Metrixing the Matrix: A Linguistic Analysis of Intertextuality on the Basis of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and Michael Cunningham’s The Hours
Gašper Ilc
To all those Mmes Richard Dalloway who have not even been Clarissas
1. Introduction
Intertextuality has played a central and controversial role in the development of the postmodernist thought ever since the publication of Kristeva’s seminal works on literary theory. Strongly influenced by structuralist semiotics, Kristeva (1980) extends the Saussurean belief that a linguistic sign exists only in relation with other signs (Saussure, 1959, 122ff), to texts, and claims that a text cannot exist in vacuo, but can only be fully understood in connection to other texts. More specifically, Kristeva …show more content…
Dalloway (ibid.). To identify the intertextual links between the two novels, Chatman (2005, 271) analyses the texts from different literary theoretical angles, and proposes that The Hours should be sub-labelled as “serious transformation” or “transposition”. This class of second-degree narratives1 typically models the new characters on those of the source text, and both sets of characters share similar or parallel experiences. The storyline of the source text also remains fundamentally unchanged; however, it is standardly transposed to a new place and time. Apart from Chatman’s (2005) essay, a host of academic papers have been written on the topic of intertextual connectedness between the two novels from the perspective of literary theory (Alley 2006, Hughes 2004, Schiff 2004, Marcus 2007 a.o). The present paper, however, examines the two narratives from the perspective of (Critical) Discourse Analysis (cf. van Dijk, 1977; Fairclough, 1989, 1992 a.o.) with the help of different automated text-analysis tools. The main purpose of the analysis is to identify those linguistic features that establish, maintain and strengthen the intertextual links between the two …show more content…
signified-signifier dichotomy – is the cornerstone of the structuralist semiotic analysis. Saussure (1959, 66ff) claims that each linguistic sign is a unit of a concept and a sound-image. The former is referred to as the signified (orig. signifié), and the latter as the signifier (orig. significant). The relationship between the two is understood in terms of arbitrariness: the concept of ‘a cat’ as ‘a four-legged furry pet of the feline family’ has no inner relationship with the sequence of phonemes /k/, /?/, and /t/, which constitute the word cat. Since the signified and the signifier are both inalienable parts of the sign (i.e. the sign cannot exist without the either), the sign inherits the property of arbitrariness; therefore, the nature of the sign is also arbitrary. In addition, since human language is based on relations (Saussure 1959, 122ff), the study of language cannot examine signs in vacuo, but has to focus on the relationships between signs. The author identifies two possible relations: the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic2 relation. The syntagmatic relation involves the relationship between signs on the horizontal axis. In lay-words, this means the arranging of signs into larger syntactic units by applying the underlying principles of langue. The paradigmatic relation, on the other hand, pertains to the vertical axis of analysis: whenever a particular sign is used, it triggers mental associations with signs of the
Gašper Ilc
To all those Mmes Richard Dalloway who have not even been Clarissas
1. Introduction
Intertextuality has played a central and controversial role in the development of the postmodernist thought ever since the publication of Kristeva’s seminal works on literary theory. Strongly influenced by structuralist semiotics, Kristeva (1980) extends the Saussurean belief that a linguistic sign exists only in relation with other signs (Saussure, 1959, 122ff), to texts, and claims that a text cannot exist in vacuo, but can only be fully understood in connection to other texts. More specifically, Kristeva …show more content…
Dalloway (ibid.). To identify the intertextual links between the two novels, Chatman (2005, 271) analyses the texts from different literary theoretical angles, and proposes that The Hours should be sub-labelled as “serious transformation” or “transposition”. This class of second-degree narratives1 typically models the new characters on those of the source text, and both sets of characters share similar or parallel experiences. The storyline of the source text also remains fundamentally unchanged; however, it is standardly transposed to a new place and time. Apart from Chatman’s (2005) essay, a host of academic papers have been written on the topic of intertextual connectedness between the two novels from the perspective of literary theory (Alley 2006, Hughes 2004, Schiff 2004, Marcus 2007 a.o). The present paper, however, examines the two narratives from the perspective of (Critical) Discourse Analysis (cf. van Dijk, 1977; Fairclough, 1989, 1992 a.o.) with the help of different automated text-analysis tools. The main purpose of the analysis is to identify those linguistic features that establish, maintain and strengthen the intertextual links between the two …show more content…
signified-signifier dichotomy – is the cornerstone of the structuralist semiotic analysis. Saussure (1959, 66ff) claims that each linguistic sign is a unit of a concept and a sound-image. The former is referred to as the signified (orig. signifié), and the latter as the signifier (orig. significant). The relationship between the two is understood in terms of arbitrariness: the concept of ‘a cat’ as ‘a four-legged furry pet of the feline family’ has no inner relationship with the sequence of phonemes /k/, /?/, and /t/, which constitute the word cat. Since the signified and the signifier are both inalienable parts of the sign (i.e. the sign cannot exist without the either), the sign inherits the property of arbitrariness; therefore, the nature of the sign is also arbitrary. In addition, since human language is based on relations (Saussure 1959, 122ff), the study of language cannot examine signs in vacuo, but has to focus on the relationships between signs. The author identifies two possible relations: the syntagmatic and the paradigmatic2 relation. The syntagmatic relation involves the relationship between signs on the horizontal axis. In lay-words, this means the arranging of signs into larger syntactic units by applying the underlying principles of langue. The paradigmatic relation, on the other hand, pertains to the vertical axis of analysis: whenever a particular sign is used, it triggers mental associations with signs of the