Appunti lezioni English 2 - prima parte di Stelzer

THEATRE COMMUNICATION

VERTICAL COMMUNICATION

There is no narrator, the metatextual part (that of the narrator) is replaced by captions which are the

description of the gestures, expressions and movements that the characters must make, while the

interaction between the characters is done directly between them there is no mediation by the narrator.

The character may also violate this board and go directly to the audience.

HE AND I

Diegetic elements are still present in theatre, I, however, is superimposed on HE, whereas in narration it is

HE which is superimposed on I.

Theatre always happens “HERE AND NOW”

THEATRE is the discourse of hic et nunc > forever in the present.

Even when events take place in the past, they present themselves in the present in the form of performative

action >> this is because, in theatre, discourse is action and action is discourse.

In NARRATIVE time is always in the past and refers to the time of the events and not of the enunciative

situation.

If one is to consider the events real, these events have to be in the past.

For example the utterance “today”:

- in theatre is a spatio-temporal co-reference > not need to specifies, in theatre is now

- in narrative one must consider it in relation to the measurative, directive or stative conditions, that is, to

the chronological time of the calendar (in rapporto alle condizioni misurative, direttive o stative, cioè

al tempo cronologico del calendario) > in narrative you need to specify when

Dramatic action always is in the PRESENT, the present moves on and is transformed into the past, but as

such is no longer present.

The passage of time within (all'interno) the drama is an absolute succession of present moments. >> the

drama itself, as an absolute, guarantees and creates a time of its own.

Theatre as SOCIAL INSTITUTION

Georges Gurvitch has perceived an “affinité frappante entre la société et le théâtre”.

This AFFINITY is reflected in the metaphor describing the world as a stage > a view that is not confined to

literature alone, but which is widespread in folk and popular culture.

Theatre is social, it’s born and lives is front of an audience

Petronius’ classic formulation, “Totus mundus agit histrionem” (all the world’s a stage), has become an

infinitely variable topos, in which the original transcendental perspective (God as dramatist and audience,

humanity as actors or puppets) was eliminated in the early modern period in favour of a purely mundane

perspective >> the theatre metaphor points to the role-playing component in conventional modes of

behaviour, to the pretensions and hypocrisy of social life. (la metafora del teatro punta verso la componente

del gioco di ruolo nei modi di comportamento convenzionali, verso le pretese e l'ipocrisia della vita sociale)

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Reflection of reality > celebrates or criticised sociology and the exaggerated behaviours

THE LANGUAGE OF THEATRE

Theatre (and its language) always refers to a PRAGMATIC CONTEXT (the stage).

Theatre is a PERFORMANCE and entails not only words but space, actors, props, audience and the

complex relations among these elements.

Theatre is institutionally bound to the ENUNCIATION PROCESS.

It needs a pragmatic context, possesses a temporal dimension, and its space is defined by DEIXIS (deissi).

Theatre communication produces meaning (communicates something) only when it is related to a

pragmatic context.

It incorporates, at the same time, the VERBAL CODE and a great many OTHER CODES: those of gesture,

costume, space. sound, etc. TYPES OF CODES

One survey of theatrical codes, by Kowzan (1975), groups them into five categories:

1) SPOKEN TEXT

2) BODY GESTURE

3) ACTOR’S EXTERNAL ASPECT > mimetic and gestural (Ex. big nose)

4) THE STAGE/SETTING > can be blank or full of things

5) UNARTICULATED SOUND THEATRE SPECIFICITY

AII the discourses pronounced in the theatre would then be performative in nature in the sense that they

present themselves as institutionally tied (legato) in with the dynamics of the action.

At the same time, co-ordination between utterance (espressione) and stage space is brought about by a

particular INTENSE USE OF DEIXIS.

The specific nature of the theatre lies in the organisation of the words as movements of the characters in

reciprocal relationships or with respect to objects or spaces on stage, in terms of deictic, ostensive

spatial relationships

> Performativity and deixis are linked

It is evident that performativity is realised in deixis and constitutes the specific nature of the theatre >>> it

coalesces into a verbal-scenic whole (into a constituent correlation) the presence of discourse exigency

with the deictics of its own infernal scenic solution tied to the action.

(essa fonde in un tutto verbale-scenico la presenza dell'esigenza del discorso con i deittici della propria

soluzione scenica infernale legata alla azione)

DEIXIS: what it is?

DEIXIS is location and identification of persons, objects, events, processes and activities being talked

about or referred to in relation to the spatio-temporal context created and sustained by the act of

enunciation and the participation in it.

Typically of a single speaker and at least one addressee (according to John Lyons) >>> different aspects

between actors and space, space the actor occupies.

