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Film Discourse Interpretation

Film Discourse Interpretation. Janina Wildfeuer Bremen Institute for Transmedial Textuality Research Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Science Bremen University. What is it about ?. How do we understand films ?

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Film Discourse Interpretation

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  1. Film Discourse Interpretation Janina Wildfeuer Bremen Institute for Transmedial Textuality Research Faculty of Linguistics and Literary ScienceBremen University

  2. Whatisitabout? How do weunderstandfilms? How do weconstructmeanings out oftheinterplayofthevariousmodalities in filmictext?

  3. „Understanding film…“ • analysisofthesemanticcontent • analysisofthedynamicunfoldingtext/discourse • analysisofinformationprocessing guided

  4. FilmicMeaningConstruction "Understanding is mediated by transformative acts, both "bottom-up" – mandatory, automatic psychological processes - and "top-down" – conceptual, strategic ones. The sensory data of the film at hand furnish the materials out of which inferential processes of perception and cognition build meanings. Meaning are not found but made. […] Comprehension and interpretation thus involve the construction of meaning out of textual cues. In this respect, meaning-making is a psychological and social activity fundamentally akin to other cognitive processes.” (Bordwell 1989: 3)

  5. Inferential View on Text/Discourse How do we understand what is going on in sentences and texts? • We just work out ‘what is going on’...(traditional pragmatics) • We ask for clear textual cues that provide explicit guidance about how interpretation is to proceed.

  6. Discourse Mechanisms for Language

  7. Linguistic Examples of Discourse Relations Paul arrived. Max greetedhim. • If we add b into a discourse interpretation then we might deduce that b adds to a narrative • If Narration (a, b) then a happens before b temporal sequence: Narration event a event b

  8. Linguistic Examples of Discourse Relations Max fell. Paul pushedhim. • If we are adding b into a discourse interpretation and b causes a then we might deduce that b is an explanation of a causalrelation: Explanation event a event b

  9. What kind of structure is text structure? • discursive, not syntactic • defeasible/ abductive (Peirce) / non-monotonic Formal and functional models of discourse semantics Kamp, Asher & Lascarides, Martin, Polanyi, Webber

  10. Theoryof Film Comprehension Theorie des Filmverstehens Logicof Film Discourse Interpretation relatingthelogicalforms via discourserelations 2. levelofcoherenceandstructure 2. logic 1. levelofidentificationandarrangementofthemeaning-makingentities constructinglogicalformsofdiscourse 1. logic Wildfeuer 2013

  11. 2 Stepsof Film Discourse Interpretation • askforthe multimodal constructionof narrative events in the film: intersemiosis ofthevariousresources • askforthecombinationoftheseeventsinto a coherentstructure via inferringdiscourserelations

  12. Film Discourse Interpretation 1. step: Interpreting Narrative Events oftheFilmic Discourse levelofidentificationandarrangementofthemeaning-makingentities

  13. 1. Step: Interpreting Narrative Events

  14. 1. Step: Interpreting Narrative Events

  15. Film Discourse Interpretation 2. step: InferringDiscourse Relations betweenthe Events levelofcoherenceandstructure

  16. Logic of Film Discourse Interpretation(Wildfeuer 2013)

  17. Discourse Relations in Film temporal sequence

  18. Discourse Relations in Film causality

  19. 2 Stepsof Film Discourse Interpretation 1 • askforthe multimodal constructionof narrative events in the film: intersemiosis ofthevariousresources • askforthecombinationoftheseeventsinto a coherentstructure via inferringdiscourserelations 2

  20. Whatfor…? • work out howfilmic material constructsmeaning • work out cleartextualcueswithintheartefact = semanticbasis furtherinterpretations

  21. Whatfor…? • work out howfilmic material constructsmeaning • work out cleartextualcueswithintheartefact = semanticbasis interpretations

  22. Example: ElVendedor de Humo(Maestro, 2012) available online: http://vimeo.com/42329392

  23. ElVendedor de Humo

  24. ElVendedor de Humo

  25. ElVendedor de Humo

  26. ElVendedor de Humo

  27. Causality in Film

  28. Whatfor…? analysis interpretation • analysisofthe propositional/semanticcontent • analysisoftopics in thetext • evaluationoftopics • questionsofgenre, style, aesthetics etc.?

  29. Whatfor…? „Watchingclassicalmovies – understanding film“ Website German Film Academy, „Classic Movies in School“ | http://www.deutsche-filmakademie.de/no_cache/herzlich-willkommen/aktuelles/meldung.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=279&cHash=0594f5ed6d2c84f69fc632cbcb682811 |

  30. Thankyouverymuchforyourattention! wildfeuer@uni-bremen.de || www.fb10.uni-bremen.de/bitt || http://extra.neous.de

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