Russian Formalism and French Structuralism

Question 1

Modern literary theory focuses on

Answer 1

language and
literature as systems of signs

Question 2

It challenges metaphysics, by showing that…

Answer 2

language ‘originates’ with its practice rather than
transcendental meaning.

Question 3

The focus lies on how language….

Answer 3

works as a self-governing system in the present.

Question 4

Parole

Answer 4

refers to utterance,
language as practice, speech.

Question 5

Langue

Answer 5

is the system of rules
that underlies all utterances.

Question 6

Langue (language as a shared system) possesses
aspects

Answer 6

of synchrony and diachrony.

Question 7

Synchrony

Answer 7

is concerned with the present state of the
linguistic system.

Question 8

Diachrony

Answer 8

is concerned with the historical changes
in the linguistic system.

Question 9

For Saussure, diachrony

Answer 9

is non-existent for the
ordinary language user.

Question 10

Diachronic suspension is

Answer 10

a necessity to be able to
analyse language as the knowledge and
practice of the speaker and community.

Question 11

In divorcing synchrony and diachrony,

Answer 11

“authentic”
meaning is replaced by the meaning possessed for
a specific group at a specific time.

Question 12

Outrage

Answer 12

derives from Latin ultra (“beyond”) and the
suffix –age, “going beyond the bounds”

Question 13

Rage

Answer 13

derives from French rage and Latin rabies
(“madness”).

Question 14

Linguistic behaviour

Answer 14

Language is a uniform system complete and
functioning at every period of existence.

Question 15

The linguistic system is

Answer 15

made up of signs.

Question 16

The sign is

Answer 16

diacritical, i.e. it consists of two
elements that form one inseparable unity.

Question 17

Sign consists of the

Answer 17

signifier (Saussure’s
signifiant) or the sound-image + signified
(Saussure’s signifié) or the mental concept that is
connected with this sound image.

Question 18

Referents are

Answer 18

real objects behind linguistic signs,
therefore outside the linguistic system and its
study.

Question 19

The relationship between signifier and signified is

Answer 19

arbitrary, i.e. conventional.

Question 20

Arbitratiness

Answer 20

Arbitrariness in human language refers to the fact that the meaning of linguistic signs is not predictable from its word form, nor is the word form dictated by its meaning/function.

Question 21

The linguistic system operates on the basis of

Answer 21

relations of difference; it is a differential system.

Question 22

Meaning results from

Answer 22

the differences between signifiers and is determined
by convention (e.g. the fat cat sat on the mat).

Question 23

Linguistic elements

Answer 23

have a relational, not a substantial
value (i.e. defined negatively through relations to other
elements in the system).

Question 24

Syntagmatic relations

Answer 24

are
concerned with positioning

Question 25

Paradigmatic relations

Answer 25

are relations of selection and substitution.

Question 26

syntagm

Answer 26

is an orderly combination of interacting elements which forms a meaningful whole within a text.

Question 27

paradigm

Answer 27

is a set of associated elements which are all members of some defining category, but in which each is significantly different.

Question 28

Syntagmatic axis

Answer 28

is horizontal (Principle of co-presence)

Question 29

Paradigmatic axis

Answer 29

vertical (principle of absence)

Question 30

The signifier is

Answer 30

non-reducible to the vehicle of meaning because it cannot function autonomously, without the system.

Question 31

The Russian Formalists were

Answer 31

a community of revolutionary scholars and intellectuals critical of naïve and empiricist readings of literature.

Question 32

Formalism is interested

Answer 32

not in meaning as such, but in how language is used so as to hinder our arrival at meaning.

Question 33

Formalism focus is on

Answer 33

how the text is put together

Question 34

Formalism is an attempt

Answer 34

“to create an independent science of literature which studies specifically literary material.”

Question 35

Early Formalist agenda aimed to define

Answer 35

the properties of literature as distinct from other discourses

Question 36

Literariness

Answer 36

is defined as being the feature that makes a given work a literary work

Question 37

Literariness entails

Answer 37

a specific use of linguistic material.

Question 38

For early Formalism, literariness is

Answer 38

the aspect of verbal communication which interferes with the processes of meaning.

Question 39

Formalist analysis evolved by gradually shifting its attention....

Answer 39

from form to technique to function

Question 40

Shklovsky conceptualised

Answer 40

the fundamental tenets of early Formalism.

Question 41

For Shklovsky, literary language possesses the quality

Answer 41

of defamiliarisation

Question 42

Defamiliarisation

Answer 42

is a characteristic of poetic language, which makes us aware of the value and quality of the linguistic material that appears to be familiar.

Question 43

The abundance of metaphors...

Answer 43

enable the transcendence of grief through language.

Question 44

Parody

Answer 44

lays bare the artistic device and makes it perceptible to the audience, thus exposing its conventionality and allowing for defamiliarisation.

Question 45

Deviation

Answer 45

in the poetic structure of the limerick creates a disruption of expectations and becomes a source of surprise and humour.

Question 46

Limerick

Answer 46

a humorous five-line poem with a rhyme scheme AABBA

Question 47

Roman Jakobson

Answer 47

The most influential thinker of the Formalist school. He worked in Prague in the early 1920s and later moved to the USA.

