Semiotics and Structuralism

Semiotics

'Our experience of the world is never pure or 'innocent' because systems of meaning make sure that it is intelligible. There is no such thing as a pure, uncoded, objective experience of a real and objective world. The latter exists but its intelligibility depends upon codes of meaning or systems of signs, like language.' (Strinati 1995)

'Semiotics' (a science which is also known as 'semiology') is the study of 'signs' and their use within society. Semiotics is a relatively new, abstract and undeniably complex science, applicable to a whole range of disciplines (including media and communication studies). Semiotics is highly pertinent to the study of television because it concerns the way people generate meaning from a variety of sign systems available to them for communication purposes. Words, images and sounds are all regarded as 'signs' within semiotics, and as television makes use of all three types of signs, semiotics has a great contribution to make in our understanding of the medium.

Semiotics, however, is an area that is, seemingly, plagued by difficult terminology. Nevertheless, the terms are worth coming to grips with, if only to either challenge or agree with those who claim that semiotics is probably the most important and far reaching scientific discipline of this century.

The following is a brief, and by no means comprehensive, attempt to explain semiotics and some of the terminolgy used :

Saussure and Sign Systems

Semiotics, emerged from linguistics - which is the study of one type of sign system: language. Linguists, such as Ferdinand de Saussure, observed that language is a system of signs that express ideas in much the same way as other 'sign systems' such as writing, morse code, smoke signals, war paint, etiquette, gestures, semaphore etc. According to Saussure the arbitrary and conventional nature of the sign in language is especially clear. To take an example, the words 'dog' (in English), 'hund' (in German) or 'kelp' (in Arabic) have no natural or intrinsic link to the concept of a four legged, faithful domestic friend. They are sounds that have been agreed upon by those language speakers to mean the idea of that animal. The words could equally be 'glak', 'jadj' or 'sleez'. If enough English speakers agreed to use 'jadj' instead of 'dog' the word might enter the English language and even come to replace the word dog eventually. Interestingly, one television broadcast addressed to millions of viewers can, and has, done this. Jasper Carrot introduced the American slang term 'zit' (meaning acne spot) to Britain overnight, following his explanation of the term on a live comedy broadcast in the early 1980's.

The notion that signs are, on the whole, arbitrary and conventional has profound consequences. As Jonathan Culler (1976) notes:

'If signs were natural, then there would really be nothing to analyse. One would say that opening a door for a woman simply is polite, and that's all there is to it. But if one starts out with the assumption that signs are likely to be conventional, then one will seriously seek out the conventions on which they are based and will discover the underlying system which makes these signs what they are.'

Signs

Signs have a physical form: they are something we can perceive with our senses. They are recognized by people in society to refer to something other than themselves. For instance the word 'snow', either written or spoken in English, or transcribed in braille, or a photograph or picture of snow or a character on a weather map such as e conventionally refers to the concept of 'frozen water which falls as flakes'. Signs, then, are made up of a 'signifier' and 'signified'.

Signifier (or form) - the physical form such as letters, words, imaHence 'snow' is the one word English speakers use to refer to 'frozen water that falls like flakes'. It is distinct from sleet, or hail or slush or rain. Eskimos however, have over 200 words which refer to different types of 'snow'. Hence a single sense impression or concept in English has over 200 equivalents in Eskimo.

Saussure argued that signs were defined:

'..not by their positive content but negatively by their relations with the other terms in the system. Their most precise charactersistic is in being what others are not.' (quoted by Fiske et al. 1978)

Hence snow, in the English language, is simply 'frozen water that falls like flakes', but not 'frozen water' (ice) or 'frozen pellets of ice' (hail). Similarly, d or f might be used as signifiers of snow, but not: 3 or >. Accordingly, then, as Fiske suggests:

'The value of signs is determined wholly by their relationships with others in a system. Hence it follows that these values are social. Language is a 'social fact' and meaning is a product of socially recognized (conventional) differences.' (Reading Television 1978)

Three Classes of Signs

The American philosopher Pierce was interested in how signs relate to objects in the world. He proposed three ways that signs relate to their 'referent' (the 'real' object rather than the mental concept):

Icon: where the sign resembles the object, for example, a photo, map etc. Onomatopoiec words such as 'bang', 'hiss' and 'buzz' are also iconical.

