Abstract This paper examines the effects of emotional language and telecinematic direct address in the BBC television series Fleabag (2016–2019) on viewers’ empathetic engagement, showing how multimodal narratives can invite empathy. In this series, direct address, often used to create intimacy with the audience, is the vehicle through which the eponymous protagonist shares or does not share her emotional states with those within or outside the diegesis. This way of communicating her feelings, I argue, shapes and intensifies viewers’ potential empathetic engagement in different ways throughout the series. In particular, I explain that the way in which Fleabag recurrently uses expressive language, most prominently swear words, while addressing the audience, initially invites viewer’s empathy in Season 1, before a stylistic shift in Season 2 eventually redefines this kind of emotional address: at the end of the series, viewers’ empathy is disinvited, positioning them as unwanted voyeurs.
{"title":"<i>I fucking love you</i>! Emotional address in <i>Fleabag</i>, or how viewers’ empathy becomes voyeurism","authors":"Julie Neveux","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines the effects of emotional language and telecinematic direct address in the BBC television series Fleabag (2016–2019) on viewers’ empathetic engagement, showing how multimodal narratives can invite empathy. In this series, direct address, often used to create intimacy with the audience, is the vehicle through which the eponymous protagonist shares or does not share her emotional states with those within or outside the diegesis. This way of communicating her feelings, I argue, shapes and intensifies viewers’ potential empathetic engagement in different ways throughout the series. In particular, I explain that the way in which Fleabag recurrently uses expressive language, most prominently swear words, while addressing the audience, initially invites viewer’s empathy in Season 1, before a stylistic shift in Season 2 eventually redefines this kind of emotional address: at the end of the series, viewers’ empathy is disinvited, positioning them as unwanted voyeurs.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"12 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134976519","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 One way in which character emotion is communicated in texts is through pathetic fallacy (PF), a figure of speech that projects emotions onto surroundings, which can be conceptualised in terms of variations on the conceptual metaphor emotion is surroundings. This article explores the empathetic affordances of this emotion metaphor, presenting evidence for the ways readers exploit the linguistic forms of PF in Alice Walker’s short story The Flowers to empathise with its protagonist. We draw on think-aloud data and post-reading reflections to analyse evidence of PF perception and empathy, using Pager-McClymont’s protocol for analysing PF perception and Fernandez-Quintanilla’s framework for analysing self-report of empathy. Findings show that (1) PF’s implicit communication of emotions affords empathy even when readers do not recognise the narrative technique, and that (2) specific PF instantiations afford empathy depending on underlying conceptual metaphor, textual context and correspondence with readers’ experiential background.
{"title":"The role of pathetic fallacy in shaping narrative empathy","authors":"Fransina Stradling, Kimberley Pager-McClymont","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract One way in which character emotion is communicated in texts is through pathetic fallacy (PF), a figure of speech that projects emotions onto surroundings, which can be conceptualised in terms of variations on the conceptual metaphor emotion is surroundings. This article explores the empathetic affordances of this emotion metaphor, presenting evidence for the ways readers exploit the linguistic forms of PF in Alice Walker’s short story The Flowers to empathise with its protagonist. We draw on think-aloud data and post-reading reflections to analyse evidence of PF perception and empathy, using Pager-McClymont’s protocol for analysing PF perception and Fernandez-Quintanilla’s framework for analysing self-report of empathy. Findings show that (1) PF’s implicit communication of emotions affords empathy even when readers do not recognise the narrative technique, and that (2) specific PF instantiations afford empathy depending on underlying conceptual metaphor, textual context and correspondence with readers’ experiential background.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"64 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134976525","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":"Jessica Norledge: The Language of Dystopia","authors":"Naomi Adam","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2007","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"52 1","pages":"99 - 102"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48674730","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 Previous research has identified a type of nonstandard simile in which the ground is a non-salient feature of the source term (for example, the nonstandard hard as a lamp as opposed to the standard hard as a rock), and found this type to be common in poetry and much rarer in non-poetic discourse. Since these nonstandard similes entail a fundamental semantic breach and violation of a basic convention of the simile, how can their existence be explained? Here we claim that it is the poetic context itself, the poem within which these similes appear, which is the key to explaining their existence and their unique advantage. Through a series of poetic examples, including poems by Plath, Lee, and Rukeyser, we show how the semantic difficulty of the nonstandard simile serves the poem and fulfils various functions within it.
