社会表演理论在仪式和策略之间建立文化语用学模型(下)

A Theory of Social Performance:Modeling Cultural Pragmatics between Ritual and Strategy

一直以来,对文化的社会研究不是被极端化为结构主义理论就是被极端化为实用主义理论,前者视意义为文本并注重探索提供相对自主性的模式,后者则将意义处理为由个人或集体行动之权变性的创发——即所谓的实践本身,并将文化模式作为权力和物质利益之反应加以分析。在本文中,我将阐述一个超越这种极化视野的文化语用学理论,以新的方式将意义结构、权变性、权力和物质性融为一体。我的论点是,实践的物质性可以由维度更多的表演概念所取代。通过对表演研究这一新领域的成果的吸收,文化语用学说明社会表演,无论个人还是集体的,是如何可能被系统地类推为剧场表演的。在定义了社会表演的要素之后,我认为,随着社会变得更加复杂,这些要素已经趋于"分解"(de-fused)。只有在能够将这些日渐离析的要素"再融合"的情况下,表演才会成功。在融合化的表演中,观众认同演员,且文化剧本通过有效的舞台布景达到逼真的程度。而当诸要素重新连接的过程并不完美时,表演就会失败:表演要素仍处于分离状态,社会行动看上去不但不够本真(authentic),而且显得造作和难以令人信服。与此相对,再融合能使演员成功地传达其行动的意义并有效地实现他们的利益。

From its very beginnings, the social study of culture has been polarized between structuralist theories that treat meaning as a text and investigate the patterning that provides relative autonomy and pragmatist theories that treat meaning as emerging from the contingencies of individual and collective action so-called practices-and that analyze cultural patterns as reflections of power and material interest. In this article, I present a theory of cultural pragmatics that transcends this division, bringing meaning structures, contingency, power, and materiality together in a new way. My argument is that the materiality of practices should be replaced by the more multidimensional concept of performances. Drawing on the new field of performance studies, cultural pragmatics demonstrates how social performances, whether individual or collective, can be analogized systematically to theatrical ones. After defining the elements of social performance, I suggest that these elements have become ＂de-fused＂ as societies have become more complex. Performances are successful only insofar as they can ＂re-fuse＂ these increasingly disentangled elements. In a fused performance, audiences identify with actors, and cultural scripts achieve verisimilitude through effective mise-en-scene. Performances fail when this relinking process is incomplete., the elements of performance remain apart, and social action seems inauthentic and artificial, failing to persuade. Refusion, by contrast, allows actors to communicate the meanings of their actions successfully and thus to pursue their interests effectively.