Index: connected to the object causally or sequentially. Smoke would be an index of fire. Tracks are signs of the type of animal likely to have produced them. A pipe might be an index of Sherlock Holmes. The crown is sometimes used to indicate the institution of monarchy. A part is used to stand in for the whole, as the crown is only a part of the royal regalia.

Symbol (or Sign Proper): doesn't resemble or have causal relationship to object. The object is signified according to convention. The word cat, in English, is conventionally agreed upon to refer to a species of furry domestic animal. Male/female signs: %& similarly, do not resemble, and have no causal relationship to, their referents "male" and "female" or to their other referents the planets Mars and Venus. All spoken and written language is symbolic.

Television uses icons, indexes and symbols.

Codes or Sign Systems - into which signs are organised. Semiotics is less concerned with individual signs than how they operate together as a system. It is the primacy which Saussure accorded to 'systems of relations' that links semiotics to a whole series of disciplines including physics, and most clearly articulated the shift from nineteenth century 'materialism' to a twentieth century 'theory of relativity' in its broadest sense. According to the philosopher of science, Alfred North Whitehead:

'The misconception which has haunted philosophic literature throughout the centuries is the notion of 'independent existence'. There is no such mode of existence; every entity is to be understood in terms of the way it is interwoven with the rest of the universe.' (Culler 1976)

According to Fiske (1978) the sequence of signs that makes up any act of communication involves relations in 'two dimensions'. These sequences are selected according to syntagmatic and paradigmatic choices. A syntagm ( which we may conceive of as the 'horizontal' axis of choice) describes the relationship between elements in a sequence, as in words in a sentence. A paradigm - a class of objects or concepts - (the 'vertical' axis of choice) describes the relationship between items that might replace each other in a sequence thereby altering its meaning, as in:

demonstrators ------------ took to the streets again today...

peaceful protestors

students and workers

union activists

protesting strikers

violent protestors

rioters

anti-government forces

criminal elements

As Strinati (1995) suggests,

'..it is the relational character of the structure which enables the item, unit or sign to acquire meaning.'

Hence 'terrorists liberated' while grammatically correct is unlikely because the sign 'terrorist' and the sign 'liberated' belong to two opposing discourses in social use. (Fiske et al. 1978) We learn to read and employ signs in different combinations or codes. A bride is unlikely to attend her wedding dressed in black, you are unlikely to eat baked beans and jelly on the same plate, and a television news report is unlikely to be read in extreme close-up. Some codes, however, are more rigid than others. While many conventions of news broadcasts are strictly adhered to, in other genres the conventions are more flexible. 'Hill Street Blues' borrowed certain documentary 'codes' and was considered 'groundbreaking' for having interconnecting storylines. 'NYPD Blue' also broke several conventions of police series, using jump cuts and deliberately 'jerky' camera movements. The legal drama 'Murder One' dealt with only one story line over 23 hours worth of episodes - and was 'unconventional' in this sense. The success of all three series produced by Steven Botchko, may, in part, be attributed to the way they 'broke the rules' in a highly controlled manner, pushing forward the boundaries of highly conservative or 'codified' American television series.

Signification - the connection between signs. According to Roland Barthes signification is how signs ( for example: languages) work within a culture, how they create meanings. Barthes talks about 'readers' and 'readings'. These readings will be at two levels of signification (see chapter 'Ideology' for further explanation of these terms):

Denotation -

Describes the relationship between signifier and signified at the first order of signification. This is a seemingly objective and value free level which refers to the literal, obvious 'surface' meaning of a word. A photograph of a street denotes that particular street; the word 'street' denotes an urban road lined with buildings. The denoted meaning is thus, basically, what is represented.

The second order of signification includes connotation and myth.

