FP: Terminology: 1. General Terminology

Canon

Accepted books, inclusion, canon can't satisfy everyone, Christian bible became consistent refers to a body of books, narratives and other texts considered to be the most important and influential of a particular time period or place

Signifier (signifant) / signified (signifè)

Accodin to Saussure, language cannot be defined as the expression f intention or te mirror of reality but as a system of dynamic relationships between signs, which generates meaning in itself. Signifier: any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image. Signified: the concept that a signifier refers to. Together, the signifier and signified make up the. Sign: the smallest unit of meaning. Anything that can be used to communicate (or to tell a lie). The meanings of signs are defined by the relationships between paradigms, that is by difference from other signs within the same category.

Functions of language (Jackobson)

According to Jackobson, any act of verbal communication is composed of six elements, or factors (the terms of the model) (1) a context (the co-text, that is, the other verbal signs in the same message, and the world in which the message takes place), (2) an addresser (a sender, or enunciator), (3) an addressee (a receiver, or enunciate), (4) a contact between an addresser and addressee, (5) a common code and (6) a message.

Defamiliarization

According to Viktor Shklovsky (Russian Formalist) in the essay 'Art as Technique', defamiliarization or estrangement is defined as a technique which aims to make us perceive everyday objects and words from a strange perspective. Our perception becomes automatized while repeatedly perceiving objects or doing actions. It is a process of transformation where language asserts its power to affect our perception. It is that aspect which differentiates between ordinary usage and poetic usage of language, and imparts a uniqueness to a literary work.

Foregrounding

Aesthetic device consisting in a deviation from a conventional (aesthetic, logic, linguistic, etc) norm (the background) for various purposes, e.g. raising attention, manipulating reader perception or in order to render the reader/recipient aware of the background norm, its shortcomings etc. Example: alliteration in lyric poetry (an unusual surplus of phonetic order) as a means of foregrounding the words ivolved

Structuralism

1) How is Saussurian linguistics linked to structuralism? · Structuralism is concerned with the system of literature itself (as langue), which enabled the generation of actual texts (as parole) · Strucutralism refuses the idea of literature as authorial expression and concentrates on textual structures or on readers, who use their literary competence in order to structure texts · Saussure: language cannot be defined as the expression of intentions or the mirror of reality but as a system of dynamic relationships between signs, which generates meaning in itself · The virtual system of the rules and signs of language (langue) is realised in individual performances (parole) with a difference, which can change the menaings of signs and rules in the long run · A sign does not connect a name and a real thing but rather a sound image or graphic image (signifier) and a mental concept (signified) in an abitrary relationship · The meanings of signs are defined by the relationships between paradigms, that is by differences from other signs · Language creates meaning based in the difference between signs rather tan the content of individual signs · Binary oppositions form the basic semantic units of a language, sentences mean something by the selection of paradigms and their syntagmatic combination · Saussures concepts have influenced the definition of literature as a system, writing and interpretation as competence (langue) put into performance (parole), and meaning as a relationship between signs. 2) What are the advantages and disadvantages of this theory and its methods? · Advantages: non-subject model for the analysis of literary and other cultural forms, free of the customary privileging of literary above popular forms and would extend across written and visual · Disadvantages: limitations in these filed to the analogy with natural language and thus to the model porposed by strucutral linguistics o too dogmatic with adapting linguistic theories to non linguistic text (poems) o Analysis of cultural forms is concerned with meaning o Saussure saw the relation between parts of the sign and between the signs as governed by an entire system of lanugage (langue); but connection is not defined by a whole culture, but by the conventions of a subculture or genre and that they are motivated rather than arbitrary, analogy, doesn't always work o Ignoring social, ideological and historical aspects of language (V.N. Voloshinov) o Privileging speek over writing ( Jaques Derrida) Derives from linguistics, collects data systematically, logical deduction, able to find reliable conclusion, believes in system, method and reason, neutral and topical, symmetry, to show textual unity and coherence, contrasts and patterns

Marxist literary theory

1) What are the basic principles of Marxist social theory (181‒82)? · The material reality of economic circumstaance forms the base that conditions the social, political and cultural lofe of the superstructure · Differ between: base and superstructure o Earlier Marxists: relationship of mutual influence o Later followers: base determines or conditions the superstructure (society etc) · Ideology: falsifying collectively held system of ideas and beliefs that interpret the world (ex politics) not neutral à persuation of specific goals 2) How does a Marxist perspective affect the analysis of literary texts? What do Marxist critics analyse? How and why? (185‒86) · What are the key features of the base and superstructure of the period in question? · How does the text represent social and economic conflicts? Are the characters determined by cirumstances or in control of them? · How does the text represent ideologies? Are the narrator and the characters aware of economic, social and ideological conflicts? Does the text explore the rivalry of ideologies for egemony between and within characters in dialogic and double-voiced discourse? · What are the political and cultural positions of the text on the material conditions, the ideological and cultural context?

