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\'n Pragmatiese analise van die vertelsituasie in Verliesfontein
Abstract
The writer, Karel Schoeman, is especially well known for his historiographical representations of the past, both in fiction and non-fiction, characteristically with the intention of presenting the past in an ideological perspective. Commentators have singled out his manner of narration in Verliesfontein (one of a trilogy) for particular scrutiny, concentrating on the authenticity or lack of authenticity of the narration. The trilogy clearly tries to recapture the past and present it with objective verisimilitude. In doing so, the three works give voice, almost exclusively, to persons previously marginalized, intending to redress a historical silence.
Critics on the whole clearly interpret Verliesfontein politically and see the clear intention of the author to involve the reader politically as a prominent motivation of this type of literature. For this reason, one appropriate context for evaluating such works is that of language pragmatics: does the work fulfil the intention to involve through effective communication? Bluntly does the work convincingly get its message across\'? In view of the selection of speakers and the nature of the diologue, consideration of Verliesfontein in this context seems wholly appropriate.
Verliesfontein has much of the typical quality that multiple first-person novels have of producing in the reader a notable sense of intimacy with the many I\' characters. The bulk of the text is filled with these promoted minor\' voices telling largely of the same events, but each from their personal perspective. However, because the first-person narrators share locutionary traits and ideology, they are not really distinguishable as individual characters in their own right: in effect, the characters are less distinguished by any individual qualities than they are by the purpose Schoeman has for each of them.
The preceding comments provide the context from which the article is written. The authors\' intention was to determine how Schoeman utilizes speech strategies and the extent to which these speech strategies strengthen or undermine the ostensible over-arching voice of the novel.
The main purpose of the article is to examine both the macro-structure of the novel, in particular the aspects of meta-fictional commentary and ideological utterance, and the micro-structural characteristics, in particular the inter-action markers, language accumulations and repetitions and lexicographical aspects of diction.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2004, 22(3&4): 191209
Critics on the whole clearly interpret Verliesfontein politically and see the clear intention of the author to involve the reader politically as a prominent motivation of this type of literature. For this reason, one appropriate context for evaluating such works is that of language pragmatics: does the work fulfil the intention to involve through effective communication? Bluntly does the work convincingly get its message across\'? In view of the selection of speakers and the nature of the diologue, consideration of Verliesfontein in this context seems wholly appropriate.
Verliesfontein has much of the typical quality that multiple first-person novels have of producing in the reader a notable sense of intimacy with the many I\' characters. The bulk of the text is filled with these promoted minor\' voices telling largely of the same events, but each from their personal perspective. However, because the first-person narrators share locutionary traits and ideology, they are not really distinguishable as individual characters in their own right: in effect, the characters are less distinguished by any individual qualities than they are by the purpose Schoeman has for each of them.
The preceding comments provide the context from which the article is written. The authors\' intention was to determine how Schoeman utilizes speech strategies and the extent to which these speech strategies strengthen or undermine the ostensible over-arching voice of the novel.
The main purpose of the article is to examine both the macro-structure of the novel, in particular the aspects of meta-fictional commentary and ideological utterance, and the micro-structural characteristics, in particular the inter-action markers, language accumulations and repetitions and lexicographical aspects of diction.
Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2004, 22(3&4): 191209