Connotation -

This refers to the more unconscious meanings which we associate with that which is denoted. For example, the word 'alley' has the denoted meaning of 'narrow street'. But it also has connotations for people from our culture , since we associate alleys, particularly at night, with darkness, risk, danger, crime and illicit activity. In another context, however, alleys have quite different associations. In a Cathedral city, for instance, alleys might be associated with antiques, expensive tourist and craft shops, pubs and restaurants, and be considered pleasant to wander around. Connotation occurs when the denotative meaning of a sign is placed within a culture. This interpretation will be specific to the culture in which the sign is placed. A reader belongs to a culture and will therefore bring certain associations, interpretations and judgements to the reading of signs. Connotation is both subjective and intersubjective (shared in a culture). Shared connoted meaning makes up cultural identity.

Connotation is a value laden interpretation and evaluation of meaning. The connoted meaning is thus, basically, the context or background which, in some sense, lies behind a word, an image, an object. It is what we imply, infer or associate rather than what is there for all to see.

Myth - Not, in the more common sense of ideas we don't believe in, but rather: ideas that we do believe in. A myth is a chain of concepts that are accepted and recognized in a culture. Myth is used to make sense of the world. For example 'countryside' is recognized generally as a place of peace, leisure, recuperation, beauty and spiritual refreshment; whereas 'city' is thought of an unnatural, tense and stressful place. These myths, however, are not fixed or unchanging. In Britain in the 18th century, for example, and in other cultures today, these myths are quite the reverse. The countryside, according to these perspectives, is considered rude, poor, uncivilised and primitive; while the city is urbane, wealthy, polite and civilised.

Myths, then, are not eternal, universal or natural. They are cultural constructions. The naturalisation of myths, however, make them seem so obvious that they no longer seem like constructions. Myths obscure their origins, they appear given because they are shared by a culture. They are the result of intersubjectivity. However, myths are never in unanimous consensus. There is a hierachy of myths. Some reach dominance: these are the most widely circulated. However a range of counter myths also exist:

For example, TV always shows family quiz shows, soaps, comedy, interviews etc. 'The family' is a pervasive sign on TV. We can attack the myth of security, truthfulness, caring, sharing. It is a sickly myth we are, at least at times, able to recognize because the status of the family in Western society is currently in transition. Occasionally we see the family 'myth' challenged on television. In the American situation comedy 'Grace Under Fire' the heroine is a single parent mother who 'jokes' about her abusive, drunken, husband from whom she is separated. Despite massive numbers of single parent families in Britain and America situation comedy is one of the few genres where the conventional representation or myth of nuclear families is occasionally challenged . Television generally reproduces dominant myths. It is rare, in television, to represent counter myths because broadcasting appeals to mass audiences and invites consensus.

Multi-accentuality

Signs do not have fixed meanings, they are capable of signifying different values. The 'multi-accentuality' of signs can be easily illustrated. The phrase "I'm sorry", for instance, contains various meaning-potentials which may be 'accented' according to the speaker, the social context, the 'voice' or tone etc. In the sentence, 'I'm sorry, I didn't know you were sleeping.' the phrase is likely to be apologetic. In the phrase 'I'm sorry, we were not told that information.' however, the meaning of 'I'm sorry' is less likely to be apologetic than confrontational. Nevertheless, in both examples - with a certain tone or stress - the meaning potentials could be reversed.

With more subjective words such as 'happy' and 'ugly' or ideologically loaded terms such as 'intelligent', 'liberal' or 'racist' there is scope for radical disagreement over the signifieds. Ideologically charged signs are the sites of struggle reflecting wider tensions and confrontations in society. Jean Marie Le Penn, the leader of the National Front in France denies he is a racist. His understanding of the term - that 'signified' by the signifier 'racist' - is likely to be very different from a French Jew or Arab's understanding of the word.

An example of how a signifier's generally accepted meaning (or signified) can 'shift' and change ideologically can be seen in the United States' political establishment where 'liberal' has, in recent years, become a term of abuse. Under the rise of the New Right, particularly in the Republican Party, liberalism is now regarded by the political 'mainstream' in the United States as an 'extremist' political ideology. President Clinton publically denied he was a liberal, or a 'closet-liberal' in much the same way that actors and screen writers denied being communists in the Macarthy trials of the 1950's. The dominant meaning or connotation of liberal in America is now quite different from a European understanding of the term - where 'liberal' as a political label is still regarded by most countries as mildly progressive, with associations of compromise and a 'middle way' between socialism and conservatism.

