Veridiction, Verifiction, Verifactions
Reflections on Methodology
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4788422 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Donald Maddox (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1989 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 661 |
| Publication date | 1989-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New Literary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0028-6087 • E-ISSN: 1080-661X |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/469360 |
| OpenAlex | W2315443353 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
ALTHOUGH VERIDICTION is an important concept in the semiotic theory of A. J. Greimas, it is of relatively recent vintage. Fostered by early explorations in structural semantics, as well as by seminal advances in the structural study of myth and folktales, it was narrative which assumed pride of place in Greimas's early theoretical considerations, such that events, their agencies, their concatenations, and the processing of values were initially at issue.1 In the Greimassian universe of theoretical models, the narrative dimension lies within a threefold organizational hierarchy as an intermediary, superficial level of discourse whose grammar serves as a coordinator and a vehicle linking elementary, or deep, structures of signification with a manifest level of figuration.2 With intensive exploration of narrativity, attention inevitably turned to the conditioning, or modalization, of an act (faire) or of a state (itre).3 Along with the elaboration of a theory of modalities, which in itself entailed problematization of the cognitive modal category (savoir), an autonomous cognitive dimension was identified, one whose dynamic includes the production and the acquisition of knowledge, its distribution, and its degrees.4 Following the establishment that the structuration of acts, events, and states may also involve the structuration of knowledge concerning them, the potential relations between the narrative and cognitive dimensions have become of the utmost interest to semioticians; it is in the course of these general developments that veridiction has garnered considerable attention as one prominent feature of the cognitive dimension.5 Although literary discourse is but one of several areas in which veridictory mechanisms are currently being explored, literary texts offer a particularly fertile field of investigation. This is perhaps because, as Aristotle had already begun to suggest, the veridictory moment may be crucial to the coherence and ethos of a text while also providing a means of identifying affinities and affiliations among literary types. Greimas has in fact suggested that within homogeneous cultures a of discourse based on modes of veridiction is possible.7 In the realm of literary discourse no such typology
Sociology · Cultural Insights and Digital Impacts · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · Philosophy · Semiotics and Representation Studies
| Citations per year | 0.09 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1994 - 2014 (21) |
| Highly cited | No |