Postcolonial Studies

1) What does postcolonialism mean (196)? When and why did postcolonial theories emerge? · Postcolonialism= umbrella term, temporal and/or conceptual difference to colonialism · take up language of the colonizer · loose own culture, ideantity of the colonies after decolonalisation · 1960s, british empire lost power no more colonies, waves of immigration, Civil Rights Movement in the US confronted white society with its racial discrimination 2) Why are the terms "race" and "ethnicity" problematic (196)? Provide examples. · Race à social and cultural construction, used to classify others as subordinate and legitimise social, economic and political practices, such as segregation, exploitation · Ethnicity à includes language and culture of people; criticised as culturally racist if used to defie others simply by being devian from white western culture 3) What is "orientalist misrepresentation" (197) according to Edward Said? Provide examples. · Separation of opposite cultures à but: cultures are hybrid and heterogenous, interrelated and interdependent · Ex. Clash of civilisations between "enlightened" Western and "backward" islamic cultures 4) How do Homi Bhabha's concepts of "hybridity" and "mimicry" change the way we look at "identity" and "alterity" ("Otherness") (197)? · Hybridity: interdependent construction of post/colonial identities, which combine and intersect binary oppositions · Mimicry: the colonial would be motivated to imitate the codes of a dominant group such as language, dress and manners; but: imitators would never be quite accepted by the dominant group even if they embodied the standars in perfection 5) Connect Bhabha's understanding of "diaspora" with Stuart Hall's cultural studies outlook on identity (197-98). · Bhaba diaspora: migrant disturbs the British sense of a unified history and idenity · Hall à there is no unified history; historical oricess of constantly changing indentities in cultural exchanges and representations, a transformation of differences between an within cultures 6) What is a "subaltern" (198)? · Underpriviledged, lower class à post/colonial populstions have hardly ever had the chance to articulate their positions in contrast to the post/colonial elites, who have been in close contatct with western cultures 7) Explain the terms "culturalist," "universalist," and "third space" (198). · Culturalist: cultures are ethnocentric, radically different and therefore basically inaccessible to each other; they warn of a clash between cultures; nutual tolerance in a multiculturals world · Unversalist: global economic exchange, mass media and mass migration tend to dissolve cultural boundaries, a process that leads to a transcultural and transnational fusion of elements by cosmopolian individuals in a postmodern capitalist world; differences between cultures are not as radical Third space: in-between cultures

Mise en abyme

A structure or element of a semiotic complex (work, text etc) which is situated on a diegetically/ontologically lower level and which is homologous to a similar structure or element on a higher level of the same work or text (e.g. the representation of the murder of a king in the embedded play within the play 'The murder of Gonzago' of Shakespeares Hamlet as a mirroring of Claudius murder of Hamlets father in the main story)

New criticism

1) When and where was New Criticism particularly popular? · Britain (British practical criticism) and America (American New Criticism) · in 1920s-60s 2) Explain the basic premises and methods of New Critical theory. · Reject the extrinsic readings of literature in favour of an intrinsic approach · Denigrate (schlechtmachen) an interpretation that refers to the author's meaning · Literature is independent of authorial intention, historical circumstances and its emotional effect upon the reader · Literature is an autonomous aesthetic object · Ideal of the poet's impersonality · taking the text apart · objective, the text matters · no need to know anything about the author, believe in biography and history etc but the most important thing is the text · close read every word, studying the poem as a poem · made literary analysis more democratic · intrinsic approach, independent of authorrial intention 3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of this theory and its methods? · Disadvantages: unhistorical, close readings were held to be inappropriate because they avioded addressing the importance of readers history and culture to literature, requires close reading, might miss irony · Advantages: reader doesn't have to know anything about the historical context or any information about the author, compare to other poems, once everything is analyzed it has to have sense, doesn't leave questions open, harmonious organic thing

