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Actantial analysis: Greimas's structural approach to the analysis of self-narratives
Abstract
This paper introduces a formal procedure for analyzing narratives that was developed by the French/Lithuanian structuralist, A. J. Greimas. The focus is on demonstrating the utility of Greimas's ideas for analyzing one aspect of personal narratives: identity-construction. Reconstructing the basic actantial structure from self-narratives is shown to provide cues to power differentials among actants as perceived by the narrator. Distinguishing narrated events along conflict versus communication axes helps the analyst determine whether an experiential or a discursive domain is of primacy for the narrator. Moreover, investigation of communicative outcomes can be used to validate (or invalidate) findings on power relations. Analyses of narrative plots may afford insights into how people engage objects with cultural valuations within the various social contexts recounted in narrative data. Finally, Greimas's theory of modalities can be used to differentiate among these plots within narrative trajectories. This approach to narrative analysis differs from more traditional “denarrativization and “renarrativization approaches in that it affords the researcher a language (or discursive structure) according to which the narrator's, not the analyst's, understandings of character relations and reality conditions become the subject matter of one's research.
... They are the villains in a folktale. Wang and Roberts (2005) point out that Greimas's originally French term "objet valeur" is frequently translated as "object of value," which they find too positive, and suggest, instead, "value-object." In this work, the object is understood to have "value" in the sense that it is important to the narrator. ...
... In this work, the object is understood to have "value" in the sense that it is important to the narrator. Greimas named the subject/ object axis "desire" or "quest" (Wang & Roberts 2005), which seems to agree with the important object actant; it is something the subject desires, and goes on a quest to attain. ...
... The choice of analytic methods, the actantial analysis and the linguistic approach, helped to avoid researcher bias by focusing on the structural and lexical features in the data, instead of mere interpretations based on reading and re-reading of the texts. Actantial models are abstract narrative structures that allow the relations between characters to be distinguished in accordance with a neutral actantial structure, instead of relations and reality conditions assumed by the analyst (Wang & Roberts 2005). ...
... The linguistic turn prompted the development of methodological frameworks capable of observing symbolic and emotional associations, oppositions, and contradictions in narratives that circulate in the social world (Wang & Roberts, 2005). Greimas's actantial analysis (Greimas & Courtés, 1982;Greimas & Porter, 1977;Greimas, [1966Greimas, [ ] 1983Greimas, [ , 1987, whose concept of "actants" can be defined as the roles that all elements-not just the characters-play in a narrative, was another key notion in generating the paradigmatic change of the linguistic turn. ...
... Greimas's actantial analysis (Greimas & Courtés, 1982;Greimas & Porter, 1977;Greimas, [1966Greimas, [ ] 1983Greimas, [ , 1987, whose concept of "actants" can be defined as the roles that all elements-not just the characters-play in a narrative, was another key notion in generating the paradigmatic change of the linguistic turn. Observing the symbolic and emotional attributions of actants in stories allowed for the analysis of dynamic processes of communication because it provided cues about the narrator's understanding of the narrative structure and trajectory (Wang & Roberts, 2005). Greimas suggested observing the axiologies (or ways in which all elements of a story are assigned value or have a relationship with other elements) of euphoria (positive values or existent relationship) or dysphoria (negative value or nonexistent relationship) to read the emotional meanings of text. ...
This article explores the social construction of expertise in the policy debate on the legalization of physician-assisted death (PAD) in the United States. The analysis explores the role of culture in policymaking and expertise construction through a multilevel narrative analysis. The findings show how stakeholders deploy cultural meanings with emotional and moral appeals through storytelling to demarcate boundaries of expertise, which become standardized in fixed linkages between persons, practices, tools, and processes. The analysis also addresses methodological questions to expand our explorations of the natural history of social problems within the framework of policymaking processes. Four distinct and publicly available data sources are explored: newspapers articles, narratives from civil society activist organizations, legislative testimony documents, and professional development material for physicians. The analysis reveals two salient stories in the debate: the “good death” and the “slippery slope.” This article contributes to a sociology of expertise by empirically observing the construction of networks through narrative and shedding light on the role of belief systems and emotions in policymaking and social problems.
... 36). Wang and Roberts (2005) also suggest that narrative interviews can unearth how certain discourses become privileged as assumed realities, when historical texts become fragmented and inconsistent over time (p. 53). ...
... The descriptive chart defines "it" and includes definitions derived from Wang and Roberts' (2005) analytical insights for utterances of being and of doing that allow for "a wide variety of narrative trajectories in narrative plots" (p. 57.) ...
