Paratopia

This book presents Maingueneau's notion of paratopia and its application to literary discourse. Unlike most discourse analysts, who pay little attention to literature, the author argues that a discourse analytical perspective allows us to challenge the usual separation between textual and contextual approaches to works.

Considered as an impossible belonging, paratopia is a condition of possibility of literature, of the subjects who occupy a writer's position and of the use they make of language. To find their place as creators, writers must elaborate their own paratopia, they must give it shape and meaning. Their works must both construct a certain world and, through paratopic shifters , reflect and legitimise the conditions of their own appearance.

Paratopia is an invariant of literature, but it takes different forms throughout history: writers draw on their paratopic potential to appropriate the resources made available tothem by literary discourse in their own time. Today, the development of digital technologies and research on gender prompts us to take a different look at traditional forms of paratopia. The corpus includes canonical and recent texts, mainly from Western literature. It will be of interest to students and scholars in literary studies, discourse studies (discourse theory and discourse analysis), and sociology of culture.

Gives a concrete application to the concept of paratopia in literature Fills a gap in the English-language field of literary analysis Relevant to contemporary fields such as women's studies, post-colonial studies and translingual studies

Auteur
Dominique Maingueneau is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Sorbonne Université, France. His research focuses on discourse analysis.

Texte du rabat

This book presents Maingueneaüs notion of paratopia and its application to literary discourse. Unlike most discourse analysts, who pay little attention to literature, the author argues that a discourse analytical perspective allows us to challenge the usual separation between textual and contextual approaches to works. Considered as an impossible belonging, paratopia is a condition of possibility of literature, of the subjects who occupy a writer's position and of the use they make of language. To find their place as creators, writers must elaborate their own paratopia, they must give it shape and meaning. Their works must both construct a certain world and, through paratopic shifters, reflect and legitimise the conditions of their own appearance. Paratopia is an invariant of literature, but it takes different forms throughout history: writers draw on their paratopic potential to appropriate the resources made available tothem by literary discourse in their own time. Today, the development of digital technologies and research on gender prompts us to take a different look at traditional forms of paratopia. The corpus includes canonical and recent texts, mainly from Western literature. It will be of interest to students and scholars in literary studies, discourse studies (discourse theory and discourse analysis), and sociology of culture.

Contenu

Chapter 1: A paradoxical belonging.- Chapter 2: Literary discourse analysis and self-constituting discourses.- Chapter 3. Writers and authors.- Chapter 4: The paratopia of literary discourse.- Chapter 5: The impossible common language.- Chapter 6: Paratopia and paratopic potential.- Chapter 7: Paratopic shifters.- Chapter 8: Developing a creative paratopia.- Chapter 9: Male creation and femininity.- Chapter 10: Trouble in paratopia.