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Marie-Laure Ryan

Diagramming narrative

The use of diagrams as a tool of narrative analysis is a fundamentally semiotic project whose origins can be traced back to the emphasis placed by the structuralist movement on the synchronic systems that underlie signification. Defining diagrams as a spatial presentation of information which conveys meanings that could not be expressed in the linear form of a text, a list, or a formal coding system, this paper focuses on attempts to represent individual narrative plots, as opposed to diagrams that model a universal narrative structure or discourse phenomena. Through the analysis of diagrams relating to three aspects of plot — time, space, and mind — this paper argues that graphic representations are not merely a tool for representing narratological knowledge, but an important way to produce this knowledge. At their very best, they can be the seed of a new theory.

Semiotica, Walter de Gruyter

Print ISSN: 0037-1998
Volume: 2007, 06/2007
Pages: 11 - 40

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