Feminist, gender and queer theories

1) When, why, and how did feminist literary theory emerge? Why was this development followed by gender studies? And what does queer theory add? Trace the stages of development in its context. · Founding mothers of 20th century feminism are Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir à womens voices have been muted under patriarchal restrictions to domestic duties and womans bodies reduced to an objectà androgynous writer is needed (male and female aspects of mind used) · Issues of feminist theory: cultural construction of woman, womans identity and representation, womens roles as writers and readers of literature · Feminist readings of literature should go beyond posing masculine stereotypes of women à gynocriticism: retrieving neglected literature by women, based on a female subculture; literature is valuble if it provides a forum for the authentic self-expression of women, raises concousness about womens issues, present positive role-models · Queer theory: go beyond the attempt to reconstruct the female position because lesbians and gays neither fit the category of femininity or masculinity · Gender studies: post feminist aera in the 1980ies, can women be associated with a biological body and sex beyond culture? à differences between women and men, gender and race and class · Construction of gender is a fundamental cultural technology that forms bodily and sexual experience, social relationships, knowledge, political and economic power

Deconstruction / Poststructuralism

1. Postmodernism Characteristics · everything has been done, nothing is 100% new anymore · rebellious approach and willingness to test boundaries · embracing disorder and taking a more playful approach · intertextuality - connection between texts · metafiction - aware that a text is fiction · irony is common, no absolute truth · parodies (humor, show critical undertone) · no distinction between high art and popular art · electrisism = composed of different small parts (postmodernism critiques itself) · pastiche = collage · self-referejtial text = reflects on the facts that it is a literary text · metafiction about fiction, addresses own fictionality · texts used to make you think 2. When and where did poststructuralism emerge (Meyer 176)? · 1960s (Meyer)/70s and 80s (Brooker) · France; french intellectuals moved because of events in May 1968 · Deconstructivists, post-strucutralists and postmodernists like to work with texts that thematise writing, representation or readingin a self-referential way · Instead of looking for harmony, unity or universal ideas, they reveal discord, contradiction, incoherence and indeterminate, relative concepts · What appears to be self-evident is revealed as arbitrary 3. How does poststructuralism reinterpret Saussure's theories? And why is this necessary, according to Jacques Derrida and others? · Saussure takes relationship between signifier and signified as the two different but inseperable pages of a sheet of paper, but posttructuralist Derrida stresses the separation between them -> unsable relationship, · Saussure speaks of binary opposition, Derrida decenters the system of binary oppositions, he says: binary oppositions convey a hiracy in which the minor term disturbs the stable balance. The oppositions man/woman, .. provilege the first term, which is always contaminated by the trace of its "lesser" counterpart · Why is it necessary to reinterpret? o Derrida: Difference is what makes the movement of signification possible only if each element that is said to be present is related to something other than itslef but retains the mark of a past element and already lets itself be hollowed out by the mark of its relation to a future element. This trace constitutes what is called the present by this very relation to what is not, to what is absolutely is not. 4. Which worldview does this theory promote? How does Brooker define Derrida's theory, and how does he characterize its role in poststructuralism? · Language consists of an interminable play of signifiers, which disseminates or disperses rather than fixes meanings · Deconstructive analysis: figures out the principles that serve as the bedrock (Fundament) of the text, and then unearths (ausgraben) the quicksand beneath it · Something a text presents as natural, normal or self-evident would appear to be based on ehat is considred to be cultural, abitrary and strange · The eurocentric universal definition of humanity as mankind or man turns out to be an artificial patriachal construction that serves as the norm for men and women of any culture around the world containing multiple gendered and ethic differences, which if addressed, question the universal assumption · Definition of Derridas theory: Deconstruction o Often used with the sens of simply analysis, but is has a more precise and challenging meaning o Writings can be frustratingly evasive (ausweichend) and opaque (undurchlässig) o Deconstruction is referred to as a method o Stands in relation to philosophy as a critical attitude or way of reading · Role in poststructuralism: o More formalist or nattowly textualist side of Derridas work has been especially taken up in the USA in postsructuralism o Duality in Derridas writing; earlyer work more commitment to the Enlightenment principles of truth, rationality, justice and a more rigorous phiosophical method compared with the more literary later work

Narrative literature

A narrative or story is an account of a series of related events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare. Narrative is a report of related events presented to listeners or readers, in words arranged in a logical sequence. A story is taken as a synonym of narrative. A narrative, or story, is told by a narrator who may be a direct part of that experience, and he or she often shares the experience as a first-person narrator. 1. Linear Narrative. A linear narrative presents the events of the story in the order in which they actually happened. Examples of narrative linearity can be found in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which offers different narrative perspectives but unfolds the plot in a linear, chronological manner. 2. Non-linear Narrative. In Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, Odysseus' adventures are presented out of order. This has the effect of building suspense throughout the long narrative poem, as the reader is left to wonder how Odysseus' ordeals began. 3. Quest Narrative. A quest narrative is a story in which the protagonist works tirelessly toward a goal. Typically, this object of their pursuit is geographically remote, and the character must go on a long journey to obtain it—as Odysseus does in returning home to his wife in The Odyssey . 4.Viewpoint Narrative. Viewpoint narrative is designed to express the points of view or subjective personal experience of the main character or other fictional characters in the story.

