Chapter 50
From Semantics to Narrative: The Semiotics of A. J. Greimas Peter Pericles Trifonas
Structuralism in linguistics (see de Saussure 1916 1916)) has influenced A. J. Greimas’ semiotic methodology of text analysis as detailed in structural semantics (1983). semantics (1983). The method itself has become the core technique of semiotic text analysis of the influential “School of Paris” (see Barthes 1970 1970;; Greimas 1983 1983;; Derrida 1974 1974). ). Semiotic theory is founded upon the premise of the existence of a semantic universe or “the totality of significations, postulated as prior to articulation” (Greimas and Courtés 1982 1982,, p. 361). The semantic universe embodied in a natural language is too vast to conceive in its totality; thus, any discourse presupposes a semantic universe, on a microscale, that is actualized in part as discourse and that “can be defined as the set of the system of values” (also p. 361). Meaning is achieved through articulaarticulation of such a microscale semantics and can be described “by means of elementary axiological structures according to the categories of life/death life/death (individual (individual universe), or nature/culture nature/culture (collective (collective universe)” (Greimas 1970 1970,, p. xvi). These arbitrary universals are the starting point for the analysis of the semantic universe yet can never be isolated in in pure form, but only when articulated. Greimas Greimas ( 1970 1970)) explains, …the production of meaning is meaningful only if it is the transformation of a meaning already given; the production of meaning is, consequently, in itself, a signifying endowing with form, indifferent to the contents to be transformed. Meaning, in the sense of the form of meaning, can thus be defined as the possibility of transforming meaning. (p. ( p. 15)
Defining the text as a discursive micro-universe places the text in the position of autonomy excluded from extralinguisitic phenomena in text analysis. The organization of discursive structures as narrative creates a distinction between the two levels of representation and analysis: a manifest , or surface level and an immanent , or “deep” level (Fig. 50.1 50.1). ). This principle can be applied to other systems not necessarily dependent upon natural language (e.g., cinema, painting, architecture, sculpture, etc.) in order to isolate and explain the structural aspects of the medium as text. For example, in
P. P. Trifonas () Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, Toronto, Canada e-mail: peter.trifon
[email protected] [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 P. P. Trifonas (ed.), (ed.), International International Handbook of Semiotics, Semiotics, DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-94 10.1007/978-94-017-9404-6_50 04-6_50
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attempting to bring to light the interrelations between the structural elements constituting a pictorial text (e.g., color, texture, form, composition, etc.) and, thereby, isolate and explain the means of signification as well as the content, it is possible to avoid speculation and ground the analysis within the structural aspects of the text itself. The analysis can then be extended to examining the role of the viewer in relation to the production of the text (Eco 1976, 1984). Greimas’ linguistic framework is based on de Saussure’s ( 1916) concept of dif ference (see Derrida 1974), or the notion of binary oppositions and distinctiveness of functional phonology as presence and absence, and the glossematic sign model (see Appendix A) of Hjelmslev (1943). Structural lexicology forms the basis for the semantic analysis of textual structures. Semiotics, according to Greimas and Courtés (1979), is operational as a theory of signification “when it situates its analyses on levels both higher and lower than the sign” (p. 147). On the lower level, semes, or the minimal unit of semantic componential analysis, function to differentiate significations and form semic systems subdivided into semic categories. On the higher levels, are textual units which produce semantic entities greater than signs. Perron (cited from Greimas 1988) explains the model of generative discourse analysis as defined by generative trajectory, …generative trajectory designates the way in which the components and sub-components fit together and are linked together. Three autonomous general areas: semio-narrative structures, discursive structures and textual structures have been identified within the general economy of the theory first to construct the ab quo instance of the generation of signification where semantic substance is first articulated and constituted into a signifying form, and then to set up the intermediate mediating stages which transform the semantic substance into the last instances ad quem where signification is manifested. (p. xviii)
Discourse production through developing stages, each containing a syntactic and a semantic subcomponent, is postulated as beginning at a “deep” level with elementary structures and extending over more complex structures at higher levels “which govern organization of the discourse prior to its manifestation in a given natural language” (Greimas and Courtés 1979, p. 85; see also Hjelmslev 1943). Manifest textual structures of expression (linear or spatial, phonetic, written or visual) are external to generative trajectory. At the level of discursive structures, the seme forms the “deepest” and most elementary structure of signification; however, it is a theoretical postulate and must be considered as such. Greimas (1983) explains the following. This minimal unit, however, which we have called seme, has no existence on its own and can be imagined and described only in relation to something that is not, inasmuch as it is only part of a structure of signification.
