Actantial Model

The life of the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) resembles that of his most famous fairy tale, The Little Mermaid (1836). I chose the feminist framework to deconstruct The Little Mermaid due to the blatant patriarchal roles seen within the texts. The story is male driven and privilege, power, oppression, and sexual intrusion are all present within the fairy tale as well as the 1989 Disney film. At the same time, there is a hidden layer of LGBTQ+ traces, which can be deconstructed by looking at the confusion in the themes that Andersen uses. Analysing The Little Mermaid is problematic as she doesn't fit in the common models The Hero's Journey and the Actantial Model; she is a misfit that cannot live up to expectations. This makes her the perfect representation for a queer personality in a cis- and heteronormative environment.

Creating contrast between different elements in the narrative is one of the Ugaritic poet’s main poetic devices. This literary tool is employed to encourage the audience to elicit and produce narrative meaning. In ʾAqhat it is a prominent technique, abundant in the lexical make up and stylistic texture of the narrative, in its content, as well as in the narrative structure.
The examples analyzed in the article represent only a sampling of the Ugaritic poet's elaborate and complex range of literary creativity. They illustrate the prominence of this device and demonstrate that its use is akin to that familiar from biblical narrative. Thus, this essay also indirectly supports the thesis the literary precursors and background of biblical narrative poetics are reflected in the Ugaritic epics, and that these two corpora are representative of the same literary tradition, not only regard to thematics and language, but also in respect to their poetics.

The article explores the nature of verbal images and presents a way of analyzing them. An image is regarded as a linguistic sign that is discursively charged with an additional, iconically functioning signified. The article proposes a model of structural analysis of images, consisting of three levels: (1) functions, (2) actions and (3) pragmatics.

Key words: image, verbal image, discourse, discourse analysis, political discourse, actant, structural analysis of text

В статье рассматривается вопрос об устройстве языковых образов и о возможностях их исследования. Образ представляется как языковой знак, дискурсивно нагруженный дополнительным образным означаемым, функционирующим по иконическому принципу. Предлагается модель структурного анализа образов как элементов дискурса, распадающаяся на три уровня: уровень функций, уровень действий, уровень прагматики.

Ключевые слова: образ, языковой образ, вербальный образ, дискурс, дискурс-анализ, политический дискурс, актант, структурный анализ текста.

In this article I build an actantial model (Greimas 1983), M, of John Cage's 1962 indeter-
minate work 0'00'' (4 033 00 No. 2). To further investigate Greimas' actantial axes of desire, knowledge and power, I generate an ontology, O, that records the facts of the model through hierarchies of relations and concepts. This allows for a conceptual graph (CG) (Sowa 1984), C, that describes the score's instructions and its actants. Extracting subgraphs of C then allows for reasoned arguments about the implications of Cage's instructions in the score, and in particular, the composer's reference to "an obligation to others." Through a conceptual graph rule R, I offer a framework for generating the structure of a score-informed interpretation of 0'00'' (4'33'' No. 2) that is based on a number of key conditionals that map the actants of the piece, and their relation to the unfolding of the work's narrative.

Adopting a critical stance towards the semiotic concept of the individual, we illustrate Greimas’ view, centred on the topological structure of the actor, and propose a dialogue between his conception and one derived by Canguilhem’s epistemological analyses. The individual will be linked to a normative capacity, allowing for a discussion on how norms shape its transformations not only from without – as environmental pressures –, but also from within – being produced by the individual. We argue that a psycho-semiotic approach could benefit from this comparison in its understanding and dealing of normal and pathological states, entwined with the problem of individuality.

The Québec Education Ministry, in the 1980s, claimed that its history teaching programmes focused on an active, reflective and problem solving approach. Yet the textbooks that were associated to those programs had monocausal design and involved a linear history, and were attributing most social, political or economic changes favourable to democracy to unstable external causes – i.e. circumstances external to normal people that can change (causes such as the "great man") – or to stable external cause (such as “Progress”); they were rarely attributing the evolution of democracy to "unstable internal causes" (the organization or the action of the "governed"). In sum, citizens had almost no active role in the socio-historical changes, according to those textbooks (Éthier, 2006).