Semiotics and Television.

The notion of multi-accentuality suggests that signs don't have a fixed (dictionary) meaning. They are negotiated in the public arena between speaker and listener, painter and viewer, reader and writer, musician and audience, broadcaster and viewer. (Fiske 1978) suggests that,

'..meaning is never 'there' in the sign or in the text. Meaning is the product of the dialogic interaction that occurs between speaker (or text) and hearer (or reader/viewer). Therefore every utterance or text is incomplete - it is a 'moment' in the continuous generative process of language.'

In the case of television, messages in the form of combinations of signs are 'encoded' by the programme makers and broadcasters (the 'senders') and 'decoded' by the viewers (the 'receivers'). Without the receivers these messages would remain meaningless transmissions broadcast into the earth's atmosphere. Television programmes or texts are orientated towards different audiences, just as we change what we say, and how we say it, depending on who we are talking to. The BBC's 'The Money Programme' or the satellite channel Asia Business News are orientated towards a wealthy niche audience of investors who are extremely attractive to advertisers and programme makers, thereby justifying the cost of reaching such a numerically small number of viewers. 'The National Lottery' on the other hand will be orientated towards, or 'aimed at', a mass audience, and this fact is reflected in every aspect of the presentation of the programme from music and set design to choice of presenters. Audience targetting is the planned orientation of programmes and schedules towards particular ages, nationalities, socio-economic or ethnic groups

Television produces meaning visually and verbally, employing a wide range of signs combined in complex codes and conventions. Unlike spoken language, morse code or semaphore which are transmitted in a linear fashion (one word/sign after another), television presents signifiers such as speech, music, sound effects, colours, gestures, facial expressions and movement simultaneously. The complexity and diversity of signs and codes employed on television means that it is a highly polysemic medium, or open to a variety of readings and interpretations. Because the meaning of any television sequence is, therefore, potentially diverse and multi-layered, a number of strategies are applied, some more successfully than others, to anchor the meaning. Anchorage is an attempt to control and focus the meaning potential of the signs employed - to prefer a particular reading over others and signal this reading clearly for the audience. If other meaning potentials are heavily suppressed by programme makers the programme may be described as a closed text. News reports are, on the whole, 'closed texts'. 'Authority' is signified via a number of codes (including music, lighting, shot types, accent, dress, tone etc) and is exercised continuously, particularly through the news reader, to impose a single interpretation of the images offered. An open text, by contrast, does not prefer any single reading. This strategy sometimes occurs in music videos (which often revel in the instability and abundance of signifiers employed).

For those working in television who wish to prefer a particular meaning, television has one major advantage over other media: so many of the signs used are iconic. A moving image of a politician giving a speech at a conference, will closely resemble its signified (a property also known as 'motivation'). Whereas the word 'politician' has an arbitrary relationship to the signified and can be easily replaced in a sentence (or 'defining sequence') by the terms 'statesman', 'orator' 'charismatic leader', 'crook', 'dictator', 'hawk', 'extremist', 'rabble-rouser', 'fraud' or 'windbag'; a moving television image cannot be so easily transformed. Nevertheless, a television picture of a politician is only that: a picture. This picture is made up of signals converted electronically into coloured light, fired in a series of lines in a vacuum sealed tube at a screen. There is a 'planned resemblance' to the real - modified, over the years, by technological developments and standards. Furthermore, the codes and conventions which allow us to recognize the broadcast as a political speech have only been established in the relatively recent history of broadcasting and yet are highly manipulated by the dominant political parties. Camera angle, framing, lighting, sound, music, background, gesture, body language, facial expression, phrasing, timing, in fact a very long list of variables are carefully modified and juxtaposed for maximum impact on the television audience. The constructed nature of this television event, like all television events, can all too easily be forgotten.

Exercise

Read the following account by Roland Barthes from his book 'Mythologies' (1973):

'I am at the barber's, and a copy of 'Paris-Match' is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But... I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors. I am therefore... faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed within a previous system ( a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is the presence of the signified through the signifier.... French imperiality.'

