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The Spatio-Temporal Setting in Written Narrative Fiction

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The Spatio-Temporal Setting in Written Narrative Fiction The Spatio-Temporal Setting in Written Narrative Fiction A Study of Interaction between Words, Text and Encyclopedic Knowledge in the Creation of Textual Meaning Kari K. Pitkänen Academic dissertation to be publicly discussed, by due permission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki in auditorium XII on the 29th of November, 2003, at 10 o'clock. University of Helsinki PUBLICATIONS Department of General Linguistics NO. 35 P.O. Box 9 (Siltavuorenpenger 20) 2003 FIN-00014 University of Helsinki Finland © Kari K. Pitkänen ISSN 0355-7170 ISBN 952-10-1459-8 (Paperback) ISBN 952-10-1460-1 (PDF) http://ethesis.helsinki.fi Helsinki 2003 Yleisjäljennös - Painopörssi ii The Spatio-Temporal Setting in Written Narrative Fiction. A Study of Interaction between Words, Text and Encyclopedic Knowledge in the Creation of Textual Meaning. Kari K. Pitkänen, University of Helsinki, FIN This work focuses on the spatio-temporal setting, the compositional frame, which provides the preliminary key parameters of the original situation and surroundings depicted by the text. The analysis is based on 150 text beginnings of English written narrative fiction supported by a lexical analysis mainly based on 20,000 WordNet lexemes. A clearly separate setting is not the norm. It occurred in only 37% of the material while 45% of the settings were established gradually or integrated into the text. A separate setting is slightly more common in space-oriented settings while in character and action-oriented settings the spatio-temporal aspects of the setting are established gradually. Settings focusing on physical surroundings tend to be separate while settings focusing on socio-cultural and mental aspects of the world are often provided gradually or integrated into the story. Spatial and temporal information is partly transmitted by other than primarily spatial or temporal expressions. Some lexemes name spatial and temporal frames while others trigger them. Creating a setting is based on connecting proper frame triggers and a co-text with what the reader supposedly knows otherwise. Thus, the same conventional frames and frame triggers tend to occur in settings. When the setting is based on a shared frame, less text is needed, making it possible to focus on characters and action, and to provide the surroundings gradually through either the narrator’s or the protagonist’s point of view. Often, textual information is enriched with encyclopedic knowledge and manipulated textually in order to evoke and modify a frame and/or textual meaning and to provide the reader with a specific point of view. The analysis of the settings and the lexicon revealed that the interface between language and the world, and the knowledge of the frames are crucial and should be taken into account both in lexical and text semantic descriptions. iii Acknowledgements: I am very grateful to professor Fred Karlsson for his guidance, support and constructive criticism, and for giving me an opportunity to proceed towards an academic career as a researcher, assistant and university lecturer while writing this study and thus making this work financially possible. I am also grateful to lecturer Orvokki Heinämäki, professors Lauri Carlson, Urho Määttä and Jan-Ola Östman for carefully reading and commenting numerous manuscript versions at different stages and for guidance and encouragement when I most needed it. I also thank my two external examiners, professors Anna Mauranen and Eija Ventola, for criticism and comments. I have also benefited from numerous discussions with my colleagues at the Department of General Linguistics. I thank university lecturer Graham Wilcock for his comments concerning the introduction and the conclusions, and researcher Anu Airola for several discussions on text and meaning. I have also benefited from discussions with teachers, researchers and students in Graduate School Kielellinen merkitys ja sen prosessointi, Tekstipiiri at the Research Center for Domestic Languages and the Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen (especially professor Gunter Senft). I also thank Patrick McGrath for sending me Dr Haggard’s Disease and for letting me use it together with Spider as the material for a larger study the present work is a part of. Some of the other extracts have been reprinted with the kind permission of the following: • The 158 Pound Marriage (1991/1973 Corgi Books. London & Auckland) and A Prayer for Owen Meany (1989 Corgi Books. London & Auckland) reprinted by permission of John Irving and the Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group Ltd. • “Hair Nudes”, “Peace” and “The Secret Sushi Society” from The Secret Sushi Society reprinted by permission of David Lazarus (1995). (Shufunotomo Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan.) • Neanderthal reprinted by permission of John Darnton (1996). (Random House. New York.) • The Grotesque (1989) reprinted by permission of Patrick McGrath (and Penguin UK). (The Penguin Group. London, New York, Victoria, Ontario & Auckland.) • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig (1974) reprinted by permission of Random House (UK). • Arthur C. Clarke’s (1990/1950) “The Road to the Sea” from Tales From Planet Earth. reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates. (A Legend Book. London. 