Question 48

For Jacobson, ordinary, prosaic, practical speech is ...

Answer 48

a heterogeneous phenomenon, (consisting of dialects, sociolects, functional styles ,etc.)

Question 49

Literariness is premised on language in...

Answer 49

a peculiarly self-aware relationship to itself.

Question 50

Poetic language foregrounds ...

Answer 50

verbal signs so that they become more palpable.

Question 51

Palpable

Answer 51

(of a feeling or atmosphere) so intense as to seem almost tangible.

Question 52

Poetic function

Answer 52

is keyed to language as displaying its own aesthetic qualities.

Question 53

Literature is concerned with....

Answer 53

language as and for its own sake. (cf. Kant’s notion of purposeless purpose)

Question 54

Paronomasia

Answer 54

is the use of similar-sounding, but distinct signifiers to establish semantic links.

Question 55

Poetic function is displayed

Answer 55

as phonological affinity becomes suggestive of semantic correspondence.

Question 56

Formalism thinks of literature as...

Answer 56

a system of elements in relation to one another and the whole system. The text is a formal system to be examined in structural terms.

Question 57

Formalists attempt to overcome ...

Answer 57

the dualism of form vs. content.

Question 58

In Formalist theory of signification...

Answer 58

form determines content.

Question 59

Parallelism

Answer 59

establishes symmetry and asymmetry in formal elements; it activates all linguistic strata.

Question 60

Repetition

Answer 60

brings out the significance of recurring formal elements.

Question 61

Parallelism and repetition connect....

Answer 61

formal equivalence to semantic unity.

Question 62

Poetic function transposes the...

Answer 62

principle of equivalence from the paradigmatic axis to the syntagmatic.

Question 63

Rhyming scheme, linguistic devices in this poem are?: Into my heart an air that kills From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?

Answer 63

Rhyming scheme: ABAB. Imagery - creates vivid imagery of distant land, described as 'far country' Personification - 'an air that kills' personifies the air as something deadly Assonance - the repetition of the long 'o' sound in 'blows' and 'those', which creates a sense of unity and musicality in the stanza

Question 64

The Prague school of linguistics enabled

Answer 64

the transition from Formalism to Structuralism.

Question 65

Structuralist analysis derives from

Answer 65

the Saussurean conception of language as “a set of signifying relations sufficient unto itself.”

Question 66

structuralism

Answer 66

“a mode of analysis of cultural artifacts which originated in the methods of modern linguistics

Question 67

A binary structure

Answer 67

is the basic unit of meaning.

Question 68

Structuralist analysis focuses on

Answer 68

combinations of signs in terms of binary oppositions.

Question 69

Structuralist assumption is

Answer 69

hat meaning is determined by differences between structures, not structures themselves.

Question 70

Structuralism brackets the text off from...

Answer 70

what is not text and isolates the text from non-aesthetic phenomena. The text is conceived as an immanent structure, a unified system.

Question 71

Formalism transformed....

Answer 71

the study of poetry.

Question 72

Structuralism revolutionised

Answer 72

the study of narrative.

Question 73

Narrative consists of

Answer 73

plot and story.

Question 74

Story is the sequence of

Answer 74

events as they have taken place.

Question 75

Plot is

Answer 75

the narrative form in which the events are presented.

Question 76

Function is

Answer 76

an act of character defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action”

Question 77

Characters are defined by

Answer 77

what they do rather than what they are. (e.g. the hero, the false hero, the villain, the helper, the donor, the sought-for person, the dispatcher)

Question 78

Functions (syntagmatic elements) are defined

Answer 78

by their unchanging position in the order of the story.

Question 79

Literary competence is

Answer 79

the “grammar” of the literary system that permits the reader to convert linguistic sequences into literary structures and meanings.

Question 80

Structuralist poetics aims

Answer 80

to make explicit the underlying system which makes literary effects possible.

Question 81

Literary competence enables us

Answer 81

to find “the properties of literary texts that make them aesthetically meaningful.”

Question 82

Competent reading (often with guidance) develops

Answer 82

“a sense of the possibilities of literature.

Question 83

Meanings are determined...

Answer 83

not by readers, but by the institution of literature.

Question 84

What does analysis of the text serve as for both Formalists and structuralists

Answer 84

For both Formalists and structuralists, analysis of the text works as a way of understanding the system of language in relation to which the text gains meaning.

Question 85

Analysis of the text is considered to be....

Answer 85

neutral, disinterested and innocent of ideology.

Question 86

Like the New Critics, Formalists are

Answer 86

interested in what sets literary discourse apart from other discourses

Question 86

Formalist analysis developed by

Answer 86

shifting its attention from form to technique to linguistic function in literary texts.

Question 87

Even though primarily working with narrative, structuralism, like Formalism

Answer 87

approaches the text as a system of formal relations.

Question 88

In structuralist terms, our ability to interpret literary texts depends on our

Answer 88

“literary competence”, i.e. the extent to which we have internalised the operative logic of the literary system.