This paper deploys narrative inquiry and analysis to capture the oral history of two families’ intergenerational memory of an African American woman named Celia who was hanged in 1855 for killing her owner Robert Newsom. It is the first scholarly investigation into the intergenerational memory of both black and white descendants of Robert Newsom, and the first to be conducted utilizing the theory of critical family history. Through the paradigm of Black Feminist Thought, the paper analyzes the power imbalances embedded in the narrative about family relations, especially those that conjure race, gender roles and class produced through oral history.
... While aiming to assist in decoding fictional work, Greimas's semionarrative approaches have found several concrete applications outside its heuristic and original field over the years. This includes business development and organisation management [55][56][57][58][59][60]; marketing [61,62]; professional development [63][64][65]; education and learning [66,67]; educational awareness practice for health [68,69]; media and communication reporting [70,71]; political rhetoric [72]; identity construction [73,74]; socio-political changes in professional organisation [75], computer science, and story creation [76,77]; sports development [78][79][80]; and even musicology [81]. ...
As polities of all kinds are under pressure to achieve socio-environmental sustainability and resilience, existing assessment tools diagnosing communities’ vitality assets and vulnerabilities face challenges. These include grappling with incomplete data, incongruent models, and diverse indicator schemes from various scientific and professional domains. Moreover, these assessments draw upon multiple, sometimes unclear, and occasionally overlapping conceptualisations of ‘sustainability’ and ‘resilience’. This complexity makes monitoring system dynamics difficult, particularly in smaller rural communities with limited resources. This essay addresses this science policy and epistemic dilemma by proposing Greimas’s actantial model as a solution. The model, initially designed for understanding language and stories, is adapted to connect and integrate diverse data and indicator narratives across disciplines to inform policies at various levels of governance. This essay discusses recent debates on the conceptualisation of sustainability/resilience and its associated challenges, exploring how Greimas’s model may allow more constructive dialogue about conflicting views on resilience and sustainability. The model is presented as a planning template to foster communication across disciplines, social actors, and polities. The conclusion emphasises the model’s simplicity as a tool to overcome jargon, bridge communication gaps, and provide guidance for smaller rural communities facing resource constraints in assessing and implementing initiatives for sustainability and resilience.
... In fact, Greimas brings into play larger and smaller semiotic entities constituting the structure of signification, embarking on the interpretative adventures which lead to the jungle of textual semantics despite the fact that he focuses on syntax and semantics to equal measure. As Carl W. Roberts and Yong Wang admit, Greimassian narrative analysis reveals that meaning originates in binary oppositions organised through logical relationships of contradiction, contrariety, and complementarity between terms brushing up against each other and coming into being in virtue of one another (Roberts, Wang, 2005). In other words, he partly states that the meaning Greimas grapples with is rooted in deep fundamental structures, which is the most abstract level operating with abstract data, while equalising the process of interpretation to the analysis of textual artifact at several levels of description and with different categorical apparatus is a centerpiece of Greimassian interpretative strategy. ...
This paper scrutinizes the topic of meaning manifestation and signification made known by the act of interpretation, which amounts to finding the organising principles of a text and rules of combination. The language of narrativity is a set of generational and transformational instances disguising textual content and initiating interpretation as such. The paper discusses the levels of description which assist in tackling the concept of change, or difference in degrees, as the result of both the artificial operation of rewriting the text on various methodological grounds and real dynamics justified by the obvious layers of the plot. The elementary units of meaning articulation covered by this article run the gamut from Roland Barthes’ distributional and integrational narrative units to Algirdas Julien Greimas’ deep and surface structures with special stress on the narrative programs and narrative analysis, which is of primary interest here. The Greimassian narrative grammar successfully describes what exists and how to capture the process of signification. In the end, analytical instruments elaborated by Greimas are effectively adapted to interpret the case of Edgar Allan Poe’s story William Wilson. The story itself is retold and interpreted through narrative formalisation, which consists in speaking of the plot transformations in terms of utterances of states and utterances of doing. Within the framework of narrative structures that emerge on the way to the formalisation of William Wilson, small changes in narrative trajectories seem to be out of sight, not even readable. Contrariwise, Barthes’ touch on what the text is all about enables the reader to be engaged in looser textual interpretations, to gain more variable, highly detailed experience in noticing the slightest movement and tasting each nuance of the overall setting. This paper first and foremost takes on board the structural narrative analysis as it is set out in Greimas’ narrative grammar leading to a special kind of severe narrative absolutism; on top of that, the paper gives a clue of a couple of alternative views on the problem, views represented by Barthes.
... Consequently, narrative method Actantial analysis of A.J. Greimas (1979) was chosen to be able to reach deeper roles, relations, motives, tension and even contradictions when examining relations between ECEC center leaders and working communities. Moreover, based on analysis you can build a figure Actantial model, which compresses the results to a table with revealing visually the roles, relations, motives, goals and possible tensions and contradictions in these (Bouissac, 2007;Greimas, 1979;Wang & Roberts, 2005) (Figure 1). ...
Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) is changing globally. We investigated ECEC leadership and leaders’ interpretations of power and its realization between leaders and followers, a little researched topic in the field. Our theoretical framework consists of ECEC contextual knowledge and prior research attached with Michel Foucault’s and Mary Parker Follet’s perceptions of power as positive, relational and discursive microphenomenon. Our essay data ( N = 46) was written by ECEC center leaders before participating in educational leaders in-service training. The method of analysis was Greimas’ actantial analysis (1979), which enabled us to build two actantial models of leaders’ perspectives and relation to power. Findings indicate that power is a leader-centered, unstructured and hiding concept needing conscious reframing and integration of positional and non-positional leader roles in the community.
... Penerima (receiver) adalah aktan yang menerima objek dari subjek (Wulandari et al., 2020). Keenam aktan tersebut digambarkan dalam skema berikut (Greimas, 1983;Wang & Roberts, 2005). ...
Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis struktur dan fungsi cerita rakyat Paser Putri Petung dari Kabupaten Paser, Provinsi Kalimantan Timur. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dan termasuk jenis penelitian lapangan. Data dalam penelitian ini berupa kutipan cerita rakyat yang diperoleh dari informan dan telah melalui proses transkripsi. Adapun cerita Putri Petung yang dijadikan objek penelitian adalah cerita versi Kecamatan Tanah Grogot, Kabupaten Paser. Data dikumpulkan dengan teknik dokumentasi kemudian melalui proses transkripsi. Teknik analisis data dilakukan dengan cara mereduksi data, penyajian data, analisis strukturalisme naratologi, dan analisis fungsi cerita rakyat. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa cerita rakyat Putri Petung yang berasal dari Kecamatan Tanah Grogot memiliki lima pola aktan serta lima model fungsional. Cerita rakyat Putri Petung tersebut juga memenuhi empat fungsi cerita rakyat, antara lain sebagai sistem proyeksi, sebagai alat pengesahan sosial, sebagai lembaga pendidikan, dan sebagai alat pengendalian sosial.
... This implies that narrative structure can appear in a full scheme through different styles of literary genres. Besides, remaking the fundamental actantial structure has been displayed to give indicators to drive differentials among actants as seen by the addresser (Wang & Roberts, 2005). It means that a researcher could decide if the addresser's primary position is experiential or discursive by recognizing described events along with the conflict versus communication axes assists. ...
Examining how the meaning is made needs not only a description of how grammatical choices are categorized and explain the most used categories to directly grasp implied meaning but to see how humans use language to place narrative elements to configure the body of a story. The speech delivered by Taylor Swift as she entitled Woman of the Decade by Billboard music award in 2019 used to demonstrate this scheme. Halliday’s transitivity system is applied to see how it first works to realize the narrative that is directed by the actantial roles as suggested by Greimas’s narratology which then develops a discourse. Linguistic evidence in this speech is found to support the six actant roles filling three axes. The axis of desire puts the speaker herself as the subject pursuing the right to own and control her art in music with fair revenue flow in an inclusive work environment as the object. The axis of communication puts her experience, fans, and music as the sender to the quest that benefits the receivers who are the female singers and the younger generation. The axis of power insists on persistence, technology, social media, and peer support as the enabling aspect overcoming the opponent which are detractors, old scheme contracts in unregulated private equity, toxic male privilege, and harsh criticism led by impossible standards.
... Although Greimas (1983) did not explicitly outline the methodological steps for the actantial analysis of narratives, the centrality of the desire axis can be considered a fundamental starting point in understanding the structure and overall dynamics of narratives. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of previous studies that used the Greimas methodology (e.g., Lurtz & Kreutzer, 2014;Wang & Roberts, 2005), we divided our analysis into four procedural phases. The first phase consisted of a thematic reading of the data and the identification of the self-narratives of the academic managers. ...
This case study examines how top academic managers make sense of entrepreneurship at the university. Based on semiotic analysis, the findings outline three management narratives. The entrepreneurial narrative emphasizes management by experience, the humanistic narrative focuses on management by networks and the development narrative highlights management by vision. Unpacking the dynamics of each narrative, our analysis sheds light on the conflicted role of academic managers at a crossroads between traditional academia and entrepreneurial management.
Research Questions/Objective
How top academic managers make sense of entrepreneurship at the university through narratives?
Links to Theory
The conceptual and theoretical framework of this case study is built based on academic entrepreneurship and narrative theory.
