激情符号学主体问题探讨

On the Problem of Narrative Subject in the Semiotics of Passions

格雷马斯符号学长期被视作忽略主体问题的客体符号学。20世纪80年代以来,激情符号学成为以格雷马斯为代表的符号学巴黎学派的主要研究领域之一,与激情现象密切相关的主体问题因而被纳入研究视野。在激情符号学的研究中,格雷马斯使用主体的“符号性存在方式”描写主体在叙事中存在状态的动态变化过程,并进一步界定了激情主体“潜能化”的存在方式。符号性存在实质上是一种关系性存在。行为符号学视野下的符号性存在方式用来描写行动元类型间“在场”的功能关系;激情主体“潜能化”的存在方式则表现了激情主体与“目标映象”之间“缺席”的意向关系。激情主体与“目标映象”都是一种心理实体,二者之间的关系只取决于主体意向性,而与外部现实无关。因此,不同于作为功能载体的行为主体,激情主体本质上是具有前摄意向性和本体感受能力的身体本体。对主体的符号性存在方式以及激情主体“潜能化”存在方式的探讨构成了格雷马斯符号学进入叙事主体研究的独特进路。

Greimassian semiotics has long been regarded as an“object semiotics”that ignores the problem of subject.Since the 1980s,the semiotics of passions has become one of the main research issues of the Paris School of Semiotics as represented by A.J.Greimas.Meanwhile,the problem of subject,which is closely related to the passional phenomenon,is brought into intensive discussion.In the research of the semiotics of passions,Greimas uses the“modes of semiotic existence”to describe the generative trajectory of subject’s state of being in the narrative.Furthermore,he defines“potentialization”as the mode of existence of the impassioned subject.“Semiotic existence”is essentially relational.In the perspective of the semiotics of action,the semiotic existence is used to characterize“the present”functional relationship between actants.While“potentialization”shows“the absent”intentional relationship between impassioned subject and its“goal image”.Impassioned subject and its“goal image”are mental entities whose relationship only depends on the subject’s intentionality and has nothing to do with the external reality.Thus,unlike the subject of action merely as a carrier of narrative functions,the impassioned subject is essentially a body with protensive intentionality and proprioception.The exploration of the subject’s“modes of semiotic existence”and the“potentialized”existence of the impassioned subject constitutes a unique entry of Greimassian semiotics into the problem of narrative subject.