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structure of the single sentences. In cases of ambiguities he awaits for textual clues (see 0.6.3). |
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0.6.1.3. Contextual and Circumstantial Selections. |
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While co-textual relations are all the links displayed through expressed lexemes by the linear text manifestation, contextual selections are previously established by a semantic representation with the format of an encyclopedia (see Theory, 2.11) and are only virtually present in a given text. It is one of the tasks of the reader to actualize them (by disregarding any alternative selection). Contextual selections are coded abstract possibilities of meeting a given term in connection with other terms belonging to the same semiotic systems (in this case, a given language). Thus a good encyclopedic representation of /whale/ should record at least two contextual selections: in a context dominated by the sememe «ancient», a whale is a fish; in the context dominated by the sememe «modern», a whale is a mammal. |
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Circumstantial selections code the possible co-occurrence of a given term with external circumstances. (See in Theory, 2.11, how also these circumstances, insofar as they are conventionally recorded by the encyclopedia, are registered as semiotic items of another semiotic system, for instance, a social or a gestural one.) Thus /aye/ means «I vote yes» in the framework of certain types of formal meetings and «I will obey» in the framework of the Navy. |
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As a matter of fact, circumstantial selections act as such only when the addressee connects the received expression with the act of utterance and with the extraverbal environment. In a narrative text even these data are verbally expressed and even external circumstances are linguistically described. Thus circumstantial selections become contextual. |
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Context and (coded) circumstances depend on the fact that the encyclopedia also encompasses an intertextual competence (see Kristeva, 1970): every text refers back to previous texts. |
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0.6.1.4. Rhetorical and Stylistic Overcoding. |
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Overcoded rules (see Theory, 2.14) tell the reader whether a given expression (be it a single term, a sentence, or an entire textual sequence) is used rhetorically. At this level the reader inserts the competence, allowing recognition of a metaphor or any other trope and avoiding naive denotative interpretation of figures of speech. /Once upon a time/ is an overcoded expression establishing (i) that the events take place in an indefinite nonhistorical epoch, (ii) that the reported events are not 'real', (iii) that the speaker wants to tell a fictional story. |
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Among overcoded rules also rank genre rules (that will function more explicitly at box 7) and other literary conventions. For instance, in the story analyzed in Chapter 8 of this book (Un drame bien parisien by |
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