Phenomenon Studied
Academic entrepreneurship
Case Context
Academic top managers of a Finnish multidisciplinary university
Findings
The findings outline how top academic managers make sense of academic entrepreneurship through three management narratives. The entrepreneurial narrative centres around the idea of management by experience and emphasizes the manager’s own entrepreneurial experiences. The humanistic narrative centres around the idea of management by networks highlighting how the managers can guide and assist others who act as entrepreneurs. Finally, the development narrative centres around management by vision and focuses on the overall picture of the entrepreneurial university.
Discussions
The case study implies that academic entrepreneurship (AE) is understood and conceptualized by the managers in multifaceted and sometimes contradictory ways. Representing the frontline of academic management and changes in Finnish universities, the top academic managers are confronted with tensions between the ideals of traditional academia and the contemporary entrepreneurial developments in universities. This study contributes to the field of academic management by highlighting the much-needed experience-based perspective of top academic managers in relation to AE.
... Other structuralists adopt a paradigmatic point of view, inspired by Lévi-Strauss and Greimas. This approach suggests that the syntagmatic properties of a narrative (the sequences) are superficial structures that manifest the deeper structures (Wang & Roberts, 2005). To discover those deeper structures, Greimas proposes the actantial model. ...
The richness of narrative analysis resides in its unruly openness, but points of reference are needed to tame the variety in the field. This article suggests that researchers should grapple with two fundamental questions when conducting narrative analysis. The first pertains to the status attributed to narrative: it is defined as the very fabric of human existence or as one representational device among others? Emphasizing one answer over the other means mobilizing different theories of representation and therefore, suggesting different articulations between "narrative" and "reality." The second question refers to the perspective developed on narrative: Is it defined mostly as the characteristic of an approach, an object of investigation or both? Different methodological implications are associated with that choice. The article claims that dominant trends in narrative analysis originate in the way researchers answer those two questions.
... Also called the actantial narrative schema, this method was originally used in stories to reveal different functions of the actants in a narrative [20]. This method of narrative analysis provides a discourse structure for researchers and has been extended to education semiotics [21], computer science [22,23], career counseling, and personality analysis [24][25][26]. ...
Analyzing the emergency response process and time characteristics after aircraft fires is extremely important for airport safety. Due to nonprocess-related elements, the Petri net model of the emergency process is generally complex and difficult to revise and expand. In this study, the actantial model was used to analyze the semantic structure of emergency actions in the Petri net emergency process model, and the actantial-timed Petri net (A-TPN) hybrid model was proposed for problem solving. The emergency response process of aircraft fires was analyzed as a case study to explain the application steps of the A-TPN hybrid model. First, the types of elements should be divided into process-related elements and nonprocess-related elements. Process-related elements include status elements and narrative elements, which are equivalent to the places and transitions in the Petri net model. Second, the workflow constructed by the status and narrative elements is converted into a Petri net. An actantial model is used to analyze the semantic structure of emergency response action narratives. Third, according to the analysis of the actants of the helper and the opponent, emergency action time characteristics are considered to construct the A-TPN hybrid model and analyze the time performance of the emergency response process. In this way, an emergency response plan can be analyzed and promoted for smart development.
... It is a structured process of analysing a story to determine a plot. An example of the use of a narrative analysis can be found in a study of Wang and Roberts (2005). In his article Routine narrative analysis as a screening tool to improve data quality, Jones (2003) illustrates how a narrative analysis of text can improve the quality of data. ...
... The " actants " are the story functions. Since its development three decades ago, however, actantial analysis has moved beyond its original literary context and productively been adopted in a number of fields that analyse such narratives as cultural rituals, daily life events, news, social imaginaries and discourse practices (such as scenarios created by totalitarian regimes –Wang & Roberts, 2005). Characters may play different functions at different times in a scenario: they may become different actants. ...
Electronic portfolios have a narrative dimension that can be analyzed with the tools of narratology. The chapter uses Greimas’s actantial model to analyze the storied universe of world language preservice teachers as revealed in their e-portfolios. The integration of new technologies is explored within the perspective of developing pedagogically appropriate technology integration (PATI). PATI experiences help define technopedagogy. The activities analyzed indicate that technology is most often an help rather than a goal, even when the target is to develop the ‘Technology Standard’. Information Technology is subordinated to higher educational goals like organizing student-centered investigations or facilitating collaboration. This addresses concerns expressed in previous studies that preservice teachers could lag behind experienced in-service teachers in conceptualizing how technology must be adapted to a classroom context. The analysis reveals a hugely important conclusion: That technology is a helper, not the object for these preservice teachers. This is a real contribution to the field.