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By situating the seme within perception, in a place where significations are constituted, we noticed that it received there a kind of existence because of its partici pation in two signifying ensembles at the same time: the seme, indeed is affirmed by disjunction within the semic categories, and it is confirmed by junction with other semes within semic groupings which we have called semic figures and bases (p. 118). It is a minimalist definition of structure where primacy is given to relations between elements based on difference. For example, the difference between son and daughter at the lexical level is due to the disjunction characterized metalinguistically by the features male and female as part of a semic hierarchy of the content– substance sense (see Appendix A). The common semic category of the two features, sex, presupposes any semantic resemblance or conjunction between the two features and sets the ground from which the articulation of signification emerges (Greimas 1983). A linear semantic axis with the differential terms male and female would represent the semes involved as elementary structures of signification. A semantic axis may have different articulations, or lexical fields, in different languages, thus, transforming the content form at the word level. The “deep” level is organized in the visual representation of the semiotic square “where the substance of content is articulated and constituted as form of content” (Perron cited from Greimas 1988, p. xviii) (Fig. 50.2) The oppositions constituting semantic axes may be represented in the semiotic square as two types of logical relations: contradiction, or the relation existing between two terms of the binary category assertion/negation , and contrariety, or the implied contrariness of one term with the other. For example, the seme s 1, “male,” is described as the opposition (in terms of presence or absence) of non-s 1 ( s1 ), “nonmale,” in which the seme “male” is absent. The contrary of s 1, “male,” is s 2, “female,” which expands the square to a four-term constellation to include the contrary of s2 which is non-s 2 ( s2 ), “nonfemale.” Complimentarity or implication now appears between the terms s 1 and s2 or s2 and s1 : “male” implies “nonfemale” and “female” implies “nonmale” (see Greimas 1970). The “deep” structural nature of
Fig. 50.2 The semiotic square
Male
Non-Male
Female
Non-Female
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the semiotic square can be seen in the fact that there may be no lexical equivalent at the surface levels of manifestation to express “nonmale” or “nonfemale” as concepts. Therefore, the fundamental semantics at the “deep” level contains the necessary semantic categories that form the elementary structures of signification and the fundamental syntax consisting of the relations and transformations which derive and constitute those structures.
50.1
Discourse and Narrative
Enunciation mediates between the semiotic narrative structures, organized as a series of strata along the entire generative trajectory, and their actualization in discourse produced by an enunciator. The discursive structures manifest the surface semiotic structures and set them into discourse by making them pass through the domain of enunciation (Greimas 1988). As Perron (cited from Greimas 1988) notes, “It is the place where, by becoming actualized as operations, the semio-narrative structures make up the competence of the subject of enunciation” (p. xix). “Charged with the discoursivization of the narrative structures and comprising of three subcomponents of actorialization, temporalization and spatialization” (Greimas and Courtés 1979, p. 134), the syntactic component is joined with a semantic com ponent and “its sub-components of thematization and figurativization” (Greimas and Courtés 1979, p. 134). At the surface level, narrative semantics subsumes the semantic values selected from the deep level of structure that are actualized in the form of lexical actants which, in turn, operate at the level of narrative syntax (e.g., subject, object, and predicate; Greimas and Courtés 1979) as part of a narrative syntagm (or a larger discursive unit, e.g., a sentence or discourse). In essence, the lexicology of the text is built both horizontally on a syntagmatic axis consisting of formal structural elements within a text (be it a word, sentence, or narrative tract) and vertically on a paradigmatic axis where possible substitutions between linguistic elements occupying the same structural position within the same expressive context may occur (e.g., the