For Barthes the photograph distorts the historical fact of French colonial exploitation and asserts a myth: 'The French Empire ? It's just a fact: look at this good Negro who salutes just like one of our boys' (Quoted by Strinati 1995)

Look at how any national event is represented on television: for example the National Lottery, Last Night of the Proms, A War Documentary, The Queen's Speech, The Closing Transmission (The National Anthem) etc. What 'myths' are offered about Britain and its people or history.

Structuralism

Structuralism is often associated with, and sometimes confused with, semiotics. Structuralism, in fact, casts a theoretical net wider than 'signs' to all 'human organisation': culture, language, society, religion, the economy etc . Structuralism as a science can be traced back to works of Marx or Freud who attempted to identify underlying stuctures in the workings of society, the economy and the human psyche. Structuralists emphasise the importance of structuring oppositions in myth systems and in language. To deconstruct a text, such as a television programme, is to see what parts of it are in systematic opposition and then expose the extent to which one side of that opposition is always valued less than the other, or even repressed and ignored. (Branston 1996).

Fiske (1987) offers a useful overview of structuralism in 'Television Culture'. He explains how structuralism has sought to explain what apparently different narratives have in common. An important concept in such accounts relates to 'myth' (see chapter 'Ideology' for further explanation of this term). Fiske examines two contrasting structuralist versions of myth according to Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes

Levi-Strauss and Myth

For Levi-Strauss myth is an anxiety-reducing mechanism that deals with unresolvable contradictions in a culture and provides means by which these contradictions can be handled so as not to become dysfunctional. These contradictions are usually expressed in terms of binary oppositions, and form the deep structure of a number of apparently unrelated myths:

'These binary oppositions are large abstract generalisations such as good:evil, nature:culture, or humankind:gods. Myths work metaphorically to transform these oppositions into concrete representations by a process that Levi-Strauss calls the 'logic of the concrete." Thus in the western genre, culture:nature is transformed into indoors:outdoors and is structurally associated with values such as law and order:lawlessness, white:Indian, humane:inhumane, and so on. So a scene of Indians attacking a white homestead is a concrete metaphorical transformation of the opposition between nature and culture, and the narrative is an argument, via "the logic of the concrete," about the characteristics and consequences of this opposition.' (Fiske 1987)

The novelist and critic Umberto Eco identifies a series of oppositions, similar to Levi-Strauss's binary oppositions, which define the narrative of Ian Fleming's highly popular '007' novels. These oppositions are expressed through character (for example Bond v the villain or the woman) and plot developments. The underlying, and unchanging, structure of oppositions include values (such as greed v ideals, love v death, chance v planning, perversion v innocence, loyalty v disloyalty) and ideologies (totalitarianism v 'the free world'). Eco also identifies a sequential structure underlying the novels, which he compares to moves in a game. This 'invariable scheme' is detailed as follows:

A M moves and gives a task to Bond;

B Villain moves and appears to Bond...;

C Bond moves and gives a first check to Villain or Villain gives first check to Bond;

D Woman moves and shows herself to Bond...;

F Villain captures Bond...;

G Villain tortures Bond...;

H Bond beats villain...;

I Bond, convalescing, enjoys Woman, whom he then loses.

Eco, U. (1979) 'The Role of the Reader' abbreviated by Strinati (1995).

The underlying structure and invariant rules of the Bond novels, Eco suggests, explains their popular success, as the unconscious desires and values of the reader are engaged by each structural element of the 'narrative machine'. The Bond novels, and films offer an example of where the opposed categories (the binary opposites identified above) are too great to be resolved. The contradictions are too violent to be coped with. In these cases, as Fiske (1987) suggests, myth produces a hero or heroine with characteristics from both categories:

'The hero thus has excessive meaning, extraordinary semiotic power, and acts as a mediator between the opposing concepts. In tribal myth such a figure is designated either sacred or taboo as a way of signifying or controlling his/her excess of meaning.'

Bond is such a figure. His sexual domination and conquests, taste for risk and the high-life and cold hearted and, at times sadistic, ability to kill (under 'license') likens him to his many wealthy, calculating and brutal enemies, all bent on world domination. The private investigator of film noir and the majority of police heroes from television series exhibit characteristics we associate with the underworld and act, in Fiske's terms: 'as mediators..embodied resolutions of the forces of order and those of disorder.'