The global pandemic brought urgent challenges to societies in need of creative approaches to education. As a response to this crisis, technology has been used to provide steady educational offerings to individuals who could not meet in person. Adjustments to this need varied according to the institutions’ previous experience with technology-driven education. Those who had established online educational programs well ahead of lockdowns, turned to technology as a tool for surviving through the pandemic. The former case is documented through the development of attitudes towards technology in education, which goes from the understanding of technology as a mere tool for assisting groups in problem-solving, to rethinking technology’s entrepreneurial value. In the other response to the pandemic, where technology was not already an educational habit or mindset, problems were solved abruptly, often intuitively and with low technological skills. This research investigates this kind of experience. Looking at creativity literature and its development towards critical-relational perspectives, and the educators’ perception of technology, this chapter focuses on the collective side of creativity as mediated through digital education. The key concept investigated is that of critical-creativity in relational exchanges: what happens when educators engage communities of learners in critical-creative practices through technological platforms?KeywordsCritical stanceDistributed collaborationTechnology mediationRelational creativityTeaching in a pandemic
Among the many Covid-related disinformation narratives developed in Romania, one of the most interesting was built around ivermectin, a veterinary drug promoted as a cheap and safe vaccine alternative—an unusual conspiracy narrative, as it included a mix of verifiable information about a pharmaceutical product, as well as false or unconfirmed data related to its Covid-19 benefits. Previous research has found associations between conspiracy beliefs and preference for unconventional treatments, and the literature also shows that when a conspiracy narrative is discussed by opinion leaders, it tends to become convincing for wider, more moderate segments of the public.
We explored this issue’s patterns of dissemination in the Romanian online conversation using visual network analysis applied on a dataset of posts mentioning ivermectin on Facebook groups for a 5- month period (n=2651). We also looked at the main topics of this discussion, using topic modeling on a similar dataset extracted from Facebook pages, verified profiles, and groups (n=4397). To situate Romania’s case in a global context, we examined Google Trends and Facebook activity around this issue. We found that ivermectin was not discussed only in isolated, niche areas of Facebook—it became a topic for a variety of publics, as the top voices driving the conversation around this subject were not solely anti-vaccine influencers, but also mainstream personalities. The Romanian public was extremely interested in ivermectin (both as an online search term and as a Facebook theme), unlike most highly developed EU countries, but similar to other geopolitically peripheral states.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, first appearing as the opening poem to Lyrical Ballads, has proved to be highly enigmatic since its publication. The blending of supernatural and reality along with the intricacy of the underlying structure seem to have added to the complication. The present article is an attempt to read the poem through the lens of Algirdas Julien Greimas’s actantial model and semiotic square to shed some light on the semantic richness of the poem. The results seem in line with Coleridge’s idea of imagination as the Mariner’s imagination in co-presence with his will, along with the Moon as the source of Nature’s benignity and his muse, assist him with his object-value: the unity between man, Nature, and the Creator. Moreover, the Mariner’s suffering and atonement could be attributed to his moments of reasoning and free-will, devoid of imagination or spirituality and associated with the presence of the sun or diurnal elements. Greimas’s model offers the possibility to elucidate the moments of confusion as ‘void’ or ‘all’ phoric states of passion in which the absence of diurnal and nocturnal elements or their co-presence could justify the Mariner’s wanton murder of the Albatross or his survival.
The study analyses Sohni Mahiwal, the renowned Punjabi folktale, by applying Greimas Actantial model for structural analysis. The purpose of this study is to explore the narrative structure and discover the character functions based on the model. Folktales are considered the simplest and oldest form of stories embedded in the local cultures. They broadly refer to orally transmitted, traditional narratives that carry cultural information. The findings show that all the major actantial categories proposed by Greimas such as subject, object, sender, receiver, helper, and opponent have been depicted in the selected folktale. The analysis revealed that many characters were found involved in several actant classes simultaneously. Structural analysis of the folktale uncovered two parallel acts/episodes. The parallelism in the contents of two acts of the tale serves a didactic function at the socio-cultural level besides entertaining the readers/ listeners proving the strength of true love. As far as the function is concerned, the tale successfully validates the culturally imparted message that the individuals who transgress the social norms are destined to perish.
In this article we propose to analyze a recurring semiotic model of constructing the image of the enemy, or political opponent, from an interdisciplinary perspective that includes Greimas's actantial theory ([1966] 1983) and the theory of emotional arcs (Dodds et al. 2011; Reagan et al. 2016), starting from two types of texts that are narratively structured, published in different socio-political contexts, almost 30 years apart, in the Romanian media. The research results support the idea that the impression of familiarity created by the semiotic strategy of constructing the enemy’s image is the ground that allows the narrative experience proposed by the narrator to resonate emotionally with the audience’s expectations. Basically, the distribution of the emotional score of a narrative text
functions as an index of the public’s interest in narratives of this type.