Intertextuality

A relation between (verbal) texts, usually the marked or unmarked relation or reference of a text to a pre-text

Implied norms

A special cognitive frame: a conventional pattern or rule (e.g. of behavior of morality) usually as a part of a larger system of rules and/or meaning, according to which acceptable, correct, good behavior, states and actions are distinguished from unacceptable, incorrect or bad ones, norms thus have a pragmatic and evaluative function. In literary works one must distinguish between the norms according to which individual characters (heroes, villains etc) act and the overall norms that inform the text as a whole (or the implied author) and contribute to the worldview (including the view of man, the religious, philosophical, epistemological, aesthetic etc views) of the text and its general function as a miniature possible world

The principle of arbitrariness of linguistic signs (digital vs. analogic signs)

Arbitrariness:The notion of the 'arbitrary sign' suggests a relationship between signifier and signified where there is no apparent reason why a specific form should signify a specific meaning. digital sign: onomatopoeia, iconic and indexical signs, as they have a finite set of possibilities analog: symbolic signs because they are continuously variable, they can change over time

Self-referentiality

As opposed to hetero-reference, a reference in literature and other media that points to (elements of) itself or its own system (e.g. the text one is reading, other texts or the realm of texts/literature/the arts and media in general) in any case to the very realm (of artefacts) to which the text or artefact itself belongs which one is reading/receiving self-reference has many forms and comprises for instance mise en abyme, intertextuality, intermediality, metareference, metatextuality and its various subforms. Sometimes self-referentiality is used as a synonym of self-reflexivity. It is however opposed to self-reflexivity nned not make the reader/recipient reflect on (elements of) the text or the world of texts and artefacts as texts or artefacts (thus even the relation between the rhymes of a rhyming couplet is self-refernetial)

Parody vs. satire

By definition, a parody is a comedic commentary about a work, that requires an imitation of the work. A low subject is represented in sublime style. Satire, on the other hand, even when it uses a creative work as the vehicle for the message, offers commentary and criticism about the world, not that specific creative work. A work of satire uses humour (particularly irony and exaggeration) to expose flaws in human behaviour. By and large, anyone who writes a satirical story intends to ridicule people's idiocy or vices. When notions of human frailty, indecency, or inadequacy are juxtaposed with other factors—such as societal issues or political commentary—satire can be a powerful tool to provoke and challenge attitudes. It is often by using humour that works of satire can feel very much like a harbinger of change, helping to shape public opinion around a common understanding. A parody is any kind of work which mimics a familiar style (of artist, genre, or work) to invoke humour. Like satire, parody relies upon exaggeration to deride its target, but its primary aim is to amuse by aping something which others can recognise. Beyond that, however, there is little deeper motive. Most parodists are focused on ridiculing surface-level observations for easy (if not deserving) laughs

Literary history

Connection to social political history, changing writing style, how did world view have an impact, development of literature

Cultural history /New Historicism /Cultural Materialism

Cultural history combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. It examines the records and narrative descriptions of past matter, encompassing the continuum of events (occurring in succession and leading from the past to the present and even into the future) pertaining to a culture. New Historicism 1) When did New Historicism emerge (Meyer 187)? · 1980ies · New Historicists say: literature does not reflect a given historical moment but negotiates cultural concepts and values · Problem of historiography: the past was never the way we see it in retrospective; historians cannot be objective because they are themselves subject to history; the past is not stable, coherent entity and therefore cannot serve as an ojective background and reference point of literature · no hierarchy between literary text and non literary texts · no difference between fiction and facts 2) How do New Historicists define the relation between "textuality"(Kriterien der textualität unterscheiden Texte von "Nicht-Texten") and "history" (187‒88)? Explain Louis Montrose's perspective. · Historicity of texts: cultural specificity, the social embedment of all models of writing (not only texts that critics study but also the texts in which we study them) · Textuality of history: we can have no access to a full and authentic past and that those textual traces are themselves subject to subsequent (anschließend) textual mediations (Vermittlungen) when they are construed (ausgelegt) as the documents upon which historians ground their own text, called histories 3) How are poststructuralism and New Historicism connected? Discuss the example of Michel Foucault (188). · Foucault: analysed the historical formation of thinking and knowledge in discourses and their relations to practices · Discourses regulate the ways in which we think and speak about certain topics in particular forms of statements with specific functions for example religious, medical and legal discourses establish and legitimise different authoroties, fields of knowledge, forms of arguments and claims to power · Ex. Doctor can't say "Gods will is done" if a patient died à suspiciouse and resort to the authority of the doctor · Foucault: interested in the relationship between knowledge and power, authoroties use knowledge and power to control individuals; individuals internalise techniques of power as they observe and form themselves · Power generates resistance, which in turn motivates repression (Unterdrückung) or containment (Eindämmung) and paradoxically legetimises those who wield power · Connection with poststructuralism: They make us of aspects of the post-structuralist outlook, especially Derridas notion that every facet of reality is textualized, and Foucault's idea of social structures as determined by dominant discursive practices. Cultural Materialism Cultural materialism is a theoretical framework and research method for examining the relationships between the physical and economic aspects of production. It also explores the values, beliefs, and worldviews that predominate society. Cultural materialism is a theory which views culture as a productive process, focusing on arts such as literature. Within this culture art is translated as a social use of material means of production.

