Discourse Deixis In Metafiction

This volume advances scholarly understanding of the ways in which discourse deixis underpins the workings of metafictional novels. Building on existing scholarship in the field, the book begins by mapping out key themes and techniques in metafiction and puts forward a focused and theoretically coherent account of discourse deixis—language which points to a section or aspect of the discourse context in which that language is used—in written literary discourse, highlighting its inherent significance in metafiction specifically. Macrae takes readers through an exploration of discourse deixis as used within the techniques of metanarration, metalepsis, and disnarration, drawing on a mix of both well-established and lesser-known metafictional novels from the late 1960s and early 1970s by such authors as John Barth, Brigid Brophy, Robert Coover, John Fowles, Steve Katz, and B.S. Johnson. This comprehensive account integrates and develops a new approach to understanding discourse deixis and innovative insights into metafictionality more broadly and will be of particular interest to scholars in literary studies, postmodern literature, narratology, and stylistics.

This volume presents some new work on deixis and, in particular, deixis in narrative and literature. Deixis has long held fascination for both philosophers and linguists alike, and increasingly it is seen as a fundamental element of discourse in works of a more literary-linguistic or stylistic nature. The aim of this book has been to gather and present material on deixis which is often referred to but has hitherto not received the space it warrants. The collection will be of interest to anyone working in linguistics and literary studies. There are essays on deictic processing, non-egocentricity, deictic worlds and the deictic categories. The more literary material focuses on modernist aesthetics, the poetic deictic persona, pronouns and narrative voice, and the problematic deixis of Keats's Odes.

This work studies three twenty-first century novels by Richard Powers, Dave Eggers and Don DeLillo as representative of a new trend of US fiction concerned with the topic of the technological augmentation of the human condition. The different chapters provide, from the double perspective of the optimistic transhumanist philosophy and the more balanced approach of critical posthumanism, an overview of the narrative strategies used by the writers to explore the possibilities that biotechnology, digital technologies and cryonics open up to transcend our human limitations, while also warning their readers of their most nefarious consequences. Ultimately, the book puts forward the claim that even if the writers approach the subject from a variety of perspectives and using different narrative styles and techniques, they all share a critical posthumanist fear that an unrestrained and unquestioned use of technology for enhancement purposes may bring about disembodiment and dehumanization.

This second edition of The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics provides a comprehensive introduction and reference point to key areas in the field of stylistics. The four sections of the volume encompass a wide range of approaches from classical rhetoric to cognitive neuroscience. Issues that are covered include: historical perspectives, centring on rhetoric, formalism and functionalism. the elements of stylistic analysis, including foregrounding, relevance theory, conversation analysis, narrative, metaphor, speech and thought presentation and point of view. current areas of influential research such as cognitive poetics, corpus stylistics, critical stylistics, multimodality, creative writing and reader response. four newly commissioned chapters in the emerging fields of cognitive grammar, forensic linguistics, the stylistics of children’s literature and a corpus stylistic study of mental health issues. All of these new chapters are written by leading researchers in their respective fields. Each of the 33 chapters in this volume is written by a specialist. Each chapter provides an introduction to the subject, an overview of its history, an instructive example of how to conduct a stylistic analysis, a section with recommendations for practice and a discussion of possible future developments in the area for readers to follow up on. The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, second edition is essential reading for researchers, postgraduates and undergraduate students working in this area.

This book focuses on how readers can be 'manipulated' during their experience of reading fictional texts and how they are incited to perceive, process and interpret certain textual patterns. Offering fine-grained stylistic analysis of diverse genres, including crime fiction, short stories, poetry and novels, the book deciphers various linguistic, pragmatic and multimodal techniques. These are skilfully used by authors to achieve specific effects through a subtle manipulation of deixis, metalepsis, dialogue, metaphors, endings, inferences or rhetorical, narratorial and typographical control. Exploring contemporary texts such as The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Remains of the Day and We Need to Talk About Kevin, chapters delve into how readers are pragmatically positioned or cognitively (mis)directed as the author guides their attention and influences their judgment. They also show how readers' responses can, conversely, bring about a certain form of manipulation as readers challenge the positions the texts invite them to occupy.

Metagames: Games about Games scrutinizes how various meta devices, such as breaking the fourth wall and unreliable narrator, change and adapt when translated into the uniquely interactive medium of digital games. Through its theoretical analyses and case studies, the book shows how metafictional experimentation can be used to both challenge and push the boundaries of what a game is and what a player’s role is in play, and to raise more profound topics such as those describing experiences of people of oppressed identities. The book is divided into six chapters that deal with the following meta devices: breaking the fourth wall, hypermediation, unreliable narrator, abusive game design, fragmentation, and parody. The book will predominantly interest scholars and students of media studies and game studies as it continues discourses held in the discipline regarding the metareferential character of digital games.

A pioneering text in its first edition, this revised publication of Cognitive Poetics offers a rigorous and principled approach to literary reading and analysis. The second edition of this seminal text features: • updated theory, frameworks, and examples throughout, including new explanations of literary meaning, the power of reading, literary force, and emotion; • extended examples of literary texts from Old English to contemporary literature, covering genres including religious, realist, romantic, science fictional, and surrealist texts, and encompassing poetry, prose, and drama; • new chapters on the mind-modelling of character, the building of text-worlds, the feeling of immersion and ambience, and the resonant power of emotion in literature; • fully updated and accessible accounts of Cognitive Grammar, deictic shifts, prototypicality, conceptual framing, and metaphor in literary reading. Encouraging the reader to adopt a fresh approach to understanding literature and literary analyses, each chapter introduces a different framework within cognitive poetics and relates it to a literary text. Accessibly written and reader-focused, the book invites further explorations either individually or within a classroom setting. This thoroughly revised edition of Cognitive Poetics includes an expanded further reading section and updated explorations and discussion points, making it essential reading for students on literary theory and stylistics courses, as well as a fundamental tool for those studying critical theory, linguistics, and literary studies.

This handbook tackles the understudied relationship between music and comedy cinema by analysing the nature, perception, and function of music from fresh perspectives. Its approach is not only multidisciplinary, but also interdisciplinary in its close examination of how music and other cinematic devices interact in the creation of comedy. The volume addresses gender representation, national identities, stylistic strategies, and employs inputs from cultural studies, musicology, music theory, psychology, cognitivism, semiotics, formal and stylistic film analysis, and psychoanalysis. It is organised in four sections: general introductions, theoretical investigations, music and comedy within national cinemas, and exemplary case studies of films or authors.