Folktales are considered as the simplest and oldest form of stories imbedded in the local cultures. They broadly refer to orally transmitted, traditional narratives that carry cultural information. This paper analyzes Sohni Mahiwal, the renowned Punjabi folktale, by applying Greimas Actantial's model for structural analysis. The purpose of this study is to explore the narrative structure and discover the character functions based on the model. The findings show that all the major actantial categories proposed by Greimas such as subject, object, sender, receiver, helper, and opponent have been depicted in the selected folktale. The analysis revealed that many characters were found involved in several actant classes simultaneously. Structural analysis of the folktale uncovered two parallel acts/episodes. The parallelism in the contents of two acts of the tale serves a didactic function at socio cultural level besides entertaining the readers/ listeners proving the strength of true love. As far as the function is concerned, the tale successfully validates the culturally imparted message that the individuals who transgress the social norms are destined to be perished.
Humle and Frandsen study the role of dominant and counter narratives in organizational identity formation processes. The chapter is based on a case study of the highly contested organization E-rail, a European Rail Service, which faces persistent criticism from media, politicians and customers. We examine story work of the front line personnel, the ticket inspectors, who face such criticism on a daily basis. We find that the counter-narratives of the ticket inspectors make room for multiple – and sometimes even opposing - understandings of organizational identity to co-exist. These multiple understandings of organizational identity make it possible for organizational members to perform and pursue different storylines, while simultaneously establishing and maintaining a sense of continuity and stability around their organization and work despite identity threats, ambiguities and contradictions inherent in their role.
It is a well-known fact that most translators are women and it is a fact which is often mentioned in translation discourse: translation is a so-called female occupation. But is this also a relevant fact and in which ways? In this article we aim to investigate how male and female translators talk about their occupation and whether gender is a relevant factor in how translators perceive their work. Our data consists of 18 narratives written by nine male and nine female non-literary professional translators who have been asked to write about their occupation as translators (in a semi-structured way). The data will be analysed and our findings structured by means of Greimas' actantial model. A general conclusion is that whereas male and female translators choose to talk about the same themes they sometimes talk about them in different ways emphasising different aspects.
The present article is part of a larger project which investigates the occupational status of professional translators. The studies conducted so far within the framework of the project have been based on questionnaires and mainly been of a quantitative nature. The present article reports on a qualitative analysis of the wealth of comments which the translators who participated in the questionnaire studies wrote in response to an open invitation to comment on anything in relation to the study and its subject. In order to structure the translators' comments, we have relied on Algirdas-Julien Greimas' actantial model. Themes identified as important facilitators of or barriers to status included translator training, recognition of translators' expertise, authorization, level of professionalization and income.
The purpose of this study was to find out, in retrospect, how the polytechnic students chose their study place and how their conception of the reputation of an educational institute affected their choices during the application process. The study was based on the narrative interviews of 17 first year students from three degree programs of one polytechnic. The analysis of the interviews proceeded in two successive stages. The first stage consisted of a narrative analysis in accordance with the classification of Donald Polkinghorne (1995). In the second stage, the analysis was complemented by A. J. Greimas’ three-level semiotic approach, comprising the discursive, narrative (actantial model) and deep levels. The conclusions were based on both analyses, i.e. on methological triangulation. The narrative analysis prepared the way for the construction of three meta-narratives in accordance with the applicants’ aims. The three aims that guided the applicants’ choices were (i) the up-dating of one’s professional skills, (ii) the choice of a profession and (iii) the taking of a degree in a polytechnic. The semiotic analysis showed two dimensions along which the choices were made. Firstly, the applicants aimed to have a study place in which they could combine both practical skills and theoretical knowledge (pragmatic-professional dimension). Secondly, the analysis also showed that emotions and values af-fected the choices