Drama and theatre

Drama is written text, for example the drama script, not mediated, monologues, dialogues, the story may be old but what is been said at the same time as audience sees it (simultaneously=typical of performativity), you do not have a narrator or a reader. Text destined for the performance of a story on a stage usually comprising several actors who impersonate interactive characters while an audience is looking on àboth text and performance Theater is a realized or performed drama script (which is destined for performance) mediated, you can stop reading whenever you want, you have the different kind of authors and readers (real, fictional,...), there is a narrator, there isn't the simultaneity like in drama plays

Ecocriticism

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and the environment from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature.[1] It takes an interdisciplinary point of view by analyzing the works of authors, researchers and poets in the context of environmental issues and nature.[2] Ecocritics investigate such things as the underlying ecological values, what, precisely, is meant by the word nature, and whether the examination of "place" should be a distinctive category, much like class, gender or race. Ecocritics examine human perception of wilderness, and how it has changed throughout history and whether or not current environmental issues are accurately represented or even mentioned in popular culture and modern literature. Scholars in ecocriticism engage in questions regarding anthropocentrism, and the "mainstream assumption that the natural world be seen primarily as a resource for human beings" as well as critical approaches to changing ideas in "the material and cultural bases of modern society."[14] Ecocriticism as a movement owes much to Rachel Carson's 1962 environmental exposé Silent Spring. Drawing from this critical moment, Rueckert's intent was to focus on "the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature".[16] Nevertheless, ecocriticism—unlike feminist and Marxist criticisms—failed to crystallize into a coherent movement in the late 1970s, and indeed only did so in the US in the 1990s

Aesthetic illusion / breaking of illusion

Effect created by (aesthetic) artefacts or texts (dramas, novels, paintings) in the recipients, aesthetic illusion is the recipient's impression of being recentred or immersed In a fiction possible world while still retaining a residual knowledge of their real position (and hence of the fictionality of this possible world, otherwise the recipient would be in a state of illusion tout court or of a hallucination) aesthetic illusion presupposes certain contents and structures of the artefact/text that simulate real-life experiences (as typical of the reality effect created by realist novels or naturalistic drama) and the cooperation of the recipient (the willing suspension of disbelief for a moment) with reference to drama aesthetic illusion is often called dramatic illusion

Paradigmatic level / syntagmatic level

Every item of language has a paradigmatic relationship with every other item which can be substituted for it (such as cat with dog), and a syntagmatic relationship with items which occur within the same construction (for example, in The cat sat on the mat, cat with the and sat on the mat). Saussure's insight that binary oppositions form the basic semantic units of language such as man/woman, earth/sky etc. is generally accepted. Sentences mean something by the selection of paradigms and their syntagmatic combination: The cat/dog is/sleeps under/behind the armchair/sofa.

Literary genres / sub-genres

Genre: grouping texts, organized by mood/attitude/content/aesthetic aspect/relation to reality (=form of communication), problem is that they keep changing, oldest are epic, lyric, drama, use genre to classify and organize Subgenre: A subcategory within a particular genre.

Iconic, symbolic, indexical sign

Iconic: defined by a relation of similarity between signifier and signified (from miming meaning, e.g. traffic sign announcing a level crossing) in literature often an experimental means of foregrounding textual materiality e.g. for implicitly metatextual purposes (e.g. typographical devices in L. Sterne Tristram Shandy Indexical: defined by a relation of contiguity (e.g. causality) between signifier and signified (e.g. a smile as the indication of, and caused by, joy) Symbolic: defined by a merely arbitrary relation between signifier and signified, a relation which is however, stabilized by convention

External/ Internal communication system

In the internal communication of a poem, the speaker/voice is talking to an explicit/implicit addressee. The external communication of the poem is between the real author and real reader. In drama, the external communication of the dramatic text is between the author and the reader and the internal communication system is between the characters. The external communication of the multimedia performance in the theatre is between the theatre company and the audience and the internal is between the characters.

