This essay aims to provide an ecostylistic analysis of transitivity and agency in selected extracts from Richard Jefferies’s late nineteenth-century rural essays, which were collected in his so-called country books. Jefferies’s portrayal of the interconnection between humans and the natural environment has been variously described as “pantheistic”, a “pantheist revery”, or an “ecstatic communion”. The present study proposes to validate these claims by showing that Jefferies’s essays utilise patterns of transitivity to depict manifold relationships between human and non-human agents in placid landscape descriptions. These can be regarded as positive discourse praising the rural environment and humans’ entanglement with other animal and vegetable organisms. An in-depth scrutiny of the linguistic patterns of Jefferies’s texts, corroborated by the theoretical and methodological framework of (eco)stylistics and related disciplines (i.e. Systemic Functional Grammar), offers useful insights into the author’s ecosophy and holistic understanding of the human and non-human world. By conceptualising the various constitutive elements of the physical environment as active/agentive participants in particular types of processes, Jefferies gives special prominence to ecocentric, rather than anthropocentric positions.
{"title":"Transitivity and agency in Richard Jefferies’s rural essays: an ecostylistic analysis","authors":"Annalisa Federici","doi":"10.1515/jls-2024-2004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2024-2004","url":null,"abstract":"This essay aims to provide an ecostylistic analysis of transitivity and agency in selected extracts from Richard Jefferies’s late nineteenth-century rural essays, which were collected in his so-called country books. Jefferies’s portrayal of the interconnection between humans and the natural environment has been variously described as “pantheistic”, a “pantheist revery”, or an “ecstatic communion”. The present study proposes to validate these claims by showing that Jefferies’s essays utilise patterns of transitivity to depict manifold relationships between human and non-human agents in placid landscape descriptions. These can be regarded as positive discourse praising the rural environment and humans’ entanglement with other animal and vegetable organisms. An in-depth scrutiny of the linguistic patterns of Jefferies’s texts, corroborated by the theoretical and methodological framework of (eco)stylistics and related disciplines (i.e. Systemic Functional Grammar), offers useful insights into the author’s ecosophy and holistic understanding of the human and non-human world. By conceptualising the various constitutive elements of the physical environment as active/agentive participants in particular types of processes, Jefferies gives special prominence to ecocentric, rather than anthropocentric positions.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140567186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The goal of this paper is to offer an analysis on how Italian places act as key narrative units in Japanese manga. Building on a quantitative and qualitative corpus study, the paper investigates how culturally salient locations are embedded in these narratives. It is first shown that authors develop salient locations (“places”) as distinct entities playing key roles within narrative structures. It is then shown that these representations of places follow principles of cultural relevance, popularity, historical and geographical faithfulness. This is the case because authors creating manga set in Italy share knowledge and appreciation of Italian places and their cultural import with readers. These results are framed in a theory of geo-criticism and in a possible worlds analysis of places in fiction, hereby extended to graphic narratives.
{"title":"Italian places in Japanese manga: a study on topophilia in graphic narratives","authors":"Francesco-Alessio Ursini, Giuseppe Samo","doi":"10.1515/jls-2024-2003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2024-2003","url":null,"abstract":"The goal of this paper is to offer an analysis on how Italian places act as key narrative units in Japanese manga. Building on a quantitative and qualitative corpus study, the paper investigates how culturally salient locations are embedded in these narratives. It is first shown that authors develop salient locations (“places”) as distinct entities playing key roles within narrative structures. It is then shown that these representations of places follow principles of cultural relevance, popularity, historical and geographical faithfulness. This is the case because authors creating manga set in Italy share knowledge and appreciation of Italian places and their cultural import with readers. These results are framed in a theory of geo-criticism and in a possible worlds analysis of places in fiction, hereby extended to graphic narratives.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140567192","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Based on a theoretical pragmatic model (Sorlin, Sandrine. 2022. The stylistics of ‘you’. Second-person pronoun and its pragmatic effects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), this article compares the use of the second-person pronoun in three different narratives written by Black writers: Jamaica Kincaid’s essay, A Small Place (1988), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “The Thing Around Your Neck” (2009) and Caleb Azumah Nelson’s first novel Open Water (2021). It highlights how the racial nature and assumed universality of you is exposed in the texts and argues that the pronoun works as a powerful vector of otherness, bringing the (white Western) reader to experience racism in most intimate terms. The three texts propose varied stylistic constellations that draw on the flexibility of the pronoun in terms of potential reference, entailing different positionings of audiences, going from “self-ascription” (Wechsler, Stephen. 2010. What ‘I’ and ‘you’ mean to each other: Person indexicals, self-ascription, and theory of mind. Language 86(2). 332–365) to “enactment” (Caracciolo, Marco. 2014. The experientiality of narrative. Berlin: De Gruyter; Popova, Yanna B. 2015. Stories, meaning and experience: Narrativity and enaction. London & New York: Routledge). The article also evidences how the inter/intra-personal pronoun triggers a blurring of traditional stylistic and narratorial labels and lines. Lastly, from an enactive perspective that sees reading as an intersubjective participatory act where meaning emerges in the very interaction between a teller and a reader, this article sees communicating as an act of coordination based on the metaphor, communicating is dancing, inspired by Azumah Nelson’s rhythmic novel.
