Conférence : "Stylistique et narratologie", Lyon, 14-16/04/10

[Madeleine L.]

Le département d'études anglophones de l'Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3, avec le soutien de la Société de Stylistique Anglaise (SSA) et de la Poetics and Linguistics Association (PALA), est heureux de vous annoncer la venue du Pr Michael Toolan (University of Birmingham), les 14, 15 et 16 avril 2010 pour une série de conférences sur la stylistique et la narratologie.


Professor Michael Toolan

University of Birmingham

http://artsweb.bham.ac.uk/MToolan/



Professor Michael Toolan (University of Birmingham UK) will be giving a series of conferences at the Université Jean Moulin - Lyon 3. His books include:

Narrative: A Critical Linguistic Introduction, London: Routledge, 1988; Second Edition: 2001. The Stylistics of Fiction: A Literary-Linguistic Approach, London: Routledge, 1990. Total Speech: An Integrational Linguistic Approach to Language, Durham and London, Duke University Press, 1996. Language in Literature: An Introduction to Stylistics, London: Arnold, 1997. Narrative Progression in the Short Story: A Corpus Stylistic Approach, New York and Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2009.

Wednesday 14th

- 16-18 - CEL: Collocation and repetition in good and bad poetry.


A significant part of the meaning of poems can be illuminated via simple corpus methods, and the consideration of focal words' normal and quite unnatural collocates. I will also argue that equally crucial to much poetry is repetition, but that we need to distinguish between the redundant repetitions of seriously bad poetry such as William McGonagall's, and the non-redundant and creative repetitions in good poems. We will try to articulate what, for literary purposes, are 'the right sort' of repetitions. We will look closely at poems by Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, and Kathleen Jamie.
Thursday 15th

- 12-14: Narrative progression in short stories: textual guides.


What role does lexico-phrasal patterning play in the shaping of readers' expectations as to narrative progression? Can corpus analytic methods and findings (supported where necessary by the testing and questioning of readers, and linked where appropriate to such cognitive factors as the reader's schemata and background knowledge) describe and explain some aspects at least of that role-i.e., the role of particular wordings in the projection of a particular narrative progression and particular expectations in the reader? Applying corpus methods of tracking textual repetition suggests they may be of some value to the study of narrative prospection, albeit limited. I have tentatively proposed that eight major textual resources ('parameters') seem foregrounded in the creation of story prospections and the consequent shaping of narrative expectations. We will discuss these parameters, and put them to the test on a story that I have not analysed previously.


- 15-16: Alice Munro's Darwinian narratology.


I discuss the at-least-indirect influence, on literary narratives of the past 150 years, of Darwinian ideas about things happening (evolving) without an overarching narrative plan or design. At the very least, we see in 20th century literary narratives the noticeable persistence and even growth in the reliance in story-plotting on coincidence, contingency, sheer good luck and bad luck--which are often frowned upon in traditional narrative theory for reflecting lack of unity, coherence, logical connection, 'strong' causation. I am particularly interested in the 'spread' of unplanned progression (more chancy or casual than causal) to the usually much more constrained and 'carefully wrought' genre of the short story. I will discuss several recent stories by Alice Munro, in which characters' actions and decisions remain powerfully consequential despite being made without conscious deliberation or purpose.


Friday 16th

- 9.30-10.30: The texture of empathy: textual facilitation of the reader's emotional engagement in literature


A major attraction and effect of literary works, noted since antiquity, is that they often cause readers to be moved, to feel empathy or 'immersed' or involved, to a degree beyond how much real and everyday reported events affect them. Are there particular elements or strands in literary texts (e.g., in short stories), isolatable with the aid of linguistics or stylistics, which are especially instrumental in the creation of reader emotional involvement? Can proposed 'hotspots' of emotional engagement (such as the textual projections of individuals' consciousness via desire modality and evaluating mental process verbs, and such individual predicates as feel) be falsifiably demonstrated, by testing reader responses? Workshop materials will include at least one short story (McGahern, "All Sorts of Impossible Things").


- 13-15: John McGahern's stories: steps in a stylistic analysis.


Contemporary Irish writers cite McGahern as an inspiring stylist, who got them out from under the rocky slab of Yeats-Joyce-Beckett. What is most distinctive in his style? I will discuss the conciseness of his descriptions, his drama-like dialogue, his sparseness of allusion and figure, and his control of rhythm, introspection, and emotion.
Stories discussed will include: "A Slip-up", "All Sorts of Impossible Things", "Swallows", "Gold Watch", "Creatures of the Earth.



The Conferences are free and open to all.


Contact: manuel.jobert@univ-lyon3.fr