Summaries of Chapters 12, 13 &14

Chapter 12
This chapter, by M. H. Abrams, looked at a model of communication Abrams made and evaluated each part. There are 4 parts to this model, artist, work, audience and the universe. Abrams also says that even though there are 4 seperate parts, many only consentrate on one part. The artist creates the "work", which is what the piece itself is. The audience is what the work is geared to, the people who will be the viewers, the listeners or recieving the message. The universe is what surrounds the artist, emotions, ideas, events, material objects etc.
Arthur Asa Berger evaluated this passage and was influenced by Abrams to create his own model of communication. His model had five parts instead of four, art, artist, medium, audience and America. The meanings of each are similar to Abrams. Art is the work or text that contains the message. The artist creates the art. The audience recieves the message from the piece of art. America is the society where the message is created from and medium is how the art is made, books, television, film etc. Berger then went on in showing that his model and Abrams' model is very similar to Lasswell formula. All three can be broken down to the basic "who" "what" "how" "what effect" "why".


Chapter 13
This chapter, written by Michael Holquist, focuses on dialogue. He says that word is produced in a dialogue interaction where there are responses. We learn what words mean through conversations and responsive understanding.
In the response after Holquist's passage, Berger looks at Mikhail Bakhtin and breaks down what Bakhtin's theory of dialogism means and the two parts of it. When we are engageing with a dialogue with another person, we have to anticipate what will be said and how we will respond to it and also when we are communicating we must also use the cultural norms and beliefs.
Bakhtin also developed the theory of "intertextuality" meaning that the texts that are produced now are strongly influenced by the texts produced before them, but this is most likely an unconscious decision.


Chapter 14
Chapter 14, by Catherine Kohler Riessman, parts of narrative are looked at and specifically the theories of Labov and Waletzsky. They believed that stories have a chronicle sequence. If the sequence is changed, the story is changed. A narrative always has indicators of when the story begins and ends and also always answers a question. A story can also be changed by deciding where exactly to finish a story. In a narrative there are six basic elements that include, abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda. Abstract is an overview of the story. Orientation is telling the "who" "what" "where" "when" "why" of the story. A complicating action is the sequences of events in the story. An evaluation is the meaning and importance of each event in the story. A resolution is the ending and a coda is returning the story to present time at the end.
These elements are essential when story telling but not all conversations are of a story, some are of current events. The six elements can even be found when we are not telling a narrative story, the elements (in any conversation) give the listener a way of following what you are saying.