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The teleology of the sign user
No full textIn my 2009 book A Theory of Musical Narrative, I argued that narrativity in music can be productively understood according to the principle of transvaluation as defined by the American semiotician James Jakob Liszka. An important aspect of this principle - and hence of musical narrative - is what Liszka describes as “the teleology of the sign user”: that is to say, the critical role played by the interpreter’s cognitive, cultural, and ideological perspective in formulating and presenting an interpretation. When this role is considered at all, it is frequently confined to a general, cautionary usage wherein the notion of a single, “correct” narrative interpretation of a work is repudiated and a sensitivity to context encouraged. In this chapter, I attempt to move beyond this general usage to consider ways in which it might be more fully characterized and formalized. To that end, I consider certain interpretive perspectives that might be characterized as possessing a cognitive (as opposed to a situational or cultural) component and understood within a framework of binary oppositions. In particular, I call attention to the fundamental formative roles that such perspectives can play in shaping and directing interpretive details. For example, the perception of - and hermeneutic engagement with - patterns deemed to be of narrative significance can arise either from a bounded (or centripetal) perspective, in which case the interpretive details tend to reinforce one another, circling around a relatively unified and coherent narrative, or they can arise from an unbounded (or centrifugal) perspective, in which case the interpretive details tend to push outward, suggesting the possibility of other non-selected yet viable alternative narratives. These and other binary formulations to be discussed are applied to musical narratives but also have implications for narrative interpretation in general
The teleology of the sign user
Get PDFIn my 2009 book A Theory of Musical Narrative, I argued that narrativity in music can be productively understood according to the principle of transvaluation as defined by the American semiotician James Jakob Liszka. An important aspect of this principle — and hence of musical narrative — is what Liszka describes as “the teleology of the sign user”: that is to say, the critical role played by the interpreter’s cognitive, cultural, and ideological perspective in formulating and presenting an interpretation. When this role is considered at all, it is frequently confined to a general, cautionary usage wherein the notion of a single, “correct” narrative interpretation of a work is repudiated and a sensitivity to context encouraged. In this chapter, I attempt to move beyond this general usage to consider ways in which it might be more fully characterized and formalized. To that end, I consider certain interpretive perspectives that might be characterized as possessing a cognitive (as opposed to a situational or cultural) component and understood within a framework of binary oppositions. In particular, I call attention to the fundamental formative roles that such perspectives can play in shaping and directing interpretive details. For example, the perception of — and hermeneutic engagement with — patterns deemed to be of narrative significance can arise either from a bounded (or centripetal) perspective, in which case the interpretive details tend to reinforce one another, circling around a relatively unified and coherent narrative, or they can arise from an unbounded (or centrifugal) perspective, in which case the interpretive details tend to push outward, suggesting the possibility of other non-selected yet viable alternative narratives. These and other binary formulations to be discussed are applied to musical narratives but also have implications for narrative interpretation in general
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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Genre in context : toward a reexamination of the film musical in classical Hollywood
No full textThough no single history of the Hollywood musical exists as such, a historical narrative nevertheless emerges from the extensive body of scholarly work on the genre. Most studies of the American film musical have used as texts a limited canon of films. Though these studies have illuminated many stylistic and critical constructs at work in the film musical, they have also presented an incomplete picture of the historical development of the musical in classical Hollywood. We need to contextualize our critical understanding of the American film musical by broadening the scope of films we study and by investigating the cultural and industrial circumstances in which these films were produced. The purpose of this study, then, is twofold: I offer a historical context in which to conduct critical examinations of the Hollywood film musical, and I provide examples of how this historical understanding can inform further investigations of the genre. By far the most attention in the literature is given to MGM musicals, particularly those produced by the Freed unit in the 1940s and 1950s, with RKO’s Astaire-Rogers films in the 1930s trailing not far behind. Yet almost every other Hollywood studio, whether major, minor, or independent, made cycles of musicals during the studio era. Paramount Pictures, through its Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Road films, provides a significant contrast to the MGM Freed unit among the large studios in the prosperous 1940s, while Walt Disney Productions, through its animated musicals in the 1950s, offers a rare example among independent studios during the dismantling of the studio system. Taken together, these two case studies present a cross-section of production and reception practices through the height of the classical Hollywood era and into the immediate postclassical period. I will use these two prominent cycles of film musicals to examine the dynamic relationship that existed between the industrial and cultural conditions of the entertainment industry and the film musical's aesthetic style and content. This study will work alongside the existing literature to create a more complete and historically grounded understanding of the American film musical in the classical Hollywood era.Musi
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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