Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory

Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory

Author: Irene Rima Makaryk

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 1993-01-01

Total Pages: 676

ISBN-13: 9780802068606

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The last half of the twentieth century has seen the emergence of literary theory as a new discipline. As with any body of scholarship, various schools of thought exist, and sometimes conflict, within it. I.R. Makaryk has compiled a welcome guide to the field. Accessible and jargon-free, the Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory provides lucid, concise explanations of myriad approaches to literature that have arisen over the past forty years. Some 170 scholars from around the world have contributed their expertise to this volume. Their work is organized into three parts. In Part I, forty evaluative essays examine the historical and cultural context out of which new schools of and approaches to literature arose. The essays also discuss the uses and limitations of the various schools, and the key issues they address. Part II focuses on individual theorists. It provides a more detailed picture of the network of scholars not always easily pigeonholed into the categories of Part I. This second section analyses the individual achievements, as well as the influence, of specific scholars, and places them in a larger critical context. Part III deals with the vocabulary of literary theory. It identifies significant, complex terms, places them in context, and explains their origins and use. Accessibility is a key feature of the work. By avoiding jargon, providing mini-bibliographies, and cross-referencing throughout, Makaryk has provided an indispensable tool for literary theorists and historians and for all scholars and students of contemporary criticism and culture.


Essays in Speech Act Theory

Essays in Speech Act Theory

Author: Daniel Vanderveken

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 9789027250940

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Any study of communication must take into account the nature and role of speech acts in a broad context. This book addresses questions such as: - What do we mean? - How do we say it? and - How is it understood? in the broad context of universal, socio-cultural and psychological issues that bear on human communication. It presents an overview of current issues in speech act theory that are at the center of human and social sciences dealing with language, thought and action, building on John Searle's famous article 'How Performatives Work' (included in this book). The contributions by linguists, psychologists, computer scientists, and philosophers thus address issues of communication that are crucial in conversation analysis, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, psychology and philosophy, and a general understanding of how we communicate. The book is suitable for courses with an extensive bibliography for further reading and an Index.


Literary Discourse

Literary Discourse

Author: László Halász

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2019-07-22

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 3110864231

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No detailed description available for "Literary Discourse".


Conspicuous Silences

Conspicuous Silences

Author: Ruth Rosaler

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-10-06

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 0191082368

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How are a reader's perceptions of a plot impacted by its presentation through textual clues rather than explicit narration, and why would an author choose this comparatively indirect mode of narration? Conspicuous Silences answers these questions by examining Victorian novels in which pivotal events are left inexplicit for hundreds of pages at a time, but are nonetheless evident to the reader. The clarity with which readers understand these inexplicit plot lines is evidenced by their ability to follow the progression of narratives that rely heavily on the inexplicit content being detected; without this reader comprehension, these narratives would be deemed incoherent. In linguistics, communications that depend on a hearer's or reader's inference, rather on their 'decoding' the explicit content of an utterance, are termed 'implicatures'. Conspicuous Silences explores the impact that central, sustained implicatures have on a reader's experience of a novel. It also discusses how authors may generate those implicatures by exploiting the reader's assumption of narratorial omniscience, and the correlated reader assumption of a narrative's fictionality. Reliance on such sustained, fictionality-related implicatures is fairly ubiquitous: Conspicuous Silences concentrates on texts by Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Frances Trollope, Anthony Trollope, Wilkie Collins, and M. E. Braddon. It examines the use of implicature in communicating impolite topics, communicating character psychology, and in fashioning a playful narrative tone. This work contributes to Victorian literary scholarship, narratological discussions about narratorial omniscience and fictionality, and pragmatic stylistic debates about fictionality and the use of implicature.


Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Author: R.S. White

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2001-06-18

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1137111518

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As one of the world's greatest love stories Romeo and Juliet continues to excite new theatre-goers, readers and film-goers. Its depiction of tragic lovers strikes a chord in each generation of young people, and seems to speak in their own idiom. As such, it reflects, and allows us to analyse, changing attitudes to sex in a violent world. This collection of contemporary essays raises topical debates about the nature of love conventions, as well as offering new insights into Shakespeare's text.


An Encyclopedia of Language

An Encyclopedia of Language

Author: N.E. Collinge

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2002-09-11

Total Pages: 1170

ISBN-13: 1134977166

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* Examines how language works, accounting for its nature, its use, its study and its history * Two comprehensive indexes of Topics and Technical Terms, and Names * Carefully illustrated to explain key points in the text `This rich repository of information on all aspects of language is a must for all libraries in higher education, schools and larger public libraries.' - Library Review `Each article has an excellent bibliography. In addition, there are comprehensive indexes of topics and technical terms and names. Highly recommended for all college and general public libraries.' - Choice `This important book is in many ways a state-of-the -art survey of current conceptions of, and approaches to, language, with generous references to more detailed sources. Each chapter has a good bibliography.' - Language International `A comprehensive guide ... with very thorough bibliographies ... Collinge's Encyclopedia is recommended to academic libraries.' - Reference Reviews `The bibliographies are an invaluable aid ... the editor is to be congratulated for having done an excellent job ... there are virtually no areas of language and linguistics that do not get a look in somewhere, and there is good signposting in the text itself.' - Nigel Vincent, Times Higher Education Supplement


Persian Prose

Persian Prose

Author: Bo Utas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-07-01

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 0755617800

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Volume V of A History of Persian Literature presents a broad survey of Persian prose: from biographical, historiographical, and didactic prose, to scientific manuals and works of popular prose fiction. It analyzes the rhetorical devices employed by writers in different periods in their philosophical and political discourse; or when their aim is primarily to entertain rather than to instruct , the chapters describe different techniques used to transform old stories and familiar tales into novel versions to entice their audience. Many of the texts in prose cited in the volume share a wealth of common lore and literary allusions with Persian poetry. Prose and poetry frequently appear on the same page in tandem. In different ways, therefore, this creative interplay demonstrates the perennial significance of intertextuality, from the earliest times to the present; and help us in the process to further our understanding and enhance our enjoyment of Persian literature in its different manifestations throughout history


Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse

Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse

Author: Jane H. Hill

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1993-06-03

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780521425292

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In Responsibility and evidence in oral discourse twelve prominent linguists and linguistic anthropologists examine 'responsibility', 'authority', and 'knowledge': central, but problematic, concepts in contemporary anthropology. Their detailed case studies analyze diverse forms of oral discourse - everyday conversation, conversational narrative, song, oratory, divination, and ritual poetry - in societies in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. The studies show how speakers attribute responsibility for acts and states of affairs, how particular forms of language and discourse relate to claims and disclaimers of responsibility, and how verbal acts are themselves social acts, subject to such attributions. The volume challenges those cognitive theorists who locate responsibility for the meaning of verbal acts solely in the intentions of individual speakers. Instead, the contributors focus on the production of meaning between speakers and audiences in particular social and cultural contexts, through dialogue and interaction which mediate between linguistic forms and their interpretations. This landmark volume will serve for years to come as a point of reference in the study, not only of responsibility and evidence, but of reported speech, authorship, and other phenomena in the social life of language. Besides linguistic and cultural anthropologists, linguistics, and folklorists, it will interest also readers from pragmatics, legal studies, sociology, religion, and social psychology.