{"title":"“Insistent as anesthetic”: difficult similes subserving the poetic context","authors":"Roi Tartakovsky, Yeshayahu Shen","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2003","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Previous research has identified a type of nonstandard simile in which the ground is a non-salient feature of the source term (for example, the nonstandard hard as a lamp as opposed to the standard hard as a rock), and found this type to be common in poetry and much rarer in non-poetic discourse. Since these nonstandard similes entail a fundamental semantic breach and violation of a basic convention of the simile, how can their existence be explained? Here we claim that it is the poetic context itself, the poem within which these similes appear, which is the key to explaining their existence and their unique advantage. Through a series of poetic examples, including poems by Plath, Lee, and Rukeyser, we show how the semantic difficulty of the nonstandard simile serves the poem and fulfils various functions within it.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"52 1","pages":"23 - 40"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46783231","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 (Sophie Hannah’s. 2009. The Other Half Lives. London: Hodder). The Other Half Lives both complies with, and departs from, the crime fiction formula or text schema. It features a mystery the specifics of which are unravelled non-chronologically, while its numerous crimes and non-ideal criminals and victims disrupt readers’ world schemas and help enable its surprising effects. Not unlike such fiction, the story’s early happenings feature late in the telling, while many happenings are given from different character perspectives. Both of these help unsettle narrative perspective, and generate suspense, mystery, and readers’ later repairing and replacing of frames. Focalisation and the working and reworking of killing characters’ early depiction are techniques also enabling foreshadowing and misdirection, for readers’ sympathies and prejudices to be manipulated accordingly, and for surprise revelations to prove effective, even when a surprise ending is – given the nature of this genre – only to be expected.
{"title":"Plotting and characterisation in Sophie Hannah’s The Other Half Lives: a cognitive stylistic approach","authors":"C. Gregoriou","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2004","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract (Sophie Hannah’s. 2009. The Other Half Lives. London: Hodder). The Other Half Lives both complies with, and departs from, the crime fiction formula or text schema. It features a mystery the specifics of which are unravelled non-chronologically, while its numerous crimes and non-ideal criminals and victims disrupt readers’ world schemas and help enable its surprising effects. Not unlike such fiction, the story’s early happenings feature late in the telling, while many happenings are given from different character perspectives. Both of these help unsettle narrative perspective, and generate suspense, mystery, and readers’ later repairing and replacing of frames. Focalisation and the working and reworking of killing characters’ early depiction are techniques also enabling foreshadowing and misdirection, for readers’ sympathies and prejudices to be manipulated accordingly, and for surprise revelations to prove effective, even when a surprise ending is – given the nature of this genre – only to be expected.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"52 1","pages":"41 - 60"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46456930","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 Picaresque fiction, or the so-called tale of roguery, focuses mainly on the adventures of a male protagonist. Although women characters rarely take the lead, they mark significant transitions in the narrative syntax. Mothers, wives, and lovers reject stereotypical role models and are invested with the potential of initiating the picaro to his life stages. This study will concentrate on the wife as a catalyst of semiotic value beyond her appointed role, exploring a corpus of four works published between 1554 and 1626: Lazarillo de Tormes, The Unfortunate Traveller, Guzmán de Alfarache, and El Buscón. In these narratives, wives oppose their fate of pure Objects in a conjugal contract, and become Subjects, Antagonists or Destinators, assertive “actants” (Greimas) in the semiotic grammar of narrative. My purpose is to re-evaluate, in deep-structure narrative terms, the significance of women characters in the largely male-centred, misogynist picaresque.