Branston et al. (1996) apply Levi-Strauss's structuralist approach to news coverage of the Gulf War and suggest the following opposing qualities were important in structuring the unfolding story:

east west

barbarism civilisation

despotism democracy

Scud missiles Exocet missiles

backwards technology futuristic technology

the past the future

Clearly, structuralist approaches can also be helpful in analysing genres that are not necessarily typically 'classic narrative' and may, therefore, be usefully applied to all television forms.

Barthes and Myth

For Barthes myth was not defined by the object of its message, but by the way it uttered this message. Myth is a 'type of speech' which deforms meaning in the interests of the bourgeoisie, the ruling class. The fact that 'the bourgeoisie' is a term rarely used outside academic circles, unlike say 'working class', 'middle class' (a much broader and, in terms of capitalist relations, misleading classification) or 'aristocracy' is, in itself, part of a mythic transformation of real relations: the disappearance or 'exnomination' of the owners of the means of production. We cannot criticise or hold up to scrutiny that which is not named, hence the 'depoliticised speech' to be found in the mass media, including television does not allow for us to even speak of the real structure of society, let alone challenge it. The bourgeois class, then, completely disappears as an ideological fact: 'the bourgeoisie has obliterated its name in passing from reality to representation, from economic man to mental man.' (Barthes 1973)

Myth, in Barthes's view transforms history into nature. Myth overrrides the divisions and power relations in our society:

'For Barthes myth works to naturalize and universalize the class interests of the bourgeoisie. It is not a narrative but an associated chain of concepts that works well below the threshold of consciousness. The users of Levi-Strauss's myths may not know the deeper meanings of them, but they do know they are hearing or telling a myth: the user of Barthes's myths on the other hand, is unaware even that he or she is handling a myth.' (Fiske 1987)

Propp and Structuralist Analysis of Character

Vladimir Propp's analysis of Russian folk tales (1928) revealed a remarkably consistent narrative structure composed of thirty-one functions (see Activities below) and eight character roles, which he related to 'spheres of action'. These key character functions include:

- the hero/ine (or protagonist) - who seeks something

- the villain - who fights with or hinders the hero

- the donor - who assists the hero by giving him or her a magic talisman or helper

- the helper - who aids the hero

- the princess (or sought - who is the object of the villain's schemes, acts as a reward for

for person) and her father the hero and who may also assign difficult tasks and expose the truth

- the dispatcher - who sends the hero on his or her quest

- the false hero - who makes false claims on the hero's sphere of action (the task, search or marriage)

Propp's 'functions' and character roles have been found to correspond with striking similarity to contemporary popular narrative forms, particularly in television and the cinema. Propp's analysis is important because characters are understood not in terms of the 'realism', 'depth' or 'complexity' of their personalities, but rather as constructions who are defined through their roles and relations to other characters. As Fiske (1987) makes clear, in a structuralist analysis characters cannot be understood as individuals existing in their own right, but only as a series of textual and intertextual (i.e.referring to other texts) relations.

'Sue Ellen in 'Dallas' can only be understood in terms of her subjection to J.R. and in her relationship to Pamela and Pamela's loving relationship to Bobby. Sue Ellen is defined in part by her relationship of similarity and difference to Pamela - both are women married to markedly patriarchal Ewings, but both exhibit different feminine characteristics within the patriarchal paradigm: one is what the other is not and the meanings of one are explicable only in terms of the meanings of the other.'

Fiske argues that the subject is a social 'structure' which, like our own social experience, contains contradictions. These contradictions may be suppressed, but they are never resolved, and are always waiting to be reactivated. Realism, with its narrative closure and stress on the unity of the self, works to deny contradictions in both the text and the reading subject: structuralism, on the other hand, works to exploit these contradictions and activate them. This view of character also sees character as having a sociopolitical dimension:

'...thus Sue Ellen's drinking can be read as a metaphor, or displaced articulation, of women's helplessness in the face of their subordination in patriarchy: it is less an insight into her personality than a textual expression of her powerlessness in the face of J.R.'s sexual and economic politics. Of course, the text can be read either way, or both ways, Sue Ellen's drinking can be either an insight into her character or an enacted metaphor of feminine helplessness in the face of patriarchal power, or both: the point is that it is the reader and his or her ideology of reading that activates either the individual psychological reading, or the discursive socio-political one, or both in varying proportions of emphasis.' (Fiske 1987)