基于实用性理论模型（Sorlin, Sandrine.2022.你 "的文体学。第二人称代词及其语用效果》。剑桥：剑桥大学出版社），本文比较了黑人作家在三篇不同叙事中使用第二人称代词的情况：牙买加-金凯德（Jamaica Kincaid）的散文《一个小地方》（1988 年）、奇玛曼达-恩格齐-阿迪切（Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie）的短篇小说《你脖子上的东西》（2009 年）和凯莱布-阿祖玛-尼尔森（Caleb Azumah Nelson）的第一部小说《开阔水域》（2021 年）。该研究强调了 "你 "的种族性质和假定的普遍性是如何在文本中暴露出来的，并认为代词作为一种强大的他者性载体，使（西方白人）读者以最亲密的方式体验种族主义。这三篇文章提出了不同的文体组合，利用代词在潜在参照方面的灵活性，为受众带来不同的定位，从 "自我描述"（Wechsler, Stephen.2010.我 "和 "你 "对彼此意味着什么？人称索引、自我描述和心智理论》。Language 86(2).332-365) to "enactment" (Caracciolo, Marco.2014.The experientiality of narrative.柏林：De Gruyter; Popova, Yanna B. 2015.Stories, meaning and experience：叙事性与实施》。London & New York：Routledge）。文章还论证了人称代词如何模糊传统文体和叙事标签与界限。最后，本文从一种积极主动的视角出发，将阅读视为一种主体间的参与行为，其意义产生于讲述者与读者之间的互动之中。
{"title":"You as a stylistic vector of otherness: from self-ascription to enactment in Kincaid (1988), Adichie (2009) and Azumah Nelson (2021)","authors":"Sandrine Sorlin","doi":"10.1515/jls-2024-2001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2024-2001","url":null,"abstract":"Based on a theoretical pragmatic model (Sorlin, Sandrine. 2022. <jats:italic>The stylistics of ‘you’. Second-person pronoun and its pragmatic effects</jats:italic>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), this article compares the use of the second-person pronoun in three different narratives written by Black writers: Jamaica Kincaid’s essay, <jats:italic>A Small Place</jats:italic> (1988), Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s short story “The Thing Around Your Neck” (2009) and Caleb Azumah Nelson’s first novel <jats:italic>Open Water</jats:italic> (2021). It highlights how the racial nature and assumed universality of <jats:italic>you</jats:italic> is exposed in the texts and argues that the pronoun works as a powerful vector of otherness, bringing the (white Western) reader to experience racism in most intimate terms. The three texts propose varied stylistic constellations that draw on the flexibility of the pronoun in terms of potential reference, entailing different positionings of audiences, going from “self-ascription” (Wechsler, Stephen. 2010. What ‘I’ and ‘you’ mean to each other: Person indexicals, self-ascription, and theory of mind. <jats:italic>Language</jats:italic> 86(2). 332–365) to “enactment” (Caracciolo, Marco. 2014. <jats:italic>The experientiality of narrative</jats:italic>. Berlin: De Gruyter; Popova, Yanna B. 2015. <jats:italic>Stories, meaning and experience: Narrativity and enaction</jats:italic>. London & New York: Routledge). The article also evidences how the inter/intra-personal pronoun triggers a blurring of traditional stylistic and narratorial labels and lines. Lastly, from an enactive perspective that sees reading as an intersubjective participatory act where meaning emerges in the very interaction between a teller and a reader, this article sees communicating as an act of coordination based on the metaphor, <jats:sc>communicating is dancing</jats:sc>, inspired by Azumah Nelson’s rhythmic novel.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140567069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The traditional authoritative, obtrusive narrator, also known as the Thackeray-type narrator, has been excluded from the narratological study of consciousness representations, partly because scholars have a stereotypical view that such a narrator avoids descriptions of a character’s inside view, and partly because they dislike narratorial presence in the representations of figural consciousness. Taking Thackeray’s Vanity Fair as a typical example, this paper revisits these views and reconsiders the presentation of consciousness in terms of narratorial performance of narrative authority. With attention to the degrees of the reader’s involvement, it investigates how the narrator modulates various narrative techniques (psycho-narration, free indirect thought, narrated perception) to present the minds of the worldly male characters, how each technique functions in different narrative contexts through the interaction between the narratorial voice and figural consciousness, and how the narrator’s internal evaluation is subtly embedded in the immediate representations of consciousness to create intentional ambiguity.
