled the truthful reflection of shared human emotion. To this end, the text needs to adopt a unique way of representation in creating characters, to wit, “anti-identity construction.” It is different from “defamiliarization” in that it is not to deliberately pursue a sort of formal or structural strangeness; on the contrary, it is only to seek to represent human experiences with high-level fidelity, as well as their global restoration, and to construct a “panorama” with innovative perspectives, thus demolishing stereotypical models people form in their minds. In essence, it is a return to dynamic Umwelten, capable of facilitating the pluralistic meaning generation and the ultimate semiosic reflection of shared human emotion.

Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by the Jiangsu Social Science Youth Fund (15TQC004), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (First class funding, 2015M580444), the Significant Chinese National Social Science Fund (15ZDB092), and the Second Phase of the Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD: Phase II) (20140901).

References

Biel, Steven.1996. Down with the old canoe. London: W. W. Norton.Search in Google Scholar

Crawford, Lawrence. 1984. Viktor Shklovskij: Différance in defamiliarization. Comparative Literature 36. 209–219.10.2307/1770260Search in Google Scholar

Hardwick, Charles (ed.). 1977. Semiotics and significs: The correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Hayot, Eric. 2012. On literary worlds. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199926695.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Lord, Walter. 1955. A night to remember. New York: Henry Holt and Company.Search in Google Scholar

McGarty, Craig, Vincent Y. Yzerbyt & Russell Spears. 2002. Stereotypes as explanations: The formation of meaningful beliefs about social groups. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511489877Search in Google Scholar

Natsume, Sōseki. 1992. 吾輩は猫である [I am a cat], Aiko Itō & Graeme Wilsons (trans.). North Clarendon: Tuttle.Search in Google Scholar

Nie, Zhenzhao. 2010. Ethical literary criticism: Its fundaments and terms. Foreign Literature Studies 1. 12–22.Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1966. The collected papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols., C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss & A. W. Burks (eds.). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Reference to Peirce’s papers will be designated CP followed by volume and paragraph number.]Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles S. 1967. Manuscripts in the Houghton Library of Harvard University, as identified by Richard Robin, Annotated catalogue of the papers of Charles S. Peirce. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. [Reference to Peirce’s manuscripts will be designated MS.]Search in Google Scholar

Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1998. Essential Peirce: Selected philosophical writings, vol. 2 (1893–1913), Peirce Edition Project (eds.). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [Reference to vol. 2 of Essential Peirce will be designated EP 2.]Search in Google Scholar

Rüting, Torsten. 2004. History and significance of Jakob von Uexküll and of his institute in Hamburg. Sign Systems Studies 32(1/2). 35–72.10.12697/SSS.2004.32.1-2.02Search in Google Scholar

Sebeok, Thomas A. & Marcel Danesi. 2000. The forms of meaning: Modeling systems theory and semiotic analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110816143Search in Google Scholar

Shklovsky, Viktor. 1965 [1917]. Art as technique. In Lee T. Lemon & Marion J. Reiss (eds.), Russian formalist criticism: Four essays, 3–24. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Search in Google Scholar

Tolstoy, Leo. 1984 [1882]. Tolstoy confession, David Patterson (trans.). New York: W. W. Norton.Search in Google Scholar

Uexküll, Jakob von. 1909. Umwelt und Innenwelt der Tiere. Berlin: Springer.Search in Google Scholar

Uexküll, Jakob von. 1926. Theoretical biology. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.Search in Google Scholar

Welshman, John. 2012. Titanic: The last night of a small town. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Wu, Ching-Tzu. 2004 [ca. 1749]. The scholars, Hsein-yi Yang & Gladys Yang (trans.). Beijing: Foreign Language Press.Search in Google Scholar

Yu, Hongbing. 2012. A new cultural-semiotic perspective: Perception of signs and semi-autonomous generation of meaning. Russian Literature & Arts 2. 119–124.Search in Google Scholar

Yu, Hongbing. 2013. A carnival pilgrimage: Cultural semiotics in China. Semiotica 197(1/4). 141–15210.1515/sem-2013-0096Search in Google Scholar

Zhang, Jie. 2014. The intelligent mechanism of the text: Boundaries, dialogue and space-time – reflections on the studies of the history of the nineteenth-century Russian literature. Foreign Literature Studies 5. 131–137Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2016-3-15
Published in Print: 2016-5-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Downloaded on 16.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/sem-2016-0058/html
Scroll to top button