Aspect, temporal ordering and perspective in narrative fiction
Throughout the reading process, a narrative text produces various sensations of immediacy or distance. One important reason for this is that a narrative will in some places present situtations from a particular perspective, with which the reader is implicitly invited to identify, while in other places it will describe situations as independent of any perspective. If a perspective (that of the narrator, or that of a character in the text) is introduced, the narrative reflects an individual's (potentially fallible) perceptions, attitudes or beliefs; and this creates the impression of perspectival immediacy. If no perspective is introduced, on the other hand, the narrative pretends to relate ~objective facts~ within the fiction; and this creates the impression of perspectival distance. Thus the contrast between perepectivally situated and perepectivally non-situated sentences in a narrative produces perspectival refractions. The difference between both types of sentences, however, is often felt to be recalcitrant to a full linguistic analysis. For example, it is generally assumed that the perspectival status of a sentence is determined by the presence or absence of aubject-oriented elements in the sentence. But
Caenepeel, Mimo
narrative ; perspective ; perspectival refractions ; semantics
Aspect, temporal ordering and perspective in narrative fiction. Throughout the reading process, a narrative text produces various sensations of immediacy or distance. One important reason for this is that a narrative will in some places present situtations from a particular perspective, with which the reader is implicitly invited to identify, while in other places it will describe situations as independent of any perspective. If a perspective (that of the narrator, or that of a character in the text) is introduced, the narrative reflects an individual's (potentially fallible) perceptions, attitudes or beliefs; and this creates the impression of perspectival immediacy. If no perspective is introduced, on the other hand, the narrative pretends to relate ~objective facts~ within the fiction; and this creates the impression of perspectival distance. Thus the contrast between perepectivally situated and perepectivally non-situated sentences in a narrative produces perspectival refractions. The difference between both types of sentences, however, is often felt to be recalcitrant to a full linguistic analysis. For example, it is generally assumed that the perspectival status of a sentence is determined by the presence or absence of aubject-oriented elements in the sentence. But
aspect temporal_order perspective narrative fiction throughout read process narrative_text produce various sensation immediacy distance one_important reason narrative place present particular perspective reader implicitly invite identify place describe situation independent perspective perspective narrator character text introduce narrative reflect individual potentially fallible perception attitude beliefs create_impression immediacy perspective introduce hand narrative pretend relate objective facts within fiction create_impression distance thus contrast situate non situated sentence narrative produce difference type sentence however often felt recalcitrant full linguistic_analysis example generally_assume status sentence determine presence_absence oriented element_sentence