Story versus discourse in film studies: a return to the theory of enunciation
-
Jesús González-Requena
Abstract
In this paper, we address the problematic of film narration and its narrator from a re-reading of Émile Benveniste’s theory of enunciation in open discussion with both the theories of film enunciation that have derived from it, and the cognitive theories that, by discarding it, have tried to take its place. This has led us to a differentiation between two dimensions of the problem of enunciation that are usually ignored: that which separates the act of enunciation and the subject who performs it from that of the textual subjects (the enunciator, the narrator …) who inscribe that act in the text. An erroneous understanding of the modes of enunciation of story and discourse has derived from their ignorance, which has led to reducing the former to a kind of form that derives from the latter, constituting no more than a form of discourse that would hide its basis. A precise enunciative definition of the lie is derived from their conscience. Certainly, there is always a subject of the act of enunciation whose traces can be recognized in the materiality of the statement. But there is a properly ontological distance that separates them – as material traces – from the enunciator, as a purely formal textual figure that, by being that, may or may not be present in the text. In this way, the Benveniste’s affirmation can be sustained according to which the story, the pure mode of the narrative, so to speak, is characterized by the absence – not the erasure, nor the invisibility – of any enunciator.
Funding source: Universidad Complutense de Madrid
References
Aumont, Jacques & Michel Marie. 1988. Análisis del film. Barcelona: Paidós.Suche in Google Scholar
Bal, Mieke. 2009. Narratology: Introduction to the theory of narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1959a. Les relations de temps dans le verbe français. In Problèmes de linguistique générale, vol. 1, p. 206. Paris: Gallimard.Suche in Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1959b. Las relaciones de tiempo en el verbo francés, Laura Baccelli & Nora Bouvet (trans.). Available at: https://es.scribd.com/document/138262016/Benveniste-E-Las-relaciones-de-tiempo-en-el-verbo-frances.Suche in Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1971. Problems in general linguistics, Mary Elizabeth Meek (trans.), vol. 2. Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami.Suche in Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1977. Semiología de la lengua: Problemas de lingüística general, vol. II. México: Siglo XXI.Suche in Google Scholar
Booth, Wayne C. 1983. The rhetoric of fiction. London: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226065595.001.0001Suche in Google Scholar
Bordwell, David. 1985. Narration in the fiction film. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Branigan, Edward. 1984. Point of view in the cinema: A theory of narration and subjectivity in classical film. Berlin: Mouton.10.1515/9783110817591Suche in Google Scholar
Browne, Nick. 1975–1976. The spectator-in-the-text: The rhetoric of “Stagecoach”. Film Quarterly 29(2). 26–38. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.1975.29.2.04a00050.Suche in Google Scholar
Casetti, Francesco & Federico di Chio. 1990. Cómo analizar un film. Barcelona: Paidós.Suche in Google Scholar
Cassetti, Francesco. 1989. El film y su espectador. Madrid: Cátedra.Suche in Google Scholar
Chatman, Seymour. 1978. Story and discourse: Narrative structure in fiction and film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. 1899–1900. La interpretación de los sueños (Obras Completas 4), José L. Etcheverry (trans.). Buenos Aires: Amorrortu editores s. a.Suche in Google Scholar
Gaudreault, Andre & Francois Jost. 1990. El relato cinematográfico. Barcelona: Ediciones Paidós.Suche in Google Scholar
Genette, Gerard. 1979. Narrative discourse: An essay in method. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
González Requena, Jesús. 1987. Enunciación, punto de vista, sujeto. Contracampo 42. 97–135.Suche in Google Scholar
González Requena, Jesús. 2006. Teoría del relato. In Clásico, manierista, postclásico: Los modos del relato en el cine de Hollywood, 584, 475–584. Valladolid: Ediciones Castilla.Suche in Google Scholar
González Requena, Jesús. 2013. El ser de las imágenes: De la teoría al análisis de la imagen. https://gonzalezrequena.com/textos-en-linea-0–2/libros-en-linea/el-ser-de-las-imagenes/ (accessed 29 March 2022).Suche in Google Scholar
Metz, Christian. 1982. Story/discourse (a note on two types of voyeurism). In Psychoanalysis and cinema: The imaginary signifier, 89–98. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-349-05103-8_6Suche in Google Scholar
Mitry, Jean. 1967. Aesthetics and psychology of the cinema, Christopher King (trans.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Suche in Google Scholar
Paolucci, Claudio. 2020. Persona: Soggetività nel lingaggio e semiotica dell’enunciazione. Milan: Bompiani.Suche in Google Scholar
© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Les enjeux sémiotiques de la médiation : le cas de la figure du pont Khadjou d’Ispahan
- Studying values about childhood using networked photography on Instagram
- The Garden: blending in the semiotics of songs
- Story versus discourse in film studies: a return to the theory of enunciation
- The rhetorical dimension of images: identity building and management on social networks
- The semiology of colors in scripture translation: Arabic-English
- Alternative model of the communication process: a theoretical proposal
- Semiotics in South Korea: history and research trends
- The role of natural disasters in the semiotic transformations of culture: the case of the volcanic eruptions of Mt. Merapi, Indonesia
- Peirce’s evolving interpretants
- Questionnement sur la dualité: Quelques éléments pour fonder une sémiotique du bouddhisme
- Multimodality in Hong Kong government posters from the 1950s–1980s: an appraisal analysis and the discursive construction of legitimation
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Les enjeux sémiotiques de la médiation : le cas de la figure du pont Khadjou d’Ispahan
- Studying values about childhood using networked photography on Instagram
- The Garden: blending in the semiotics of songs
- Story versus discourse in film studies: a return to the theory of enunciation
- The rhetorical dimension of images: identity building and management on social networks
- The semiology of colors in scripture translation: Arabic-English
- Alternative model of the communication process: a theoretical proposal
- Semiotics in South Korea: history and research trends
- The role of natural disasters in the semiotic transformations of culture: the case of the volcanic eruptions of Mt. Merapi, Indonesia
- Peirce’s evolving interpretants
- Questionnement sur la dualité: Quelques éléments pour fonder une sémiotique du bouddhisme
- Multimodality in Hong Kong government posters from the 1950s–1980s: an appraisal analysis and the discursive construction of legitimation