phoneme/s/being substituted for/g/ in the lexeme/go/to make/so/). The juxtaposition of structural elements in a text, at the interpretive level, occurs in relation to syntagmatic indexes (e.g., contradiction, graphic codes, discontinuity, repetition, inconsistency, superfluity, and nonverisimilitude; Todorov 1977). Paradigmatic indexes, at the interpretive level, may consist of: (1) intertextual paradigms referring to cultural conventions of human behavior and psychology established external to the text (e.g., characterization, event, and discourse) or (2) internalized paradigms constructed from within the text by connecting two or more syntagmatically linked indexes of interpretation referring exclusively to the “textual world” (Eco 1979; Greimas 1970; Kristeva 1969; Todorov 1977). Thus, a text is said “to mean”: (1) lexically at the syntagmatic and paradigmatic levels due to organization and substitution, respectively and (2) thematically, by the syntagmatic and paradigmatic conjunctions and disjunctions created at the levels of organization and substitution, within and without the text, resulting in
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interpretive indexes. The second set are extensional operations that go beyond the conscious decoding of lexical meaning as a communicative act intended to realize the virtual possibilities of language, or intensional operations, and into the realm of activating possible worlds by determining the coherence and plausibility of the vision. For example, the representation of a character or event may be incorporated into the syntagmatic structure of the plot and fabula constituting the text, yet, at the paradigmatic level they have no intertextual or cultural validity, and be relevant only to the textual world as an intratextual paradigm. Mythological or fairy tale genres refer to creatures such as dragons, ghosts, and goblins that are unrealistic in a cultural sense because they do not exist in the external world; however, within the world of fairy tales and mythology, as determined by the story and fabula within specific genres, dragons, ghosts, and goblins are perfectly plausible and realistic characters. It is at this point that actors (like these characters) are formed as the result of genre function and influences upon the form and perception of narrative utterance (NU).
50.2
Isotopy
Isotopy describes the coherence and homogeneity of text which allows for the semantic concatenation, or chain linking, of utterances (Greimas and Courtés 1979). In order to semantically disambiguate terms within a text and assure textual coherence and homogeneity, there must be iterativity, or recurrence, of a classeme (either semic category or repeated contextual seme) which connects the semantic elements of discourse (sememes). Eco (1984) explains, The term isotopy designated d’abord , a phenomenon of semic iterativity throughout a syntagmatic chain; thus any syntagm (be it a phrase, a sentence, a sequence of sentences com posing a narrative text) comprehending at least two content figurae (in Hjelmslev’s sense) is to be considered as the minimal context for a possible isotopy. (p. 190)
On a semantic level, Greimas ( 1983) uses two expressions le chien aboye (the dog barks) and le commissaire aboye (the commissioner barks; p. 81) to illustrate that aboye (barks) has two classemes: human and canine. It is the presence of the sub jects, the dog or the commissioner, that reiterates one of the two classemes and establishes the contextual selection for a literal or figurative reading of the text. A syntagmatic extension of an isotopy is constituted by the textual segments that are connected by one classeme. Ultimately, a “text” which fosters a single interpretation in its semantic structure is a simple isotopy, whereas, bi-isotopy is the result of textual ambiguities or metaphorical elements that promote polysemous readings. Pluri- or poly-isotopy is the superimposition of multiple semantic levels in a text (Eco 1984). The first stage of the theory considered: (1) syntactical (grammarial) isotopies, (2) semantic isotopies, (3) actorial isotopies, (4) partial isotopies (or smaller textual units that are “condensed” into a text as the result of summarizing macropositions), and (5) global isotopies (as the result of partial isotopies) (Eco 1984). The second stage incorporates recurrent thematic and figurative categories where the typology
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of isotopies is extended to semiological isotopies covering iterativities in terms of exteroceptivity (referring to properties of the external world; see Greimas 1983).