(è localizzazione di persone, oggetti, eventi, processi e attività di cui si fa riferimento in relazione al contesto

spazio-temporale creato e sostenuto dall'atto enunciativo e dalla partecipazione ad esso, tipicamente di un

singolo parlante e a almeno un destinatario)

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Demonstrative pronouns, adjectives, time, place adverbs, and personal pronouns >>> are ALL DEIXIS.

DEIXIS AND THE THEATRE

It is a term used in linguistics to denote those aspects of an expression that refer to and depend on

➔ the situation in which the utterance is made.

Deictic words indicate the situational coordinates of PERSON (I/you, us/them), PLACE (here/there,

➔ this/that), and TIME (now/then, yesterday/today).

The theatre enunciation is perhaps the most determinant aspect of the specificity of theatre.

➔ Theatre discourse is that which makes theatre very different from other discursive practices.

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Central to this kind of enunciation is the fact that in the theatre to speak is to act and to act is to speak

(actors speak in the situation the actors fabricated).

This is so for several reasons:

- performance fabricates an enunciative situation that mimes a real situation

- the actors/ characters always speak in a concrete situation fabricated by themselves

- they imitate the dialogical structure

This situation is determined immediately and directly by the participants of the speech event > explicit

➔ and implicit participants, in connection with a specific situation.

That situation shapes the utterance, dictating that it sound one way and not another

DIFFERENT TYPES OF DEIXIS

- Enunciative deixis (I/you)

- Spatial deixis (here/there)

- Temporal deixis (today/yesterday)

- Social deixis (idiolect, that is individual’s unique variety and/or use of language)

- Demonstrative deixis (this / that)

BASIS TEXTUAL TERMS: acts and scene

ACT: A major unit (or structural division) of a dramatic text.

Many classical plays are divided into five acts; most modern plays have two, to allow for an intermission.

Usually, an act consists of a sequence of smaller action units called scenes.

Other popular formats are three-act plays and one-act plays.

SCENE: An action unit within an act.

Usually, transition from one scene to another involves a new stage situation and a fresh episode, marked

either by a change in time and/or location, or by an empty stage, or by characters entering or going off

stage. BASIS STAGE TERMS: set and props

SET: The objects and the backdrop making up a stage scenery (ex. a table, a couch, three walls of a room).

In a playscript the set is usually described in an initial block stage direction.

PROPERTIES PROPS: Generally, the set of moveable objects needed by the actors.

LAYERS OF TEXT

The printed text generally distinguishes more or less clearly between two layers of text. This distinction is

often expressed typographically:

● One layer comprises the SPOKEN DIALOGUE that takes place between the dramatic figures

● The other refers to the VERBAL TEXT SEGMENTS that are not reproduced on stage in spoken form.

This second category would therefore include the title of the play, the inscriptions, dedications and

prefaces, the dramatis personae (list of characters in a dramatic work), announcements of act (Act

I) and scene, stage-directions whether applicable to scenery or action, and the identification of the

speaker of a particular speech.

Ingarden’s concepts of “main” or “primary” and “side” or “secondary” text have been adopted as the accepted

labels for these different layers of text:

● The primary or main text of a playscript consists of the speeches of the characters, including

prologues and epilogues, if any.

A prologue is an introductory speech, an epilogue is a concluding speech.

● The secondary or side text of a playscript consists of all textual elements that do not belong to the

primary text and fulfil (adempiere) an explanatory, descriptive and narrative function (the play’s title,

subtitle, historical notes, dramatis personae, stage directions, speech prefixes etc.)

THE PRIMARY TEXT AND ITS ELEMENTS

The PRIMARY TEXT is the main body of the play spoken by the characters.

It includes:

● SPEECH: An utterance of a single speaker, either within a dialogue, a monologue, or an aside.

● DIALOGUE: A sequence of conversational ‘turns’ exchanged between two or more speakers or

‘interlocutors’.

The more specific term duologue is occasionally used to refer to a dialogue between exactly two

speakers.

● MONOLOGUE: A long speech in which a character talks to him- or herself.

Often, only one character is on stage during a monologue, in which case one also speaks of a soliloquy

(from Latin solus, ‘alone’).

● ASIDE: A remark that is not heard by the other characters on stage.

MONOLOGICAL ASIDE

A monological aside is a remark that occurs in a dialogue, but is not meant to be heard by any of the

speaker’s interlocutors (it is ‘monological’ because it is basically a self-communication).

DIALOGICAL ASIDE

A dialogical aside, in contrast, is a remark that is addressed to a specific hearer, but is heard by nobody

else present (whisper specifically directed to one person)

An aside ad spectatores is addressed directly to the audience (not heard from anyone else >>> only the

audience can hear) SECONDARY TEXT ELEMENTS

All the text ‘surrounding’ or accompanying the main text: title, dramatis personae, scene descriptions,

stage directions for acting a