appellative / conative function

Is oriented toward the addressee (imperatives and apostrophes)

Expressive / emotive function

Is oriented toward the addresser (as in the interjections "Bah" and "Oh")

Referential function

Is oriented toward the context (the dominant function in a message like "Water boils at 100 degrees")

metalingual function

Is used to establish mutual agreement on the code (for example, a definition)

(lyric) poetry

Language cast in verse, frequently revealing these additional features: a subjective first person speaker/voice, brevity, concentration and reduction, an unusual use of words and phrases, suggestive imagery, rhythm and meter, repetition of sounds, lines grouped in stanzas

Literary criticism / literary studies

Literary criticism is the comparison, analysis, interpretation, and/or evaluation of works of literature. Literary criticism is essentially an opinion, supported by evidence, relating to theme, style, setting or historical or political context. Literary criticism aims to analyse, interpret and evaluate the texts created by humans at a particular moment in time and in a specific cultural ambience.

Literature

Literature, most generically, is a collection of written work. More restrictively, literature refers to writing considered to be an art form or any single writing deemed to have artistic or intellectual value, and sometimes deploys language in ways that differ from ordinary usage. The name has traditionally been applied to those imaginative works of poetry and prose distinguished by the intentions of their authors and the perceived aesthetic excellence of their execution. Literature may be classified according to a variety of systems, including language, national origin, historical period, genre, and subject matter. Literature is a form of human expression.. The content of literature is as limitless as the desire of human beings to communicate with one another.

Medium / text

Medium: specific material form (picture, book, or oral, audiovisual), communication between writer, recipient 1. technical medium: a channel of communication defined by the technical means and/or institutions used e.g. print media, TV, cinema, theatre 2. a conventionally distinct means of communication, defined by particular channels and in addition by the use of one or more semiotic systems (Languages, other sign systems) serving for the transmission of cultural messages, e.g. written literature, oral literature, film, music, painting Text: set of significant details (also picture is text)

Metatextuality / metareference / metareferentiality

Metareference: a form of self-reference in which the self-reference has a semantic nature (does not only point to an element within the same text or semiotic system but in addiction has a self-referential meaning) and makes the recipient aware of mediality and phenomena related to it (e.g. the nature of language, rextuality, metatextuality, the production or reception of fiction, fictionality, metafiction) Metatextuality: a form of textual self-reflexivity in which issues relating to the textuality and / or truth status (the fictionality in the sense both of the fiction- and/or the acknowledged or denied fictum-quality) of the text one is reading, of another text or of texts/art/the media in general is directly thematized (explicit metatextuality) or indirectly dramatized or foregrounded (implicit metatextuality), depending on the genre in which metatextuality occurs special forms of metatextuality can be differentiated: metafiction, metalyric, metadramatic elements

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as "oink", "meow", "roar" and "chirp".

Paratext / text

Paratext: as opposed to the text proper, all the other texts framing the main text such as: titles, subtitles, forewords, epigraphs, footnotes, afterword, as a rule the paratext is typographically set off from the main text and serves to help the reader in the reception/understanding of the main text by indicating relevant cognitive frames

poetic function

Puts the focus on the message for its own sake, projects the principle of equivalence from the paradigmatic level into the syntagmatic level

Iconicity

Quality of a (part of a ) text produced by the use of iconic signs form of the text imitates the content of the text, story level imitated by discourse level, discourse follows story = order naturalis (can be upuovo=from the beginning) as opposed to order artificiales like in Olysses which starts in prison

Reader-response theory

Reader-response criticism is a school of literary theory that focuses on the reader (or "audience") and their experience of a literary work, in contrast to other schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author or the content and form of the work. Although literary theory has long paid some attention to the reader's role in creating the meaning and experience of a literary work, modern reader-response criticism began in the 1960s and '70s, particularly in the US and Germany, in work by, Roland Barthes, and others. Important predecessors were Louise Rosenblatt, who, in Literature as Exploration (1938), argued that it is important for the teacher to avoid imposing any "preconceived notions about the proper way to react to any work"; and C. S. Lewis in An Experiment in Criticism (1961). Reader-response theory recognizes the reader as an active agent who imparts "real existence" to the work and completes its meaning through interpretation. Reader-response criticism argues that literature should be viewed as a performing art in which each reader creates their own, possibly unique, text-related performance. It stands in total opposition to the theories of formalism and the New Criticism, in which the reader's role in re-creating literary works is ignored. New Criticism had emphasized that only that which is within a text is part of the meaning of a text. No appeal to the authority or intention of the author, nor to the psychology of the reader, was allowed in the discussions of orthodox New Critics.