they made (dimension of social values). The reputation of a polytechnic was considered an important factor of the application process. The applicants’ conception of reputation turned out pragmatic, since the stories they had heard about the daily routines of a polytechnic were regarded as essential for its reputation. The stories about a high number of drop-outs and graduation without employment prospects were considered negative for reputation. The applicants highly valued the information they received directly from the polytechnic students. Grapevine proved to be an effective means of communication, but the applicants also resorted to general information guides and the institutes’ Internet pages, whereas the media’s role turned out less important during the application process. The most important communicational channel was face-to-face communication. E-mail, mobile phone and various platforms in the Internet also provided forums or networks for meeting peers and spreading stories about the polytechnics. Keywords: reputation, polytechnic, semiotics, narrative Tutkimuksen kohteena oli opiskelupaikan valinta, jota tarkasteltiin ammattikorkeakouluun hakeutuvan näkökulmasta. Tavoitteena oli selvittää, miten hakeutumisprosessi eteni sekä minkä merkityksen hakijat antoivat oppilaitoksen maineelle opiskelupaikkaa valitessaan. Aineiston keruutavaksi valittiin kerronnallinen haastattelu. Haastatteluja (17 kpl) tarkasteltiin kertomuksina, joiden erittely perustui Donald Polkinghornen käsitteistön mukaiseen narratiiviseen analyysiin ja A. J. Greimasin edustamaan, strukturalistiseen semiotiikkaan perustuvaan näkökulmaan, jota sovellettiin diskursiivisella, narratiivisella ja syvätasolla. Menetelmävalinnat pohjautuivat Walter Fisherin käsityksille ihmisistä tarinoiden kertojina ja niiden kuuntelijoina. Narratiivisen analyysin tuloksena aineistosta konstruoitiin kolme uutta kertomusta; ammattitaidon kohentajan, ammatin hankkijan ja tutkinnon suorittajan kertomukset. Semioottinen näkökulma teki mahdolliseksi seurata hakeutumisprosessin vaiheita. Hakija antoi arvon tiedoille, joita hän sai ammattikorkeakoulun opiskelijoilta hakuprosessin eri vaiheissa. Hän turvautui myös yleiseen hakuoppaaseen ja oppilaitosten internet-sivustoihin tietoja etsiessään. Median osuus hakijan tukena ja tiedonlähteenä jäi vähäiseksi. Medialla oli kuitenkin merkitystä hakijalle, jos hänellä ei ollut opiskelijatuttuja, joita hän olisi voinut jututtaa. Narratiivisen tason aktanttimalli paljasti hakeutumisprosessiin sisältyviä jännitteitä, joita syntyi eri tahojen yrityksistä vaikuttaa hakijan ratkaisuihin. Syvätason analyysilla löytyi kaksi ulottuvuutta, pragmaattis-professionaalinen ja sosiaalisten arvojen ulottuvuus. Ensiksi mainitun mukaan hakija hakeutui opiskelijaksi saadakseen ammatin, jossa hän saattoi yhdistää käytännön taitamisen teoreettiseen osaamiseen. Sosiaalisten arvojen ulottuvuus osoitti, että opiskelupaikan valinnassa oli kyse myös tunteista ja arvoista. Hakijan käsitys maineesta osoittautui pragmatistiseksi, sillä hänelle keskeistä maineessa olivat oppilaitoksen arjen toiminnasta liikkuvat kirjoitukset ja kuulopuheet. Maine välittyi kohtaamisissa, joiden toisena osapuolena oli oppilaitoksen opiskelija. Tärkein kanava oli kasvokkaisviestintä, mutta myös sähköposti, matkapuhelin ja internetin keskustelukanavat tarjosivat foorumeita kohtaamisille ja tilaisuuksia tarinoiden levittämiselle. Voidaan viitata jopa verkostoihin, joissa maine leviää. Hakija arvioi oppilaitoksen vetovoimaisuutta ja tasoa sillä, kuinka hyvin oppilaitoksesta valmistuneet olivat saaneet koulutustaan vastaavaa työtä. Varsinkin työelämästä hakeutuneet kuuntelivat valmistuneiden puheita menestystarinoina. Hakijat yhdistivät opintojen jatkumisen oppilaitoksen maineeseen, sillä suurta keskeyttäneiden määrää pidettiin kielteisenä maineen kannalta. Tällaisen nonprofit-organisaation ”tuotteena” tai palveluna voidaan tulosten perusteella pitää sieltä valmistuvaa ammatin taitajaa. Avainsanat: maine, ammattikorkeakoulu, semiotiikka, narratiivinen tutkimus
This study reports that Escherichia coli phosphatidylcholine-positive (PC+) strain Top10/ptac66 (PC+ PE+), in which borrelial PC synthase (PCS) directly condenses exogenous choline with CDP-diacylglycerol (CDP-DAG) to form PC, displayed not only stronger resistance to antimicrobial peptides cecropin P1 and indolicidin, but also decreased ability to attract macrophages to the abdominal cavity of infected mice in the 36 h following infection, compared with the control strain Top10/ptac85 (PC- PE+). Rabbit sera raised against the PC+ strains Top10/ptac66 (PC+ PE+) and AD93/ptac67 (PC+ PE-) recognized a different set of periplasmic proteins and lipopolysaccharides,compared with those detected by antisera to the PC- strains Top10/ptac85 and AD93 (PC- PE-) . Electron microscopy also showed that the morphology of cell wall of Top10/ptac66 was different from that of the control strain Top10/ptac85. Enhancement of bacterial resistance to antimicrobe peptides, alteration of bacterial antigenicity and evasion of macrophage attacks in mice suggest that PC in the bacterial membrane may play a role in bacterial evasion of the innate or adaptive immune response of the host.
