Text-grammars, text-theory and the theory of literature

Abstract

Logical reconstructions of theories have apparently gained an enlarged domain of application. Following the Sneed-Stegmüller approach, philosophers of science are beginning to dedicate themselves to the mathematical properties of theories in the so-called pre-paradigmatic disciplines. The main concern of this paper is to discuss the value of logical reconstruction from the viewpoint of the literary scholar by reviewing the results of Balzer and Göttner's exposition of Jakobson's theory of literature. It is shown that Balzer and Göttner's exposition is partially insufficient and misleading because it does not account for central Jakobsonian concepts adequately. The line of arguments taken here starts with a brief discussion about the function of logical analyses within the study of literature, asking among other things why formal treatments of theories of literature should be achieved and why an almost 20 year old non-empirical theory is reconstructed by the authors although there are at least three different empirical conceptions of literary studies today. The relationship between linguistic theory and theory of literature in Jakobson's writings is analyzed in order to point up the differences between the view on linguistic poetics advocated here and the one suggested by Balzer and Göttner. Turning specifically to the defects of reconstruction, the concept of dominance is tentatively explicated. In a more detailed criticism the most obvious deficiencies of the logical approach to Jakobson's theory of literature are enumerated.