Todorov and Narrative

In addition to the 'universal narrative structure' offered by Propp (see Exercise below) the Bulgarian structuralist Tzvetan Todorov developed an influential model of narrative in the 1960's and 70's. According to this three-part narrative pattern an initial equilibrium or stable situation is disrupted, the disruption is resisted, with a different and new equilibrium produced at the end. In television and cinema more generally this pattern has undergone some modification in recent years. Absolute closure (threat removed and stability restored) is no longer obligatory, and the notion of what constitutes a proper ending is not as restrictive as it once was. As Branston et al. (1996) suggest this model is more interesting than a cliched notion of a beginning, middle and end to every story:

'His [Todorov's] 'equilibrium' labels a state of affairs, or a status quo, and allows us to think about how this is 'set up' in certain ways and not others. 'Nurses today decided to reject a pay offer of 1%, for instance, begins a news story with a disruption to an equilibrium, but we only know about one side of the balance. We don't know who has offered the pay rise and what has gone before. How, where and when else could the story have begun are always good questions to ask.'

Structuralist 'Grammar'

The following represent some terminology common to structuralism which are slightly abbreviated from those definitions to be found in Fiske's 'Television Culture' (1987). They provide a useful vocabulary for describing certain structural elements but they are not essential and a structuralist analysis of a text is possible without reference to them.

For Todorov's Schema:

'Preparation' and Complication' chart the forces of disruption that disturb the original harmony.

'Transference' and 'Struggle' chart the hero's fight against these forces.

'Return' and 'Recognition' resolve the conflict and work to restore new harmony.

For a Structural Analysis of Narrative (as described by Barthes):

For Close Analysis of a Narrative Sequence

'Functions' are the events which form the sequence of a narrative. These are further divided into:

'Cardinal functions' or 'nuclei' which are essential to the progress of the narrative.

'Catalysers' which 'fill in' between the cardinal functions and are not essential to the progress of the narrative. They may be used to change the pace of the narrative or summarise, anticipate, recall or even mislead.

These functions are then structured into 'sequences' as words are structured into phrases. These sequences can be 'named', usually by a verbal noun that describes action - Fraud, Betrayal, Seduction, Contract, Greeting, etc. These sequences or phrases can be combined into larger sequences or sentences and so on.

'Indices' are the constants that are involved in the sequence of the narrative, but do not advance it - characters, settings, atmosphere etc. Indices are divided into:

'Indices proper' which are the narrative agents, atmosphere, mood and

'Informants' or 'realism operators' which identify or locate the narrative in time and space and work to make that world appear to relate closely to the 'real' world of our experience. They perform the important ideological function of verisimilitude.

For Analysis of the 'Structuration' of a Text

'Structuration' a term used by Barthes to describe the process by which meaning is structured into narrative by the reader-writer. For the structure of the text is, finally, an interweaving of voices which are shared by reader and writer and which cross the boundaries of the text itself to link it to other texts and to culture in general.

These voices are organised into five codes:

1. The 'symbolic code' organises the fundamental binary oppositions that are important in a particular culture. These include masculine:feminine, good:evil, nature:culture, and so on; they are the underlying structure of the narrative.

2. The 'semic code' constructs the meaning of character, objects or settings. Barthes explains how this code works in relation to constructing character. He shows that:

'Semes' or basic units of meaning in the text such as speech, clothing, gesture and action are repeatedly attached to a name, such as 'Kojak' or 'Roseanne' and are the means by which a 'figure' is individualised into a 'character'.

A 'figure' is a cultural sterotype common to many narratives - 'the concerned mother', the misunderstood son', the 'cynical cop' etc. These 'figures' are similar to Propp's character roles in that they exist before and independent of any notion of the individual, but they differ in that they are determined not by the needs of the narrative structure, but by the needs of the culture of which that narrative is a part.

