Social Semiotics As Praxis: Text, Meaning, and Nabokov's Ada (Theory and History of Literature)

321 Pages·1991·4.21 MB·English

by  Paul J. Thibault

Social Semiotics as Praxis
Theory and History of Literature
Edited by Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse
Volume 74. Paul J. Thibault Social Semiotics as Praxis
Volume 73. Htlbne Cixous Reading with Clarice Lispector
Volume 72. N. S. Trubetzkoy Writings on Literature
Volume 71 . Neil Larsen Modernism and Hegemony
Volume 70. Paul Zumthor Oral Poetry: An Introduction
Volume 69. GiorgioA gamben Stanzas:S peecha ndP hantasm in Western
Culture
Volume 68. Hans RobertJ auss Questiona ndA nswer:F orms of Dialogic
Understanding
Volume 67. Umberto Eco On the Concept of the Sign
Volume 66. Paul de Man Critical Writings, 1953-1978
Volume 65. Paul de Man Aesthetic Ideology
Volume 64. Didier Coste Narrative as Communication
Volume 63. Renato Barilli Rhetoric
Volume 62. Daniel Cottom Text and Culture
Volume 61. Theodor W. Adorno Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic
Volume 60. Kristin Ross The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the
Paris Commune
Volume 59. Lindsay Waters and Wlad Godzich Reading de Man Reading
Volume 58. F. W.J.S chelling The Philosophy of Art
Volume 57. Louis Marin Portrait of the King
Volume 56. Peter Sloterdijk Thinker on Stage: Nietzschek Materialism
Volume 55. Paul Smith Discerning the Subject
Volume 54. Rtda BensmaTa The Barthes Effect
Volume 53. Edmond Cros Theory and Practice of Sociocriticism
Volume 52. Philippe Lejeune On Autobiography
Volume 51 . Thierry de Duve Pictorial Nominalism: On Marcel Duchampk
Passage from Painting to the Readymade
Volume 50. Luiz Costa Lima Control of the Imaginary
Volume 49. Fredric Jameson The Ideologies of Theory: Essays 1971-1986,
Volume 2
Volume 48. Fredric Jameson The Ideologies of Theory: Essays 1971-1986,
Volume l
Volume 47. Eugene Vance From Topic to Tale: Logic and Narrativity in the
Middle Ages
Volume 46. Jean-FranCois Lyotard The Differend
Volume 45. Manfred Frank What Is Neostructuralism?
For other books in the series, see p. 304
Social Semiotics as
Praxis: Text, Social
Meaning Making, and
Nabokov’s Ada
Paul J. Thibault
Theory and History of Literature, Volume 74
University of Minnesota Press
Minneapolis Oxford
Copyright 0 1991 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
2037 University Avenue Southeast, Minneapolis, MN 55414.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Thibault, Paul J.
Social semiotics as praxis :t ext, social meaning making, and
Nabokov’s Ada / Paul J. Thibault.
p. cm. -( Theory and history of literature ;v . 74)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN (invalid) 08166018658. -I SBN 0-8166-1866-6 (pbk.)
1. Semiotics- Social aspects. 2. Discourse analysis.
3. Intertextuality. 4. Nabokov, Vladmir, 1899-1977. Ada.
I. Title. 11. Series.
P99.4.S62T14 99 0
302.2-dc20 90-39723
CIP
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the British Library
The University of Minnesota
is an equal-opportunity
educator and employer.
For Enza and Ilaria
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Contents
List of Figures ix
List of Tablesx
Preface xi
I. Introduction
1. The Conceptual Framework of a Praxis-Oriented Social
SemioticT heory 3
11. Contextualization Dynamics and Insider/Outsider Relations
2. The Sociosemantics of Quoting and Reporting Relations 31
3. Contextual Dynamics and the Recursive Analysis of Insider and Outsider
Relations in Quoting and Reporting Speech 68
4. Redundancy, Coding, and Punctuation in the Contextual Dynamics
of Quoting and Reporting Speech 90
111. Intertextuality
5. Text,D iscourse, and Intertextuality 119
6. Intertextuality, S ocial Heteroglossia, and Text Semantics 148
IV. Subjects, Codes, and Discursive Practice
7. Social Meaning Making, Textual Politics, and Power 179
8. The Neomaterialist Social Semiotic Subject 215
Appendix 1 249
Appendix 2 254
vii
viii 0 CONTENTS
Appendix 3 256
Appendix 4 258
Bibliography 285
Name Index 297
SubjecIt n dex 300
List of Figures
Figure 2.1. Speech roles; semanticf unctions 38
Figure 3.1. Dyad-type; context of reception 83
Figure 3.2. Dyad-type; context of transmission as situational resolution 84
Figure 3.3.N esting of levels entailed by autorecursion 87
Figure 4.1. Outline of discursive relations in social semiotic system 109
Figure 5. l. Homologization of sociosexual roles; Blanca de Bivar 129
Figure 5.2. The operation of intertextual relations of identity 132
Figure 5.3.C ommon intertextual thematic formation relations linking Ada, Lo-
lita, Carmen, and Le dernier Abenctrage; general specification only 135
Figure 6.l .I ntertextual semantic options inL olita and Ada; general and partial
description only 159
Figure 6.2.I ntertextually derived frame structuresin Van/Humbert and Ada/Lo-
lita discourses1 70
Figure 6.3. Dialogic interplay of intertextualf rames andt hematicm acrose-
quences1 7 1
Figure 8.1. Rearticulating the macro/microl i nksi; n termediate levels of
analysis 24 1
ix