Discourse as Performance

Discourse as Performance PDF Author: Michael Issacharoff
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804717090
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description
One of the first books to apply contemporary linguistic and semiotic research to drama, Discourse as Performance is an investigation into theatrical discourse - the specifically theatrical use of language in the broadest sense, from verbal utterance to non verbal uses comprising the visual elements of gesture, facial expression, movement, costume, players' bodies, properties, and decor. The book is in three parts. In the first part, the author deals with theatrical discourse proper and distinguishes between its two main modes: dialogue and stage directions. Both modes address the problem of the specificity of theatrical discourse in contrast to other types of discourse, both literary and non-literary. The dialogue raises the questions of who speaks in a play (author, characters, actors) and to whom; the stage directions raise the question of reading a play, as opposed to seeing it performed onstage. The author links these issues to speech act theory and intertextuality.

Discourse as Performance

Discourse as Performance PDF Author: Michael Issacharoff
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804717090
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 184

Get Book

Book Description
One of the first books to apply contemporary linguistic and semiotic research to drama, Discourse as Performance is an investigation into theatrical discourse - the specifically theatrical use of language in the broadest sense, from verbal utterance to non verbal uses comprising the visual elements of gesture, facial expression, movement, costume, players' bodies, properties, and decor. The book is in three parts. In the first part, the author deals with theatrical discourse proper and distinguishes between its two main modes: dialogue and stage directions. Both modes address the problem of the specificity of theatrical discourse in contrast to other types of discourse, both literary and non-literary. The dialogue raises the questions of who speaks in a play (author, characters, actors) and to whom; the stage directions raise the question of reading a play, as opposed to seeing it performed onstage. The author links these issues to speech act theory and intertextuality.

The Performance of Power

The Performance of Power PDF Author: Sue-Ellen Case
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587290340
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Recently in the field of theatre studies there has been an increasing amount of debate and dissonance regarding the borders of its territory, its methodologies, subject matter, and scholarly perspectives. The nature of this debate could be termed "political" and, in fact, concerns "the performance of power"—the struggle over power relations embedded in texts, methodologies, and the academy itself. This striking new collection of nineteen divergent essays represents this performance of power and the way in which the recent convergence of new critical theories with historical studies has politicized the study of the theatre. Neither play text, performance, nor scholarship and teaching can safely reside any longer in the "free," politically neutral, self-signifying realm of the aesthetic. Politicizing theatrical discourse means that both the hermeneutics and the histories of theatre reveal the role of ideology and power dynamics. New strategies and concepts—and a vital new phase of awareness—appear in these illuminating essays. A variety of historical periods, from the Renaissance through the Victorian and up to the most contemporary work of the Wooster group, illustrate the ways in which contemporary strategies do not require contemporary texts and performances but can combine with historical methods and subjects to produce new theatrical discourse.

The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance

The Power of Discourse in Ritual Performance PDF Author: Ulrich Demmer
Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster
ISBN: 9783825883003
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This volume focuses on the ways discourse is used in ritual performances as an important medium of power, enabling speakers/actors to construct, redefine and transform interpersonal relationships, cultural concepts and worldviews. The various case studies gathered here, from South Asia, South East Asia, Africa and South America, show that recent developments in linguistic anthropology, ritual theory and performance studies provide new conceptual tools to take a fresh look at these issues. Foregrounding pragmatic approaches to language and discourse, they explore the social dynamics of rhetorical discourse, text and context, normativity and creativity, the poetics of dialogue and speech, as well as the manifold interactions of speakers, addressees and audience. The volume thus embraces both the micro-level of speech activities as well as the macro-level of social and political relationships and brings out the subtle workings of control, authority, and power in situations marked as ritual. The contributions, all based on extensive fieldwork, include many concrete samples of speech and discourse which give an authentic impression of the different voices and make for vivid reading.

Circus as Multimodal Discourse

Circus as Multimodal Discourse PDF Author: Paul Bouissac
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441102612
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Now available in paperback, this volume presents a theory of the circus as a secular ritual and introduces a method to analyze its performances as multimodal discourse. The book's fifteen chapters cover the range of circus specialties (magic, domestic and wild animal training, acrobatics, and clowning) and provide examples to show how cultural meaning is produced, extended and amplified by circus performances. Bouissac is one of the world's leading authorities on circus ethnography and semiotics and this work is grounded on research conducted over a 50 year span in Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas. It concludes with a reflection on the potentially subversive power of this discourse and its contemporary use by activists. Throughout, it endeavours to develop an analytical approach that is mindful of the epistemological traps of both positivism and postmodernist license. It brings semiotics and ethnography to bear on the realm of the circus.

