From description to depiction: free indirect discourse and online graphical chat

Autor: Ken Hillis
Rok vydání: 2003
Předmět:
Zdroj: Culture, Theory and Critique. 44:73-89
ISSN: 1473-5776
1473-5784
DOI: 10.1080/1473578032000063650
Popis: Iconographic avatars in web-based graphical chat environments work to create a ‘shattered’ sense of self through the use of emblematics (the bringing together of text and image) coupled with a reformulated use of free indirect discourse, a style of indirect address found in the modern bourgeois novel. Free indirect discourse, or ‘middle voice’, is crafted by the novelist but takes on the characteristics of the person described, even as the difference between novelist and character creates an ironic distance directed at both the character and the reader who may be encouraged by the style to identify with the character. Avatar-driven graphical chat suggests a synthesis of the value of an avatar external to oneself and that of the ironic distance provided by free indirect discourse. The ‘middle ground’ of iconographic graphical chat environments exemplifies how images reformulate and seemingly mitigate the tensions inherent in text-based free indirect discourse – with its suggestion of ‘experience without a ...
Databáze: OpenAIRE