Many of us think that Kendall Walton’s general theory of make-believe is the best available framework for theorising about fictional discourse. In this framework, modelling truth, reference and speech-acts in fiction starts from this idea that fictional texts are best construed as props in a game of make-believe. Within this “functionalist” framework, an adequate semantic analysis of fictional discourse typically requires deploying a narrative element: on top of the representation of a storyworld, one needs a specific narrator-narrative-narratee structure. The semantics of fiction thus leads to narratology. We will look at how semantics and narratology do and should interact when it comes to modelling fictional discourse: first, investigating recent, controversial notions from the semantics of fiction which have a narratological flavour (esp. the fictional periphery, narrator-less fictions, the real-world vs. in-universe perspectives); second, looking at some recent advances in narratology explicitly raising foundational issues (esp. models for second-person narratives, metanarrative fictions).
Program committee:
Daniel Altshuler (University of Oxford)
Lorenz Demey (KU Leuven)
Stacie Friend (University of Edinburgh)
Eva-Maria Konrad (Humboldt-Universität)
Bruno Leclercq (Liège University)
Federico Pianzola (University of Groningen)
Merel Semeijn (Institut Jean Nicod)
Andreas Stokke (Uppsala University)
Peter Verdée (Université catholique de Louvain)
Organisation:
Louis Rouillé (Liège University)
