Computing action. A narratological approach

Jan Christoph Meister, Computing Action. A Narratological Approach, t. 2, 2003

The following gives an outline of the project which is described in detail in my book Computing Action. A Narratological Approach'.

 (1) Based on a survey of philosophical definitions of the common sense concept of action' a constructivist notion of represented action was developed. (2) This approach was augmented by a semiologic definition of narrated action in the tradition of Greimassian theory which lead to a new definition of the narratological key concepts event', episode' and action' as combinatorial readerly constructs. (3) These narratological concepts were then implemented in a Humanities Computing methodology for the analysis of narrated actions. The development of two  software tools was essential to the implementation of our theory: EventParser is a Markup tool that facilitates syntactically and conceptually consistent tagging and semantic declaration of events' in a narrative text. This program was developed in VB 6.0. - EpiTest is a program for combinatorial analysis of the potential for chaining these pre-defined events into episodes, and episodes into complex actions in accordance with the semiological criteria set down in the theoretical part of the study. EpiTest was written in PROLOG. - The software  (including numerous protocol files and installation instructions) is available for download.

Table of contents:

Foreword by Marie-Laure Ryan

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1 Concepts of Action  

1.1  Action as Project and Construct                                                  

1.2  Action: From Word to Concept

• The Etymology of the German Word Handlung
• Action as a Concept of Poetics
• Towards a Concept of Aesthetic Action
• Action I: Singular Agential Activity
• Action II: Complex (Multi-agential) Sequence of Events
• Action III: Discursive Meta-Activity

1.3  Philosophical Definitions of Action

• The Commonsense Concept of Action
• Analytical Definitions of Activity and Action
• Transcendental Definitions of Action
• The Constructivist Concept of Action
• Hegel: The Philosophical Value of Aesthetic Action
• Conclusions

1.4  The Elements of the Action Construct

• Lotman's Definition of the Event
• Structuralist Approaches: Event, Transformation, Move
• The Event as a Modal Change of State
• The Event as a Construct of Reception
• Event, Property and Matter
• Conditions of an EVENT
• Class-Homogenous EVENTS
• Class-Heterogenous EVENTS
• The Status of the Translation Rule
• World Knowledge and the EVENT
• Constructing events: An Example
• MATTER and FOCUS
• STATE OF AFFAIRS and OBJECT
• Constructing an object EVENT
• Constructing a discourse EVENT
• The EVENT  Matrix
• The Referential Nature of the EVENT
• Definitions of the Episode
• The Formal Definition of the Episode
• The Semiotic Square: A Reappraisal
• The EPISODE: From Semiotic to Episodic Square
• The EPISODE as a Three-dimensional Construct

Part 2 The Computer-Aided Analysis of Narrated Action                    

2.1  Narratology and Literary Computing

• Narratology and the Cognitive Sciences
• The Limits of Practical Implementation

2.2  The EventParser Program

2.3  Constructing episodes and actions

• The Syntagmatic Link
• The Ontic Link
• The Semantic Link
• Closure
• The episode Matrix

2.4  The EpiTest Program

2.5  Action Potential and action Product

2.6  Practical Analysis Using EpiTest

Part 3 An Experiment in Action: Conversations of German Refugees 

3.1  Critical Approaches to the Conversations

• The Compositional Logic of Goethe's Conversations
• Philosophical Discourses in Goethe's Conversations

3.2  Describing the Conversations

• The Isochronous Constructs
• The Isochronous and Anisochronous Constructs

3.3  Explaining the Conversations

• Goethe and the Unfathomability of the Weltbegebenheiten
• The Logic of ACTION in the Conversations

3.4  Conclusion