50.3
Function and Actantial Structures
Traditional motif research in narrative has considered actors (on two levels as characters, in anthropomorphic or zoomorphic forms, and lexical subjects, or actants, of discourse within a sentence engaged in a thematic role), items (or objects), and incidents as minimal units of narrative analysis (Greimas and Courtés 1979). Propp (1928), however, identified the minimal unit of narrative analysis as the function in terms of an action which “cannot be defined apart from its place in the context of narration” (p. 21). Nöth (1990) explains, Functions as units of action are narrative invariants, while the agents performing those actions are textual variables. Within his corpus of one hundred fairy tales, Propp discovered a relatively small number of 31 such invariant functions, as opposed to a large number of persons, objects or events (corresponding to the traditional motif). (p. 371)
For example, after the “initial situation” is established in a narrative text, a series of functions may be cited to explain the narrative syntax and progression of the fabula (story; see Appendix C). The 31 functions are distributed across seven spheres of action as performed by various characters such as (1) the villain, (2) the donor, (3) the helper, (4) the sought-for person, (5) the dispatcher, (6) the hero, and (7) the false hero (cf. Greimas 1983, p. 201). From Propp ( 1928), Souriau (1950; see Greimas 1983) and Tesnier (1959; see Greimas 1983), Greimas (1966) formulated a “mythical” model of narrative actants containing three binary oppositions: (1) subject vs. object, (2) sender vs. receiver, and (3) helper vs. opponent. Essentially, the fabula (or story elements of the narrative) and every other narrative structure is reduced to purely formal positions as actants (defined lexically as that which accomplishes or undergoes an act, e.g., subject–object, sender and receiver, and narratively as classifications of an actor according to genre) which produce actantial roles (Eco 1979). The syntactic order of the actantial categories correspond to “a subject wants an object, encounters an opponent, finds a helper, obtains the object from a sender, and gives it to a receiver” sequence or variations thereof. The NU is, therefore, defined as a process composed of a function (F), in the Proppian sense, and an actant (A), or NU = F(A). The logic of relationships is based upon “knowledge,” “desire,” and “power” where the transmission of a message can be analyzed syntactically as the transferal of “knowledge” and the drama of the acquisition of “power” (“desire” being the motivating force behind the action). The helper–opponent dichotomy was later abandoned (see Greimas 1970) as a major actantial category and the value transfer occurring among the major actants explained as relationships of conjunction and disjunction according to the semiotic square. Following from the latter model, a narrative sequence can then be said to begin with a relation of conjunction between two actants (subject or object), followed by a disjunction (as a problem or transition phase) which is reconciled in the
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From Semantics to Narrative: The Semiotics of A. J. Greimas
Fig. 50.3 Bremond’s narrative cycle
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Satisfactory state Procedure of improvement
Procedure of degradation
State of deficiency
redistribution of semantic values as a new conjunction (Greimas 1970): (1) initial state → transition → final state or (2) problem → final stage (see Todorov 1977). Time and causality are the basic dimensions of the narrative process (Ricoeur 1983) that suggest a linear macrostructure, or overall sequence. However, the semantic connection between the initial event and the final event may also suggest a cyclical model such as the following containing four phases beginning with either a state of deficiency or a satisfactory state (Bremond 1970, p. 251) (Fig. 50.3):
50.4
Conclusion
The epistemological, theoretical, and methodological principles of structural semantics (see Eco 1979; Greimas 1983) incorporated within the method of semiotics I have detailed provide the basic tools and metalanguage for the semiotic analysis of “text” and are useful only to the extent that they allow for the phenomena being studied to be accounted for in terms comprehensible to the human intellect (Eco 1979). It is in this sense that a methodological structuralism of semiotics—as an operational procedure for analyzing lexical texts—is necessary, because without the metalanguage required, there would be no way to achieve the purpose(s) of semiotic inquiry relevant to the study textuality (see also Eco 1976). A semiotic method of textual analysis is therefore considered to encompass metatextual means or devices (e.g., a metalanguage, a “model,” figures or other visual schemata, etc.) which conceptualize in hypothetical, rather than empirical, terms the intensions and extensions made by the reader in the act of meaning-making relative to the lexical structures of signification manifest in a text as formal elements of structure. Intensional responses are defined as the consciously motivated acts of meaning-making required of, or initiated in, the reader/viewer to realize the signifying potential of the total text.
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Peter Pericles Trifonas is a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto. His areas of interest include ethics, philosophy of education, cultural studies, literacy, and technology. Among his books are the following: Revolutionary Pedago gies: Cultural Politics, Instituting Education, and the Discourse of Theory, The Ethics of Writing: Derrida, Deconstruction, and Pedagogy, Ethics, Institutions and The Right to Philosophy (with Jacques Derrida), Roland Barthes and the Empire of Signs, Umberto Eco & Football, Pedago gies of Difference, Deconstructing the Machine (with Jacques Derrida), International Handbook
of Semiotics, CounterTexts: Reading Culture.