Anthraquinones represent a large family of compounds having diverse biological properties. Emodin (1,3,8-trihydroxy-6-methylanthraquinone) is a naturally occurring anthraquinone present in the roots and barks of numerous plants, molds, and lichens, and an active ingredient of various Chinese herbs. Earlier studies have documented mutagenic/genotoxic effects of emodin, mainly in bacterial system. Emodin, first assigned to be a specific inhibitor of the protein tyrosine kinase p65lck, has now a number of cellular targets interacting with it. Its inhibitory effect on mammalian cell cycle modulation in specific oncogene overexpressed cells formed the basis of using this compound as an anticancer agent. Identification of apoptosis as a mechanism of elimination of cells treated with cytotoxic agents initiated new studies deciphering the mechanism of apoptosis induced by emodin. At present, its role in combination chemotherapy with standard drugs to reduce toxicity and to enhance efficacy is pursued vigorously. Its additional inhibitory effects on angiogenic and metastasis regulatory processes make emodin a sensible candidate as a specific blocker of tumor-associated events. Additionally, because of its quinone structure, emodin may interfere with electron transport process and in altering cellular redox status, which may account for its cytotoxic properties in different systems. However, there is no documentation available which reviews the biological activities of emodin, in particular, its growth inhibitory effects. This review is an attempt to analyze the biological properties of emodin, a molecule offering a broad therapeutic window, which in future may become a member of anticancer armamentarium.
Cosmetic surgery stands, for many theorists and social critics, as the ultimate symbol of invasion of the human body for the sake of physical beauty. Interpreted as somehow qualitatively different from other efforts at altering the body, plastic surgery is considered to be so extreme, so dangerous, that it leaves no space for interpretation as anything but subjugation. While such criticisms are compelling, they tend to operate at either the grand level of cultural discourse or the highly grounded level of physiological effect. As a result, they leave out almost altogether the experience of the women who themselves have plastic surgery. This article draws from qualitative interviews with 20 female clients of a Long Island, NY plastic surgeon to explore cosmetic surgery as an occasion for autobiographical accounting and a particular kind of account of the self. Interview data suggest that plastic surgery allows women who undergo these procedures to successfully reposition their bodies as normal bodies. At the same time, it also requires them to create accounts that reattach the self to the surgically-corrected—but potentially inauthentic—body by invoking both essentialist notions of the self and corresponding notions of the body as accidental, inessential, or degenerated from a younger body that better represented who they truly are.
This article argues for reconfiguring the study of identity formation through the concept of narrative. It is motivated by two recent but seemingly unrelated developments in social theory and society. One is the emergence of a wide-spread ''identity politics'' and a concomitant scholarly focus on the ''social construction of identity.'' The other is the reconfigured approach to the concept of narrative that researchers from many disciplines have been formulating in recent years. Both are important developments not to be overlooked by social scientists and social theorists; both, however, have problems and limitations as they now stand. I argue in this article that the limitations of each potentially can be overcome by bringing the two thematics together. The key concept I propose to achieve this reconfiguration is that of narrative identity.
Recent developments in historical sociology emphasize the centrality of temporality to analysis and explanation. Narrative uses temporal order to organize information about events and to foster their understanding but is insufficiently systematic to substitute for sociological explanation. This article illustrates a new interpretative heuristic for the computer-assisted analysis of qualitative narrative sequences, ''event-structure analysis,'' that infuses narrative with greater rigor and explicitness. Through the analysis of a lynching that took place in Mississippi in 1930, this article shows how event-structure analysis can be used to build replicable and generalizable causal interpretations of events.
Narrative methods are used to analyze the cultural dynamics of civil society through a comparison of African-American and ''mainstream'' newspaper coverage of the Rodney King crisis in Los Angeles. The newspapers' different narrative constructions affected the selection and interpretation of significant crisis events, shaped social expectations about how the crisis would be resolved, and constrained the range of symbolic strategies available to local political elites. Through an application of narrative methods, this case demonstrates how the analysis of plot, character, and genre can help explain the interplay between the analytic and concrete forms of culture and the dynamics of social problems and social change more broadly.
Based upon in-depth interviews with fathers who are employed as knowledge workers in Silicon Valley, this article argues that a newly constituted masculinity has emerged that coincides with the new way work is organized in the new economy. The article examines the relationship among this gendered subjectivity, processes of labor control, and fathering. It finds that the new masculinity functions as a key mechanism of control in high-tech workplaces that rely on identity-based forms of control and that the enactment of this new masculinity impacts the way fathers think about, experience, and manage their work and family lives.
This article examines how African American men, through face-to-face conversation, create individual and collective memories around issues of race. I use ethnographic data collected in an African American neighborhood tavern in Chicago to argue that tavern patrons' race talk: 1) generates a collective memory of negative interracial interaction that gives reported racial encounters a compounding effect; and 2) empowers patrons through catharsis and gives them an opportunity to re-create themselves with a positive racial self-identity. Consequences of this microlevel collective memory for interracial interaction are discussed.