1-56.) Finally, I thank my wife Tarja, my children Pyry and Taru, as well as my parents, my parents-in-law and friends for patience, support and encouragement during these very long hours of work for the several past years. iv Contents: 1. Introduction 1 1.1. Research Questions and the Structure of the Work 3 1.2. Theoretical Background 5 2. Material and Methods 10 2.1. Texts 11 2.2. Lexical Material 17 3. Text and Textual Meaning 23 3.1. Text, Textual Meaning and Discourse 23 3.2. Frames and the Compositionality of Textual Meaning 26 3.2.1. Frames 26 3.2.2. Compositional Frames 30 3.3. Spatio-Temporality and the Author-Narrator-Protagonist Relationship 34 4. The Spatio-Temporal Setting 39 4.1. Extending the Traditional View of a Setting 39 4.2. Setting Types and Some Textual Properties of Settings 42 4.3. Differences in Thematic Emphasis 46 4.3.1. Space-Oriented Settings 49 4.3.2. Time-Oriented Settings 56 4.4. Summary 61 5. Spatio-Temporal Layers, Lexicon and Settings 63 5.1. Mental, Socio-Cultural and Physical Layers 63 5.2. Spatio-Temporal Lexicon 70 5.3. Interaction between Layers, Lexicon and Settings 76 5.3.1 The Mental Layer 76 5.3.1.1. The Mental Layer and the Spatiality of the Protagonist 78 5.3.1.2. Personal Time 80 5.3.2. The Physical Layer 82 5.3.2.1. The Physical Layer and the Spatial Lexicon 83 5.3.2.2. Objective Time and the Physical Layer 88 5.3.3. The Socio-Cultural Layer 89 5.3.3.1. Socio-Cultural Space 91 5.3.3.2. Socio-Cultural Time 99 5.4. Interaction between Space and Time 100 5.5. Summary and Conclusions 102 v 6. Frame Triggers, Frames and Contextuality 104 6.1. Contextual Frame Triggers 104 6.2. Frame Types and Frame Triggers in the Text Corpus 112 6.2.1. Spatial Frames and Frame Triggers 112 6.2.2. Temporal Frames and Frame Triggers 118 6.3. Frame Types and Other Setting Properties 122 6.4. Some Exceptional Setting Types 126 6.5. Some Conclusions 136 7. Linguistic Painting 139 7.1. Linguistic Painting and Modified Frames 139 7.2. Linguistic Painting and Other Setting Properties 148 7.3. Genre Differences in Linguistic Painting 154 7.3.1. Science Fiction 154 7.3.2. Horror Stories 157 7.3.3. Adventures, Histories and War Stories 158 7.4. Conclusions 160 8. Some General Principles 161 9. Summary and Conclusions 164 References Appendixes vi 1. Introduction For several researchers, including e.g. Labov & Waletsky (1967), Rumelhart (1975: 213) and van Dijk (1980), a setting is a text-initial, structural macro-unit that describes the starting point and surroundings for a story by providing the main characters, the spatio-temporal location and other necessary background information. The clearest examples of this type of setting can be found in urban stories (studied by e.g. Labov & Waletsky 1967) and traditional fairy tales (studied by e.g. Rumelhart 1975, Virtanen 1992), like The Pied Piper of Hamelin, which begins as follows: (1.1) “Hamelin is a pretty town on the river Weser in Germany. About 600 years ago, the town suffered a terrible plague of rats.” (The Pied Piper of Hamelin) Here, like in many fairy tales, the location (Hamelin) and the time of the story (600 years ago) are explicitly given in a relatively separate setting, along with background information (the town having suffered a terrible plague of rats). However, narrative fiction (like novels and short stories) often uses more subtle means than fairy tales for creating the setting by relying on the human ability to derive additional information contextually from what is explicitly in the text. Additionally, there is not always a separate, explicit setting in narrative fiction. The spatio-temporal and other background information can be provided gradually or implicitly. The focus in linguistics has long been on reference, structure and lexical relations, but it has been changed by the advent of pragmatics, text and discourse linguistics. It is recognized that in addition to purely referential information, information on use and context is also transmitted by the text. Words themselves are also multifunctional in that there are several different types of information associated with them. This information can be activated and modified contextually. Let us have a look at (1.2)1 from the beginning of Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers: (1.2) “Harriet Vane sat at her writing-table and stared out into Mecklenburg Square.” (Sayers 1987b/1935) The actual location is not the one explicitly stated in the text, i.e.
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