Spaces of Communication

Roger Odin is emeritus professor of Communication at Paris 3 University; Head of the Film and Audiovisual Institute (1983-2003); Theorist of the semio-pragmatic approach (De la fiction, 2000; Les Espaces de Communication, 2011).

"It is hard to believe that it has taken almost forty years for Roger Odin’s semio-pragmatic approach to finally become accessible in a book for the English-speaking world. Long before the post-cinema debate, Roger Odin started to theorize the many facets of film beyond the theatrical motion picture. Immensely productive particularly with a view to the current transformations of film, Odin’s film theory continues to question and subvert established distinctions: between disciplines and theoretical schools, but also between legitimate and illegitimate objects." – Alexandra Schneider, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz "With scientific rigor and academic generosity, Roger Odin discloses the analytical machine that underpins his semio-pragmatic approach. Readers not only enjoy a wide breadth of examples, but also witness the trial-and-error approach that ensured the success of semio-pragmatics. At once a methodological synthesis and a balance of intellectual achievement, this book promotes an integral method for analyzing film as a communicative apparatus." – Francesco Casetti, Yale University

• A Democracy of Readings and Objects: Roger Odin’s Contribution to the Theory of Film (Vinzenz Hediger) What We Make of Images and Sounds: Semio-Pragmatics as Approach and Method Establishing a Discipline, Cultivating a Field: Roger Odin and Film Studies in France Moving Semiotics Forward: Semio-Pragmatics and Film Theory since the 1960s Beware of the Crypt: Semio-Pragmatics and the Question of Communication After the Elegy of Cinema: Semio-Pragmatics and the State of Film Studies Spaces of Communication: Elements of Semio-Pragmatics (Roger Odin) Foreword and Acknowledgements Introduction: The Semio-Pragmatic Model On the Difficulty of Getting Away from Immanence On the Difficulty of Staying Within Immanence Vacillation For an Articulation between the Two Paradigms: Semio-Pragmatics The Semio-Pragmatic Model 1. Context, Constraints and the Space of Communication Universally Shared Constraints Natural Constraints The Narrative Constraint The Case of Languages Language and Perception The Influence of a Language on How We Read Images “Non-Natural” Constraints and the Notion of the “Space of Communication” 2. The Discursive Space : Communicative Competence and Modes of Production of Meaning Fictionalizing Mode (First Approach) Spectacularizing and Energetic Modes Documentarizing Mode, Moralizing Mode Fictionalizing Mode (Second Approach); Fabulating Mode 3. Aesthetic Mode, Artistic Mode: Relationship between Modes and Spaces From the Aesthetic Mode to Aesthetic Spaces From the Artistic Mode (in Reduced Form) to Inscription in the Space of Art From the Artistic Mode (Full-Fledged Form) to the Spaces of Art Relationship among Modes and among Spaces 4. Contextual Analysis and the Space of Communication: The Space of Communication of Family Memory The Space of Communication for Memory in the “Traditional” Family The Constraints and the Construction of the Actants Which Mode(s) to Construct? Private Mode, Intimate Mode Communication Operators The Space of Communication for Memory in the New Family Structure “Freed-Up” Communication Testimony Mode: Another Mode of Production of Meaning Other Memory Operators 5. The Space of Communication and Migration: The Example of the Home Movie The Home Movie: From Archives to Loci of Memory The Home Movie on Television From Home Movie to Micro-Histories The Home Movie in the Space of Art The Home Movie in the Medical Context 6. Textual Analysis and Semio-Pragmatics A Stage of the Tour de France on Television Interpreting the Reproduction of a Painting Collective Academic Research The Space of Description and the Construction of the Object of Analysis From the Space of Textual Analysis to the Space of Interpretation The Space of Ideological Analysis The Space of Epistemological Reflection The Place of Cinema in the Academic Institutional Space Conclusion List of Tools The Different Stages of Construction of the Semio-Pragmatic Model Bibliography Index