Functions of literature

Readers are often interested in the world that literature reveals, the entertainment and instruction it provides, the authors experience or view of life expressed in it or the artistic quality of the text itself. Literature does not own essential qualities but is rather defined by writers and readers negotiations of literary conversions. Aristotle defined mimesis the imitation of reality as a major function of literature to Plato who Denigrated literature as a lie because it represented appearance rather than truth. Aristotle considered that literature does not give us the factual truth of history but probable truth. The Romans write Horace Claimed that literature serves the readers need for pleasure and profit(aut delectare aut prodesse). to define literary pleasure in more modern terms literature provides an aesthetic experience. this experience can be described as an emotional and imaginative involvement in literature which often takes a form of sympathy delight and beauty amusement suspense terror horror offered and accompanied by an intellectual stimulation to reflect in the language order and meaning of art. Charles Dickens novel hard time which resembles contemporary soap operas is not only sentimental and entertaining but appeals to the readers moral and political judgment. some genres often carry explicit moral messages such as fable static poetry satire or Christian literature. The English romantic William Wordsworth regard literature primarily as the authors subjective expression of their emotions and imagination and intern read literature as an image of the authors personality. The American Edgar Allan Poe proclaimed literature is a purely aesthetic object with no reference to reality it is art for art sake. post poetic principal rejects the mimetic and moral function as criteria for literary value. in some of the four traditional perspectives or literature as aesthetic imitation affect production and objective hardly reveal any self evident essence of literature but contradictory as well as complementary attribution of its nature function and value.

Recurrence /equivalence

Recurrence: an act or instance of recurring. return to a previous condition, habit, subject, etc. equivalence: when two facts or situations are compared, they are symmetrical to each other if they present a relationship of logical equality, in such a way that one of them is only true if the other is as well

Representation

Representation is the use of signs that stand in for and take the place of something else. It is through representation that people organize the world and reality through the act of naming its elements. Signs are arranged in order to form semantic constructions and express relations.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic, is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the capacities of writers or speakers needed to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Is the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the exploitation of figures of speech and other compositional techniques. Aristotle, way back in the 4th Century B.C., identified three branches of rhetoric (also known as the three branches of oratory). These three branches-deliberative (future, persuade or dissuade), judicial, (past, defend or accuse)and epideictic (present, praises or blames, ceremonies)-cover some of the most common ways we communicate, even today.

Code

Rules that govern the writing and reading, language can include and exclude, specific language for different genres, how culture changes

phatic function

Serves to establish, prolong or discontinue communication (or confirm whether the contact is still there) as in "Hello?"

Hermeneutics

Text interpretation based on changes in the world. Based on personal perceptions. The hermeneutic circle is a prominent and recurring theme in the circularity of interpretation: "The foundational law of all understanding and knowledge", "to find the spirit of the whole through the individual, and through the whole to grasp the individual". the same way that the whole is understood in reference to the individual, so too, the individual can only be understood in reference to the whole. Traditional hermeneutics refers to the story of the interpretation of written texts, especially texts in the areas of literature, religion and law. According to E. D. Hirsch, valid interpretation involves a correct interpretation of the author's willed meaning. Such a construal takes into account the author's purview or perspective, his horizon of expectations - generic, cultural and conventional. Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer insists on the historicity and temporality of interpretation So, the reader's involvement in the creation of meaning also becomes significant. A text's interpretation depends on the knowledge, assumptions, cultural backdrop, experiences and insights of its readers.

World-making

The creation of a world, as for example in writing fiction. to suggest that many other worlds can as plausibly exist as the "world" we know right now. We cannot catch or know "the world" as such: all we can catch are the world versions - descriptions, views or workings of the world - that are expressed in symbolic systems (words, music, dancing, visual representations).

Fictionality

The term "fictionality" has conventionally been used in connection with fiction to describe qualities and affordances of fictional genres. In this customary understanding, fictionality is by definition the quality possessed by fiction. Within the last decade, however, fictionality has gained ground as an autonomous concept understood as a rhetorical communicative mode. As such, fictionality is not just regarded a term attributed to fictional narratives such as novels and short stories; nor is it equated with broad or abstract categories or defined in opposition to truth. Rather, fictionality, as a fundamental rhetorical mode, is understood as a means to communicate what is invented and as such transgresses the boundaries of both fiction and narrative. In this perspective, fictionality is not bound to any genre or limited to narrative representation. Among the approaches that have treated fictionality purely as a feature of fiction, the most widely discussed topic is the question of signposts: the grammatical forms of the epic preterit as well as the related phenomenon of "erlebte Rede" (free indirect discourse) are specific to text-bound fictional representation, seemingly illogical, unconventional use of grammatical tense, deictic expressions and linguistic markers of the enunciating as well as of the observing instance that is licensed under the conditions of fictional poetic representation form of art of fake = 2 meanings

