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芝加哥学派是当代美国修辞叙事理论的重镇,该学派摒弃了“新批评”的纯文本批评方法,转而研究文学(尤其是叙事)对读者的影响。本文追溯了芝加哥学派近60年的演变历程,发现该学派经历了从“统一效果”到“修辞交流”的变化。早期芝加哥学派学者[如R.S.克莱恩(R.S.Crane)]认为,批评家首先必须把握小说的情节类型(也就是作品希望对读者产生的情感效果),然后才能评判作品中人物刻画、意象使用、选词造句、顺序、层次和视角等细节安排的优劣。芝加哥学派第二代主将W.C.布斯(W.C.Booth)则将叙事看成作者利用文本这一媒介与读者进行交流的行为,聚焦于多种叙事技巧与叙事(期待)产生的效果之间的关系。布斯的研究思路与他的老师克莱恩相比差异明显:克莱恩从叙事类型的要求出发考察细节技巧,布斯则从作者试图说服读者接受其虚构世界这一过程中的叙述目的出发考察细节技巧;克莱恩预先假定了统一的组织原则(对小说而言是“逼真”性),然后判断作者技巧是否符合设定原则,布斯则否定这些先于文本意图而存在的组织原则,一切以叙事技巧是否符合文本意图需要为标准。也就是说,克莱恩以文本类型组织原则为核心,用它来贯穿一切文本细节,布斯则以作者修辞意图为核心,用它来统一所有文本技巧。芝加哥学派第三代学者詹姆斯·费伦(James Phelan)则在布斯的基础上,进一步阐述了叙事交流的多层次性。他提出,任何叙事都涉及(隐含)作者、叙事者、人物、读者在知识、情感、意识形态和伦理等方面的修辞交流关系。读者对任何叙事成分(包括技巧、人物、行动、主题、伦理、情感等)的反应和阐释都依赖于叙事进程(narrative progression),而不是先在于“叙事进程”的叙事类型或其他任何标准。将“叙事进程”和读者反应结合起来研究,势必关注叙事的“话语”层面,也就是叙事形式技巧如何影响读者和叙事之间的交流。
The Chicago School is the center of contemporary American rhetorical narrative theory, abandoning the purely textual criticism of “new criticism” and instead studying the influence of literature (especially narrative) on readers. This article traced the evolution of the Chicago School for almost 60 years and found that the school has undergone changes from the “unified effect” to the “rhetorical exchange”. Early Chicago school scholars (such as RSCrane) argued that critics must first grasp the plot type of the novel (that is, the emotional effects that a work desires on the reader) before it can judge the portrayal of characters, use of images, selection of images Words make sentences, order, level and perspective and other details of the pros and cons. W.C. Booth, the second-generation principal of the Chicago School, sees the narrative as a way for the author to use the medium of text to communicate with his readers, focusing on the relationship between various narrative techniques and the effects of narrative (expectation). Booth’s approach differs significantly from his teacher, Klein: Kline examines the details of the technique from the narrative type’s requirement, and Booth proceeds with investigation details from the narrative purpose of the author’s attempt to persuade the reader to accept his fictional world Kline presupposes a unified organizational principle (“fidelity” for fiction), and then judges whether the author’s skills are in accordance with the principle of setting. Booth denies these organizational principles prior to the intention of the text, Everything depends on whether the narrative technique meets the textual intent needs. That is to say, Klein focuses on the principles of textual organization, uses it to penetrate all the textual details, and Booth uses the author’s rhetorical intention as the core to unify all the textual techniques. On the basis of Booth, James Phelan, a third-generation scholar of the Chicago School, further elaborated the multi-layered nature of narrative communication. He argues that any narrative involves the (implicit) exchange of rhetoric between the author, the narrator, the character, and the reader in terms of knowledge, emotion, ideology and ethics. Readers’ reactions to and interpretation of any narrative component (including skills, characters, actions, themes, ethics, emotions, etc.) rely on narrative progression rather than the narrative type of “narrative process” or anything else standard. Combining the “narrative process” with the reader’s reaction, it is bound to pay attention to the “discourse” level of the narrative, that is, how narrative forms affect the communication between the reader and the narrative.