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Index
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
CONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1: MODELLING CHARACTERISATION
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Raising the issues
1.3 Characters: Approaches in literary criticism
1.3.1 Humanising approaches
1.3.2 De-humanising approaches
1.3.3 A mixed approach
1.4 People: Approaches in linguistics
1.4.1 Language attitude research
1.4.2 Identity in sociolinguistics: Insights from gender studies
1.4.3 Social constructivist approaches
1.4.4 Developing a pragmatic view of language and people
1.5 Text comprehension and characterisation
1.5.1 Information sources and cognitive processes: Top-down and bottom-up
1.5.2 Mental representations in text comprehension
1.5.3 Mental representations in literary texts and characterisation
1.6 A model for characterisation
1.7 Characterisation in plays: Some preliminaries
1.7.1 Discourse structure
1.7.2 Text and performance
PART ONE: CHARACTERISATION AND THE MIND
CHAPTER 2: CHARACTER CATEGORIES AND IMPRESSIONS OF CHARACTER
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Literary approaches to categorising character
2.2.1 Traits and ‘semes’
2.2.2 Actant roles
2.2.3 Dramatic roles
2.2.4 Character typologies: The ‘flat’/‘round’ distinction
2.3 The organisation and role of prior knowledge
2.3.1 Memory stores
2.3.2 Semantic memory and episodic memory
2.3.3 Knowledge structures
2.4 Social cognition
2.4.1 Perspectives on social cognition
2.4.2 Cognition, social dimensions and discourse
2.4.3 From non-social to social categories
2.4.4 Social categories: Three main groups
2.4.5 Social schemata
2.4.6 Social categories and social schemata in two advertisements
2.4.7 Impression formation
2.5 Social cognition and fictional characterisation
2.5.1 Categories in characterisation
2.5.2 Prototypicality distortions in fictional contexts
2.5.3 Possibility distortions in fictional contexts
2.5.4 The flat/round distinction revisited
2.5.5 Category shifts in characterisation
2.6 Investigating readers’ descriptions of character
2.6.1 Aims and methodology
2.6.2 Discussion
2.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 3: INFERRING CHARACTER FROM TEXTS
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Approaching character inferencing from within literary studies
3.3 Attribution theories
3.3.1 Correspondent inference theory
3.3.2 Critique of correspondent inference theory
3.3.3 Correspondent inference theory, speech act theory and play texts
3.3.4 Covariation theory
3.3.5 Integrating two attribution theories
3.4 Foregrounding theory
3.5 Foregrounding theory and attribution theory: Are they analogous?
3.6 Attribution theory in practice
3.6.1 When and how does attribution occur?
3.6.2 Attribution and perceiver biases
3.7 Attribution theory and language
3.7.1 Conversational action
3.7.2 Inferencing in a communicative context
3.7.3 Language attitude research
3.8 Inferring characteristics in plays
3.8.1 The inferential context
3.8.2 Reader manipulations
3.8.3 Investigating readers’ inferences
3.9 Conclusion
Further directions and exercises
1. Jokes
2. Adverts
3. Personal adverts
4. Newspapers
PART TWO: CHARACTERISATION AND THE TEXT
CHAPTER 4: TEXTUAL CUES IN CHARACTERISATION
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Preliminaries
4.2.1 Form, function and context
4.2.2 Idiolect, dialect and different media
4.3 Explicit cues: Self-presentation and other-presentation
4.3.1 Self-presentation in the presence of other characters
4.3.2 Self-presentation in the absence of other characters
4.3.3 Other-presentation
4.4 Implicit cues
4.4.1 Conversational structure
4.4.2 Conversational implicature
4.4.3 Lexis
4.4.4 Syntactic features
4.4.5 Accent and dialect
4.4.6 Verse and prose
4.4.7 Paralinguistic features
4.4.8 Visual features
4.4.9 Context: A character’s company and setting
4.5 Authorial cues
4.5.1 Proper names
4.5.2 Stage directions
4.6 Conclusion
CHAPTER 5: (IM)POLITENESS AND CHARACTERISATION
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Speech acts, politeness and characterisation; Opening examples
5.3 Linguistic politeness
5.3.1 Face, face-threatening acts, and degree of face threat
5.3.2 Superstrategies
5.4 A note on impoliteness
5.5 The case for the importance of (im)politeness in characterisation
5.5.1 (Im)politeness, power and person perception
5.5.2 (Im)politeness and characterisation: The study of The Entertainer revisited
5.6 Characterisation in the film Scent of a Woman
5.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION: THE CHARACTERISATION OF KATHERINA IN SHAKESPEARE’S THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Literary criticism and Katherina
6.3 Analysis of Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew
6.3.1 The shrew schema
6.3.2 First impressions: Instantiating the shrew schema
6.3.3 Character context: The role of Bianca
6.3.4 Inferring shrewish characteristics
6.3.5 Characterisation through other-presentation
6.3.6 A close-up on Katherina
6.3.7 Character context: Petruchio replaces Bianca
6.3.8 Characterisation through other-presentation: A reversal
6.3.9 Katherina’s behaviour
6.3.10 Katherina and the run-up to the ‘obedience’ speech (V.ii.137-180)
6.4 Conclusion
Further directions and exercises
1. Narrative
2. Verse
References
Index
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