{"title":"Thackeray-type narrator revisited: portrayal of characters’ minds as narratorial performance in Vanity Fair","authors":"Masayuki Nakao","doi":"10.1515/jls-2024-2002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2024-2002","url":null,"abstract":"The traditional authoritative, obtrusive narrator, also known as the Thackeray-type narrator, has been excluded from the narratological study of consciousness representations, partly because scholars have a stereotypical view that such a narrator avoids descriptions of a character’s inside view, and partly because they dislike narratorial presence in the representations of figural consciousness. Taking Thackeray’s <jats:italic>Vanity Fair</jats:italic> as a typical example, this paper revisits these views and reconsiders the presentation of consciousness in terms of narratorial performance of narrative authority. With attention to the degrees of the reader’s involvement, it investigates how the narrator modulates various narrative techniques (psycho-narration, free indirect thought, narrated perception) to present the minds of the worldly male characters, how each technique functions in different narrative contexts through the interaction between the narratorial voice and figural consciousness, and how the narrator’s internal evaluation is subtly embedded in the immediate representations of consciousness to create intentional ambiguity.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140567072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Margaret Freeman: The Poem as Icon. A Study in Aesthetic Cognition","authors":"W. van Peer","doi":"10.1515/jls-2024-2005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2024-2005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140761497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract In connection to literature, negative empathy is a sophisticated form of narrative empathy with fictional characters portrayed as markedly evil and seductive at the same time. Several studies on narrative engagement have explored negative empathy mainly from a theoretical perspective. Conversely, empirical approaches have rarely delved into the dynamics of the linguistic construction of the texts studied. To fill this gap, this paper employs computational techniques to investigate the language of a corpus of novels whose characters are particularly apt for the arousal of negative empathy. More specifically, this study uses Sentiment and Emotion Analysis to explore the lexical representation of emotions and to locate fluctuations in the emotional content of the texts. The ultimate aim is to assess both the potential and the vulnerabilities of Sentiment Analysis for detecting emotional shifts in a literary text and thus for revealing the intensity of its emotional content, which may facilitate the readers’ morally challenging engagement with negative characters.
{"title":"Exploring the potential of sentiment analysis for the study of negative empathy","authors":"Carmen Bonasera","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In connection to literature, negative empathy is a sophisticated form of narrative empathy with fictional characters portrayed as markedly evil and seductive at the same time. Several studies on narrative engagement have explored negative empathy mainly from a theoretical perspective. Conversely, empirical approaches have rarely delved into the dynamics of the linguistic construction of the texts studied. To fill this gap, this paper employs computational techniques to investigate the language of a corpus of novels whose characters are particularly apt for the arousal of negative empathy. More specifically, this study uses Sentiment and Emotion Analysis to explore the lexical representation of emotions and to locate fluctuations in the emotional content of the texts. The ultimate aim is to assess both the potential and the vulnerabilities of Sentiment Analysis for detecting emotional shifts in a literary text and thus for revealing the intensity of its emotional content, which may facilitate the readers’ morally challenging engagement with negative characters.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134976522","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Many poems rely on sensory lexis and metaphors, making them amenable to the readerly experience of sensory overlap or fusion that characterizes synaesthesia. Such sensory language can be considered a way to connect with our emotions and bodies, since our bodily experiences directly influence and control many of our other experiences. Synaesthetic metaphors can thus be related to empathy via embodiment, especially when empathy is understood as playing a part in the reader’s or the spectator’s sensory engagement with works of art. In this article, I explore how empathy can derive from our sensory experience of a few poems that may allow embodied reading experiences. Analyzing sensory language in poems by Dadaist Hugo Ball, Romantics John Keats and Wilfred Owen, and Modernist H.D., I contend that loading poetry with sensations could be construed as an attempt to bridge the gap(s) between the body and the mind by stimulating readers’ empathic response.
