Narrative Worlds and the Texture of Time

A Social-Semiotic Perspective

Rosemary Huisman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781032349411
  9781032260013
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000688474
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Literature

This book brings together a model of time and a model of language to generate a new model of narrative, where different stories with different temporalities and non-chronological modes of sequence can tell of different worlds of human – and non-human – experience, woven together (the 'texture of time') in the one narrative. The work of Gerald Edelman on consciousness, J.T. Fraser on time, and M.A.K. Halliday on language is introduced; the categories of systemic functional linguistics are used for detailed analysis of English narrative texts from different literary periods. A summary chapter gives an overview of previous narrative studies and theories, with extensive references. Chapters on 'temporalization' and 'spatialization' of language contrast the importance of time in narrative texts with the effect of 'grammatical metaphor', as described by M.A.K. Halliday, for scientific discourse. Chapters on prose fiction, poetry and the texts of digital culture chart changes in the 'texture of time' with changes in the social context: 'narrative as social semiotic'.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Endorsement Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• 1 Human consciousness and the dual experience of time felt and time understood
• 2 ‘Spatialization’ and scientific discourse, taking time out of language Benjamin Whorf’s ‘configuration of experience’ and M.A.K. Halliday’s ‘grammatical metaphor’
• 3 Levels of nature and worlds of time J.T. Fraser’s model of five levels of natural complexity associated with six worlds of different temporalities in the extended human umwelt
• 4 Narrative studies and time A summary account of ‘scientific’ and ‘philosophical’ understandings of temporal meaning in narrative theory and narratology
• 5 Language and worlds of experience The basic concepts of M.A.K Halliday’s model of functional grammar, and its system of transitivity relating meaning to worlds of experience
• 6 ‘Temporalization’ and narrative texts, keeping time in language Projection and narrative voice, expansion and narrative particularity
• 7 Narrative worlds and their temporalities Weaving the temporalities of different worlds with different modes of coherence in the texture of one narrative; dominant worlds in English literary texts, pre-printing to postmodern
• 8 The meaning of ‘story’ The mode of coherence of each thread/story telling the temporality of the one narrative world, with examples from different historical periods
• 9 Prose fiction and the texture of time Detailed study and comparison of extracts from three ‘canonical’ novels of classic realism, modernism and postmodernism
• 10 Poetry and the texture of time Extending the model of temporalities to the traditional, modernist and postmodern poem, and the complex poetic ‘weaving’ of temporal meanings
• 11 Digital culture and the texture of time Post postmodernism or ...
• Index