Communicative situation / pragmatic situation

Usually, using literature offers ambiguous aesthetic information, which is open to different interpretations. The codes the rules of language and aesthetic conventions of genres are closely related to changing cultural norms. (author, codes, reader, contexts / literary text, medium -> look at picture nr 12 in word)

Psychoanalytic approach

by the tradition of psychoanalysis begun by Sigmund Freud. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author. characters are projections of the author's psyche. One facet of this approach is that it validates the importance of literature, as it is built on a literary key for the decoding. The dream-thoughts which we first come across as we proceed with our analysis often strike us by the unusual form in which they are expressed; they are not clothed in the prosaic language usually employed by our thoughts, but are on the contrary represented symbolically by means of similes and metaphors, in images resembling those of poetic speech. The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be traceable within the behavior of the characters in the literary work. Despite the importance of the author here, psychoanalytic criticism is similar to New Criticism in not concerning itself with "what the author intended." But what the author never intended. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche. Early psychoanalytic literary criticism would often treat the text as if it were a kind of dream. This means that the text represses its real (or latent) content behind obvious (manifest) content. The process of changing from latent to manifest content is known as the dream work, and involves operations of concentration and displacement. The critic analyzes the language and symbolism of a text to reverse the process of the dream work and arrive at the underlying latent thoughts. four different phases: · The creative process is akin to dreaming awake: as such, it is a mimetic, and cathartic, representation of an innate desire that is best expressed and revealed by metaphors and symbolically. · Then, the juxtaposition of a writer's works leads the critic to define symbolical themes. · These metaphorical networks are significant of a latent inner reality. · They point at an obsession just as dreams can do. The last phase consists in linking the writer's literary creation to his own personal life. A basically unconscious sexual impulse is symbolically fulfilled in a positive and socially gratifying way (writing a text), a process known as Sublimation. example: "Why can't Brontë seem to portray any positive mother figures?"

Literary theory

consists of different approaches (direction, perspective), set of ideas that allows to ask certain questions, goals, ex. feminist theory, Marxist theory, grow out of preexistent concerns "pre life", raises awareness of what we are doing when we read literature, provides us with new perspectives to analyze texts, helps understanding secondary material

Literariness

is the organisation of language which through special linguistic and formal properties distinguishes literary texts from non-literary texts

Manipulation of reader / audience response

reader manipulation on the narrative level. That is, if the author attempts to mislead the readers throughout the entire plot. The reason is, most authors think of a narrative-level manipulation when they think of misleading their readers. Misleading your readers on this level essentially refers to plot twists, hidden characters, unexpected endings, and such strategies the aim of which is to surprise the reader. For example, consider a detective-fiction narrative where the entire plot leads the reader to believe a certain character is the killer, only to reveal a bit before the ending that it was his twin brother after all. Manipulating your reading audience is a narrative strategy.

Referentiality

referring or pointing to something "symbols are inherently referential"

Real author vs. narrator, speaker

the author and narrator may or may not be the same person, but the author is always the person who is writing the essay or article. The narrator is the person in the essay who is telling the story. They're two different entities. In Huck Finn, the narrator is obviously Huck, in first person. But the author, as we know, was Mark Twain.

Ambiguity

the quality of being open to more than one interpretation; inexactness. sometimes ambiguity is used deliberately to add humor to a text. Lexical ambiguity is the most commonly known form of ambiguity. It occurs when words have more than one meaning as commonly defined and understood. Considerable potential ambiguity arises when a word with various meanings is used in a statement of information request. Syntactical ambiguity is a structural or grammatical ambiguity of a whole sentence that occurs in a sub-part of a sentence. Inflective ambiguity is a composite ambiguity, containing elements of both lexical and syntactical ambiguity. Like syntactical ambiguity, inflective ambiguity is grammatical in nature. Inflection arises where a word is used more than once in a sentence or paragraph, but with different meanings each time

Implied worldview

· Literarische Texte basieren explizit oder implizit auf bestimmte Normen · Wertesystem und Positionen des impliziten Autors in religiöser, philosophischer Hinsicht,.... Diese sind nicht immer identisch mit Positionen der Figuren · Literarische Texte sind Miniaturmodelle der Welt aus einer bestimmten Sicht und deswegen von Bedeutung fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view.