rapaport@sunybcs (William J. Rapaport) (03/12/88)
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT BUFFALO
GRADUATE GROUP IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE
PRESENTS
ANN BANFIELD
Department of English
University of California at Berkeley
THE LINGUISTICS OF SUBJECTIVITY IN NARRATIVE
Dr. Banfield will talk about her most recent work concerning the issues
of non-narrated text, "point of view", and the philosophy of language as
it relates to subjectivity in narrative.
Using such disparate sources as Chomskyan linguistics, Russell's theory
of egocentric particulars, and Auerbach's notion of mimesis, and bring-
ing them to bear on the writings of Virginia Woolf, Gustave Flaubert,
and other English and French novelists, Dr. Banfield produces strong and
interesting assertions about the nature of narrative. Two of her most
controversial assertions are that the communication model of language is
inappropriate to a theory of subjectivity in narrative and that not all
narratives have narrators. Building on the tradition of generative
grammar rather than on structuralist principles of linguistics, Banfield
brings a fresh perspective to current debates on the status of linguis-
tics for narrative theory.
Dr. Banfield's argument for a falsifiable narrative theory, presented
most fully in her 1982 book _Unspeakable Sentences_ (Routledge & Kegan
Paul), has provoked considerable interest and controversy in the fields
of literary linguistics, narrative theory, and the poetics of style. In
addition, her theories have the potential to stimulate new discussion in
such related fields as linguistic pragmatics, artificial intelligence,
and the philosophy of the subject.
Thursday, March 24, 1988
4:00 P.M.
280 Park, Amherst Campus
There will be an evening discussion with Dr. Banfield at the home of
Erwin Segal, 101 Carriage Circle, Amherst. For further information,
call Bill Rapaport (Dept. of Computer Science, 636-3193 or 3180) or Gail
Bruder (Dept of Psychology, 636-3676).