新闻不可能是“不可靠叙述”:一个符号修辞分析

A Piece of Journalism Can Not Be an “Unreliable Narrative":A Semio-Rhetoric Analysis

不可靠叙述,是叙述学最关键的问题,有关问题却辩论了60年没有辨清。其中最令人困惑的,是"事实性"叙述(历史、新闻、广告、预言等)能不能不可靠?叙述不可靠是叙述者与隐含作者在意义与道德上的距离,而不是叙述与"客观事实"的距离。隐含作者是作者人格的替代,而事实性叙述的叙述者与隐含作者人格合一。因此,事实性叙述只可能不真实,或不可信,却不可能"不可靠"。这是符号修辞学亟待解决的重大问题。

Narrative unreliability is the most crucial issue in narratology. Yet the debate on relevant problems has not reached a conclusion after 60 years. The most perplexing of those problems is whether factual narratives （ history, journalism, advertisement, prophesy, etc） can be unreliable. This paper argues that nar- rative unreliability is the distance between the narrator and the implied author in signification and in ethics, not that between the narrative and ＂the real facts＂. The implied author is a surrogate for the real author, whereas, in factual narrative, the narrator identifies with the implied author. Therefore, a factual narrative can not be unreliable narrative though it could well be untruthful, untrustworthy, or unreal. This is an issue press- ing for a reply in semiotic rhetoric.