摘要皮卡雷斯小说，或所谓的无赖故事，主要集中在一个男性主人公的冒险。尽管女性角色很少担任主角，但她们标志着叙事语法的重大转变。母亲、妻子和爱人拒绝刻板的榜样，并有可能将皮卡罗带入他的人生阶段。这项研究将集中于妻子作为她指定角色之外符号价值的催化剂，探索1554年至1626年间出版的四部作品的语料库：《Lazarillo de Tormes》、《不幸的旅行者》、《Guzmán de Alfarache》和《El Buscón》。在这些叙事中，妻子在婚姻契约中反对他们作为纯粹对象的命运，并成为叙事符号语法中的主体、反主或目的地、自信的“行为体”（Greimas）。我的目的是从深层结构叙事的角度重新评估女性角色在这个以男性为中心、厌恶女性的流浪汉中的意义。
{"title":"A perfect match? A semiotic analysis of the wife figure in four early picaresque novels","authors":"Luigi Gussago","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Picaresque fiction, or the so-called tale of roguery, focuses mainly on the adventures of a male protagonist. Although women characters rarely take the lead, they mark significant transitions in the narrative syntax. Mothers, wives, and lovers reject stereotypical role models and are invested with the potential of initiating the picaro to his life stages. This study will concentrate on the wife as a catalyst of semiotic value beyond her appointed role, exploring a corpus of four works published between 1554 and 1626: Lazarillo de Tormes, The Unfortunate Traveller, Guzmán de Alfarache, and El Buscón. In these narratives, wives oppose their fate of pure Objects in a conjugal contract, and become Subjects, Antagonists or Destinators, assertive “actants” (Greimas) in the semiotic grammar of narrative. My purpose is to re-evaluate, in deep-structure narrative terms, the significance of women characters in the largely male-centred, misogynist picaresque.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"52 1","pages":"79 - 97"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49464784","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 offers a cognitive-poetic analysis of Elizabeth Bowen’s short story “Oh, Madam . . .” (1941), a war-time story set in a London house partly damaged during the Blitz. This literary text includes numerous gaps in the form of ellipsis, dashes, and unfinished sentences, inviting the reader into filling them as a part of reading experience. The analysis critically applies Peter Stockwell’s (Stockwell, Peter. 2012 [2009]. Texture: A cognitive aesthetics of reading. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Stockwell, Peter. 2020. Cognitive poetics: An introduction, 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge) concepts of texture, resonance, and textual attractors. We stress the importance of identifying textual attractors in accounting for the dynamicity of the meaning-construction process in Bowen’s story. Arguably, the so-called resonance effect, a part of the reader’s aesthetic experience, results from their cognitive engagement during the process of gap-filling. In addition to that, the recognition of specific attractors enables the reader to grasp the social relations encoded in the text. To explain the cognitive processes involved in the reading of “Oh, Madam . . .”, we propose to expand Stockwell’s list of “features of good textual attractors” by including two additional ones: absence and repetition.
{"title":"Textual attractors in literary discourse: a cognitive-poetic reading of Elizabeth Bowen’s “Oh, Madam . . .”","authors":"Anna Kędra-Kardela, A. Kowalczyk","doi":"10.1515/jls-2023-2005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2023-2005","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article offers a cognitive-poetic analysis of Elizabeth Bowen’s short story “Oh, Madam . . .” (1941), a war-time story set in a London house partly damaged during the Blitz. This literary text includes numerous gaps in the form of ellipsis, dashes, and unfinished sentences, inviting the reader into filling them as a part of reading experience. The analysis critically applies Peter Stockwell’s (Stockwell, Peter. 2012 [2009]. Texture: A cognitive aesthetics of reading. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Stockwell, Peter. 2020. Cognitive poetics: An introduction, 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge) concepts of texture, resonance, and textual attractors. We stress the importance of identifying textual attractors in accounting for the dynamicity of the meaning-construction process in Bowen’s story. Arguably, the so-called resonance effect, a part of the reader’s aesthetic experience, results from their cognitive engagement during the process of gap-filling. In addition to that, the recognition of specific attractors enables the reader to grasp the social relations encoded in the text. To explain the cognitive processes involved in the reading of “Oh, Madam . . .”, we propose to expand Stockwell’s list of “features of good textual attractors” by including two additional ones: absence and repetition.","PeriodicalId":42874,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF LITERARY SEMANTICS","volume":"52 1","pages":"61 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43121467","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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