Television Talk Shows

Television Talk Shows PDF Author: Andrew Tolson
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135652279
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The "talk show" has become a ubiquitous feature of American and European television. The various examples have been frequently discussed by academic commentators, as well as journalists in an attempt to place them in a cultural setting. Ultimately, the conclusion is reached by both academics and non-academics that talk shows matter because they are a focus for considerable public debate and are crucial to the landscape of popular television. All the variations of talk shows, from chat shows to celebrity interviews, have key elements in common: They all feature groups of guests, not individual interviewees, and they all involve audience participation. The studio audience is not only visible, but is given the opportunity to comment and intervene. Other books have applied academic analysis to the phenomenon of these shows, but this is the first to analyze the actual "talk" of the talk shows, and in that sense it is closer to discourse analysis than to other forms of analysis. This book provides a systematic empirical study of the broadcast talk in talk shows and maps out the range of formats that appear in the major American and British television shows. The contributors are members of an international network of researchers interested in the study of broadcast talk.

Dramatic Discourse

Dramatic Discourse PDF Author: Vimala Herman
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134668392
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Whilst poetry and fiction have been subjected to extensive linguistic analysis, drama has long remained a neglected field for detailed study. Vimala Herman argues that drama should be of particular interest to linguists because of its form, dialogue and subsequent translation into performance. The subsequent interaction that occurs on stage is a rich and fruitful source of analysis and can be studied by using discourse methods that linguists employ for real-life interaction. Shakespeare, Pinter, Osborne, Beckett, Chekhov, and Shaw are just some of the dramatists whose material is drawn upon. Each chapter contains a theoretical section in which major concepts of each framework are explained before the relevance of the framework to dramatic discourse is analyzed and explored using textual examples. This book will be of interest to undergraduates and postgraduates studying in the areas of literary linguistics and stylistics, or anyone specialising in the relationship between the text and performance.

Theatrical Speech Acts: Performing Language

Theatrical Speech Acts: Performing Language PDF Author: Erika Fischer-Lichte
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000027066
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Theatrical Speech Acts: Performing Language explores the significance and impact of words in performance, probing how language functions in theatrical scenarios, what it can achieve under particular conditions, and what kinds of problems may arise as a result. Presenting case studies from around the globe—spanning Argentina, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Korea, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Thailand, the UK and the US—the authors explore key issues related to theatrical speech acts, such as (post)colonial language politics; histories, practices and theories of translation for/in performance; as well as practices and processes of embodiment. With scholars from different cultural and disciplinary backgrounds examining theatrical speech acts—their preconditions, their cultural and bodily dimensions as well as their manifold political effects—the book introduces readers to a crucial linguistic dimension of historical and contemporary processes of interweaving performance cultures. Ideal for drama, theater, performance, and translation scholars worldwide, Theatrical Speech Acts opens up a unique perspective on the transformative power of language in performance.

Performance and Activism

Performance and Activism PDF Author: Kamran Afary
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739133578
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Much has been written about the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which brought out deep racial tensions throughout the city, exposed by media images of police brutality. This book sheds light on another facet of the events: the birth of a dynamic grassroots activist and community organizing movement that has been little noticed by academics or even by the press. It also focuses on the theatrical production of Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, a performance piece created by Anna Deavere Smith. Performance and Activism analyzes a rich, eclectic, and ongoing ensemble of local activist struggles in the context of the history and political economy of Los Angeles. Building on the important critical urban studies work of Mike Davis and Edward Soja, it also draws on Dwight Conquergood's writings on performance ethnography to theorize the political work of grassroots formations such as alternative/underground media collectives, gang truce parties/picnics, and women-organized prisoner support and court watch groups, such as Mothers Reclaiming Our Children. The book focuses on these events through the interdisciplinary approach of performance studies, highlighting "performance-conscious activisms" that help bridge the enormous class, race, and gender divides of our society. Book jacket.

A Discourse of Wonders

A Discourse of Wonders PDF Author: Stephen M. Wheeler
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 9780812234756
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Wheeler proposes instead that Ovid represents himself in the poem as an epic storyteller moved to tell a universal history of metamorphosis in the presence of a fictional audience.

The Performance of Power

The Performance of Power PDF Author: Sue-Ellen Case
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 0877453187
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Recently in the field of theatre studies there has been an increasing amount of debate and dissonance regarding the borders of its territory, its methodologies, subject matter, and scholarly perspectives. The nature of this debate could be termed "political" and, in fact, concerns "the performance of power"—the struggle over power relations embedded in texts, methodologies, and the academy itself. This striking new collection of nineteen divergent essays represents this performance of power and the way in which the recent convergence of new critical theories with historical studies has politicized the study of the theatre. Neither play text, performance, nor scholarship and teaching can safely reside any longer in the "free," politically neutral, self-signifying realm of the aesthetic. Politicizing theatrical discourse means that both the hermeneutics and the histories of theatre reveal the role of ideology and power dynamics. New strategies and concepts—and a vital new phase of awareness—appear in these illuminating essays. A variety of historical periods, from the Renaissance through the Victorian and up to the most contemporary work of the Wooster group, illustrate the ways in which contemporary strategies do not require contemporary texts and performances but can combine with historical methods and subjects to produce new theatrical discourse.