3. The 'referential code' through which a text refers out beyond itself to other texts and cultural knowledge. This phenomenon is also described as 'intertextuality'.

4. The 'code of actions' is similarly intertextual and suggests we understand any action in a narrative by our experience of similar actions in other narratives, and that our narrative experience is an aggregation of details arranged in generic categories of actions - murder, rendezvous, theft, perilous mission, falling in love, etc.

5. The 'hermeneutic code' also known as 'enigma code': which controls the pace of the narrative by delaying the final closure of the narrative by proposing a series of enigmas. It first sets up an enigma, problem or mystery and finally resolves it, but in between works by delaying our access to the desired information. It is thus the motor of the story and can be seen to relate to Todorov's three-part model of narrative.

Exercise

A Universal Narrative Structure ?

Propp analysed one hundred Russian folk tales and found an identical narrative structure in each of them. He describes this structure in his 'Morphology of the Folktale' (1928) as a sequence of thirty-two narrative functions, divided into six sections. Fiske (1987) summarises them as follows:

Preparation

1. A member of the family leaves home. 1._____________________________________

2. A prohibition or rule is imposed on the hero. 2._____________________________________

3. This prohibition/rule is broken. 3._____________________________________

4. The villain makes an attempt at 4.____________________________________

reconnaisance.

5. The villain learns something about his victim. 5._____________________________________

6. The villain tries to deceive the victim to get

possession of him or his belongings. 6._____________________________________

7. The victim unknowingly helps the villain by

being deceived or influenced by the villain. 7._____________________________________

Complication

8. The villain harms a member of the family. 8._____________________________________

8a. A member of the family lacks or desires

something. 8a.____________________________________

9. This lack or misfortune is made known;

the hero is given a request or command, 9._____________________________________

and he goes or is sent on a mission/quest.

10. The seeker (often the hero) plans action 10.____________________________________

against the villain.

Transference

11. The hero leaves home. 11.____________________________________

12. The hero is tested, attacked, interrogated,

and, as a result, receives either a magical agent 12.____________________________________

or a helper.

13. The hero reacts to the actions of the 13.____________________________________

future donor.

14. The hero uses the magical agent. 14.____________________________________

15. The hero is transferred to the general

location of the object of his mission/quest. 15.____________________________________

Struggle

16. The hero and villain join in direct combat. 16.____________________________________

17. The hero is branded. 17.____________________________________

18. The villain is defeated. 18.____________________________________

19. The initial misfortune or lack is set right. 19.____________________________________

Return

20. The hero returns. 20.____________________________________

21. The hero is pursued. 21.____________________________________

22. The hero is rescued from pursuit. 22.____________________________________

23. The hero arrives home or elsewhere

and is not recognized. 23.____________________________________

24. A false hero makes false claims. 24.____________________________________

25. A difficult task is set for the hero. 25.____________________________________

26. The task is accomplished. 26.____________________________________

Recognition

27. The hero is recognized. 27.____________________________________

28. The false hero/villain is exposed. 28.____________________________________

29. The false hero is transformed. 29.____________________________________

30. The villain is punished. 30.____________________________________

31. The hero is married and crowned. 31.____________________________________

This narrative structure which, Propp claimed, occurred in the same sequence of every tale he studied (although not every function was present in every tale) has been found to occur in typical television narratives. Watch a television programme with a fairly typical storyline and note any plot development which parallel Propp's 32 functions in the spaces above. Do your observations confirm or repute the notion of a 'universal narrative structure' ?

Sources

Barthes, R. (1973) 'Mythologies' Paladin

Fiske, J. and Hartley, J. (1978) 'Reading Television' Methuen

Fiske, J. (1987) 'Television Culture' Routledge

Culler, J. (1976) 'Saussure' Fontana

Eco, U. (1979) 'The Role of the Reader' University of Indiana Press quoted by Strinati (1995)

Strinati, D. (1995) 'Popular Culture' Routledge

O'Sullivan et al. (1994) 'Studying the Media; an Introduction' Edward Arnold

Branston, G et al. (1996) 'The Media Student's Book' Routledge

Interview with TV Producer Steven Botchko broadcast on BBC World Service ( and Guardian interview at National Film Theatre (Oct/ Nov 1996)