The Second Person: A Point of View?
The Function of the Second-Person Pronoun in
Narrative Prose Fiction.

Dennis Schofield

December 1998

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY
Geelong, Australia

Table of contents

Preface

Summary

Chapter 1. The Effects of Narrative-You

• 1. Naming Narrative-You
• 2. The Addressee Identity Model of "Second Person-ality"
• 3. Privatised Selfhood and the Anthropocentric Imperative
• 4. An Experimental Study of Apparent Behaviour
• 5. The Second Person as Rhetoric and as Address
• 6. Inscribing You the Reader
• 7. A Point of View

Chapter 2. The Skins of an Onion

• Part 1. The Prejudice of Person
  • 1. Dreams of Geometry and Voice
  • 2. Geist
• Part 2. The Pragmatic Snark
  • 3. Foucault's Subject
  • 4. A Speaking Body
  • 5. The Skins of an Onion
  • 6. Conclusions

Chapter 3. Radicalising Models and Functions

• Part 1. The Reference Model
  • 1. Reference versus Address
  • 2. The metafictional case
  • 3. The mesofictional case
  • 4. The narrative case
  • 5. The figural case
• Part 2. The Generalising Function
  • 6. Generic-"you"
  • 7. The Modes of the Generic
  • 8. The Vocative Wing
  • 9. The Protagonist Wing
• Part 3. The Allocutionary Function
  • 10. The Allocution of "You"
  • 11. The Specification of "You" and the Depth of Address
  • 12. The Sociocentricity of Deixis

Chapter 4. Naturalising Models and Limit Cases

• 1. Framing Person
• 2. The Vraisemblable and the Uses of Genre
• 3. The Occurrence of Congruence

Chapter 5. The Intersubjective You

• 1. Protean-"You"
• 2. Intersubjectivity and Phenomenology
• 3. Oscillating Intersubjectivity and Point of View
• 4. The Ephemeral and Fragile "You"
• 5. Conclusion

Chapter 6. From Intersubjectivity to Incertitude

• 1. Almost You
• 2. The Narrator as Homodiegetic
• 3. The place of the Other "I"
• 4. The Narrator as Another
• 5. Ontological Havoc
• 6. Critical Certitude versus Negative Capability

Chapter 7. "It's all the fault of the pronouns"

• 1. You singular, you royally plural
• 2. Protean-"You" and the Narrative Function
• 3. The dissolution of Intersubjectivity
• 4. Conclusion: On the Borders of Nihilism

Notes

Bibliography

• Primary Texts
• Secondary Texts

Table of figures

• Chapter 1
  • Fig. 1 Addressee Identity model ^{case 1}: "you" addressed to narrator's self
  • Fig. 2 Addressee Identity model ^{case 2}: "you" address to character
  • Fig. 3 Addressee Identity model ^{case 3}: "you" address to reader/narratee
  • Fig. 4 Addressee Identity model ^{case 4}: "you" address to "no-body"
  • Fig. 5 The opening frame of Heider and Simmel's animated movie
  • Fig. 6 Heider and Simmel's illustration, showing all shapes
• Chapter 2
  • Fig. 7 Chatman's diagram of the "narrative-communication situation"
  • Fig. 8 Kerby's model of the semiotic subject
  • Fig. 9 Peirce's triangle
  • Fig. 10 Peirce's triangle redrawn
• Chapter 3
  • Fig. 11 Reference Identity model
  • Fig. 12 The Generic-Particular curve
  • Fig. 13 The Generic-Particular model revised as a field
  • Fig. 14 Shannon and Weaver's communication model
  • Fig. 15 Jakobson's communication model
  • Fig. 16 Lanser's revision of Jakobson's communication model
  • Fig. 17 Herman's continuum between grammatical form and deictic function
  • Fig. 18 Depth of Address model
• Chapter 7
  • Fig. 19 Frames representing "scenes" 1 to 8 of Heider and Simmel's animated movie

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Index

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7

Notes

Bibliography

Links

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