En este trabajo se propone un modelo actancial de la obra maestra de Luis Vélez de Guevara, Reinar después de morir, publicada en 1652. Este esquema trata de solventar ciertos problemas de recepción, especialmente respecto al género de la comedia y el problemático ethos de sus personajes. El triunfo de Tánatos al final de la pieza, de propensión senequista, pone cierre, aparentemente, a una visión de la historia que solo podría sobreponerse bajo condiciones gubernamentales disímiles a las de los hechos lusitanos aquí representados. Si la redacción de la obra ocurrió entre 1636 y 1640, como apunta Henry W. Sullivan (144), o si 1635 es el terminus ad quem de la obra, como sugiere Donald R. Larson (20), Reinar pudiera indicar que los asuntos de Portugal, sin la continua colaboración del pueblo ibérico vecino, no podrían reavivarse. Esto explicaría el tono macabro y pesimista de la obra, la cual es una tragedia patética de dos mudanzas. Este proyecto se basa en varios modelos especulativos modificados: 1) el tipológico de Vladimir Propp, apto para la narrativa corta; el funcional de Étienne Souriau, utilizable para el drama; y el discursivo de Algirdas Julien Greimas, aplicable a la lingüística. Se han tomado en cuenta también dos modelos adicionales: el lógico de Keir Elam (98-134), basado en Souriau, y el estructural de Anne Ubserfeld (58-118), fundamentado en Greimas. Las modificaciones procuradas han sido las siguientes: 1) Se han delimitado los tipos de personajes de Propp (79-80), así como alterado varias modalidades que fueran acaso demasiado particulares para nuestros propósitos. 2) Se han mantenido las categorías nominales de Souriau, incluso sus notables denominaciones astrológicas, las cuales ayudan a captar, en forma objetiva y universal, como notó Elam, las funciones de los actantes nominales (Souriau, 83-112). 3) Se han aceptado las categorías de Greimas (207), las cuales son apropiadas para el discurso dramático, como planteara Ubersfeld. No obstante, las hemos modificado por clasificaciones esencialmente sintácticas. Por ende, el presente modelo consiste en las siguientes ordenaciones actanciales nominales, las cuales siguen la práctica de Tzvetan Todorov (7) de usar las letras mayúsculas finales del alfabeto europeo en uso: 1) la del (U) sujeto agentivo (el Héroe de Propp, el Lion o fuerza temática de Souriau o el Sujet de Greimas); 2) la del (V) sujeto disyuntivo (el Villano o Agresor de Propp, el Mars u Opositor de Souriau o el Opposant de Greimas); 3) la del (W) complemento acusativo (la Princesa y su Padre de Propp, el Soleil de Souriau o el Objet de Greimas); 4) la del (X) complemento dativo (el Remitente de Propp, la Terre de Souriau o el Destinataire de Greimas); 5) la del (Y) árbitro o complemento ablativo circunstancial (el Donador de Propp, la Balance de Souriau o el Destinateur de Greimas); y 6) la del (Z) ayudante o complemento comitativo (el Ayudante de Propp, la Lune de Souriau o el Adjuvant de Greimas). Z refleja a cualquiera de los otros actantes; por ende, su signo se coloca inmediatamente antes de este, con una barra (vírgula > 'y'), v. gr., Z/U (el ayudante del sujeto agentivo). Respecto a esta última categoría, propondríamos la función suplementaria ZZ para designar a un actante comitativo (Z) de función dupla (ZZ), como sería generalmente la figura del donaire de la comedia española. Dada su condición inestable (o dupla), proponemos la denominación de Mercurio. También proponemos una función suplementaria para Libra (Y), la de Escorpio o juez transcendental (YY). Esta función tiende a modificar la captación de la obra desde una perspectiva ulterior a la realizada por la figura habitual del juez (Y) o árbitro (Libra). Consta

ObjectiveThis article investigated residents’ narratives to gain their understandings of which patterns are challenging in doctor–patient conversations.DesignQualitative narratological framework.ParticipantsWe analysed 259 narratives from 138 residents’ oral recounts of communication with patients in which they had felt challenged.ResultsThe analysis identified an ideal narrative for the doctor–patient encounter with the resident as protagonist pursuing the object of helping the patient with his health problem. Disruptions of this ideal narrative were at play when challenges occurred. Regardless of medical setting, challenges were often related to the establishment of a common object, and the communication actants had to go through negotiations, disagreements or even battles when trying to reach a common object. Challenges also occurred when actants which in the ideal narrative should act as helpers become opponents. We find narratives where patients, relatives and colleagues become...

Employing the Actantial model of literary analysis developed by A.J. Greimas, I analyzed the poetic material in Isaiah 40-55 looking for signs of an underlying narrative substructure. I then explicated YHWH's pleasure in Israel as the intended agent of the divine justice within that narrative substructure. This thesis was completed in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the M.A. in Theological Studies degree.