The Macro-Structure of the Conventional Narrative

Abstract

Once the macro-structure of the text has been recognized, it is easier to tackle the analysis of micro-structures, using the tools elaborated within the frame of actantial syntax (beingstatements, doing-statements, narrative propositions, etc.). -A.J. Greimas (Preface to J. Courtes 1976:21) The macro-structural hypothesis has been unanimously recognized by theorists who differ widely in their methodological approach: Todorov, Larivaille, Bremond, Greimas, van Dijk or Labov and Waletzky. I accept as a methodological starting point the hypothesis of semiotic levels which corresponds to the three components of transformational and generative grammar. An analysis of the macro-structural model of conventional narrative should enable us to apprehend their relations: a. Semantic representation: the level of deep structures, the preselection - constitution of images of the world whose elementary constituents have a logical status; b. Superficial structures or deep syntactic structure: at this level, a semiotic grammar orders the contents into a discursive form. This ordering corresponds to logical structures Predicate (Arguments); c. Structures of manifestation, resulting from the projection of level b onto a material of expression. It is here that the signifiers are produced and organized. We know that the theoretical study of levels b and c remains the weak point of present discursive semiotics. I shall not recapitulate the macro-structural hypothesis of conventional narrative, nor the argumentative nature of narrative organization (Adam 1980), which should be examined in the light of Suleiman's works, the recent book by Louis Martin or Labov's theses on oral narrative. I shall therefore assume, for economy's sake, that level b is known and accepted,