{"title":"Connecting with the world: poetic synaesthesia, sensory metaphors and empathy","authors":"Laure-Hélène Anthony-Gerroldt","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Many poems rely on sensory lexis and metaphors, making them amenable to the readerly experience of sensory overlap or fusion that characterizes synaesthesia. Such sensory language can be considered a way to connect with our emotions and bodies, since our bodily experiences directly influence and control many of our other experiences. Synaesthetic metaphors can thus be related to empathy via embodiment, especially when empathy is understood as playing a part in the reader’s or the spectator’s sensory engagement with works of art. In this article, I explore how empathy can derive from our sensory experience of a few poems that may allow embodied reading experiences. Analyzing sensory language in poems by Dadaist Hugo Ball, Romantics John Keats and Wilfred Owen, and Modernist H.D., I contend that loading poetry with sensations could be construed as an attempt to bridge the gap(s) between the body and the mind by stimulating readers’ empathic response.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134977687","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This article introduces the special issue by outlining the current state of research into the role of textual-linguistic features in eliciting narrative empathy. Firstly, we address the complexities around defining the term ‘narrative empathy’ and provide some definitional criteria. We then review the ways in which the role of language in narrative empathy has been studied to date in narratology, literary studies, empirical study of literature and stylistics. Based on this review, we argue that stylistic approaches allow for the much-needed exploration of specific linguistic techniques that may contribute to narrative empathy, while also taking into account other contextual factors to address the local nature of reading effects. Finally, we summarise how the contributions to this special issue showcase the affordances of stylistic analysis for the study of narrative empathy and offer new insights into the ways narrative empathy is elicited during the reading process.
{"title":"Introduction: stylistic approaches to narrative empathy","authors":"Carolina Fernandez-Quintanilla, Fransina Stradling","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article introduces the special issue by outlining the current state of research into the role of textual-linguistic features in eliciting narrative empathy. Firstly, we address the complexities around defining the term ‘narrative empathy’ and provide some definitional criteria. We then review the ways in which the role of language in narrative empathy has been studied to date in narratology, literary studies, empirical study of literature and stylistics. Based on this review, we argue that stylistic approaches allow for the much-needed exploration of specific linguistic techniques that may contribute to narrative empathy, while also taking into account other contextual factors to address the local nature of reading effects. Finally, we summarise how the contributions to this special issue showcase the affordances of stylistic analysis for the study of narrative empathy and offer new insights into the ways narrative empathy is elicited during the reading process.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134977999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Kamel Daoud’s debut novel Meursault, contre-enquête is a recasting of Camus’ seminal novel, L’Étranger . Daoud creates an overt and deliberate set of intertextual references to Camus’ text by describing the same events from the point of view of the brother of the nameless ‘ Arab ’ murdered by Meursault in L’Étranger. Thus the differences in character and event presentation are defamiliarised and foregrounded. This article argues that such intertextual foregrounding and defamiliarisation has implications for reader identification with the characters and related empathetic responses. Using a corpus-assisted stylistic analysis of the original French texts, the article illustrates these implications by analysing the ways the language of Daoud’s novel may contribute to alternation between readers’ empathy and antipathy towards its characters.
{"title":"“The unlikeliest twins”: the role of intertextual foregrounding and defamiliarisation in creating empathy in <i>Meursault, contre-enquête</i>","authors":"Tatyana Karpenko-Seccombe","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Kamel Daoud’s debut novel Meursault, contre-enquête is a recasting of Camus’ seminal novel, L’Étranger . Daoud creates an overt and deliberate set of intertextual references to Camus’ text by describing the same events from the point of view of the brother of the nameless ‘ Arab ’ murdered by Meursault in L’Étranger. Thus the differences in character and event presentation are defamiliarised and foregrounded. This article argues that such intertextual foregrounding and defamiliarisation has implications for reader identification with the characters and related empathetic responses. Using a corpus-assisted stylistic analysis of the original French texts, the article illustrates these implications by analysing the ways the language of Daoud’s novel may contribute to alternation between readers’ empathy and antipathy towards its characters.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134976518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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