Free Indirect Discourse

[Valentino, Russell]

Skaz puts a very Russian-specific spin on what is a common story-telling technique. To quote James Woods, "As soon as someone tells a story about a character, narrative seems to want to bend itself around that character, wants to merge with that character, to take on his or her way of thinking and speaking. A novelist's omniscience soon enough becomes a kind of secret sharing; this is called 'free indirect style,' a term novelists have lots of different nicknames for--'close third person' or 'going into character.'" Or free indirect discourse, or nesobstvenno priamaia rech' (the answer to the initial question), or erlebte Rede, or style indirect libre. It's common in Flaubert, and in Austen, and in non-skaz Russian writers like Tolstoy. E.g., He saw her across the street. Now there was a sight for sore eyes.







Russell Scott Valentino

Professor of Comparative Literature

http://ccl.clas.uiowa.edu

Editor, The Iowa Review

http://www.iowareview.org/

tel. 319-335-2827

University of Iowa







-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Andrey Shcherbenok
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 11:33 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Free Indirect Discourse



I might add "skaz" to this. In my experience, in Russian literary studies "skaz" -- the language of a folk hero very much different from the author's (example - Leskov) -- and "nesobstvenno-priamaia rech" -- less visible, where the difference is not so much in language as in point of view, etc (example -- Chekhov) -- are the two terms most often used.



Andrey



-----Original Message-----

From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu]<mailto:[mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu]> On Behalf Of Olga Meerson

Sent: Saturday, August 27, 2011 5:50 AM

To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu<mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>

Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Free Indirect Discourse



psevdo-kosvennaia rech' is something they use sometimes for erlebte Rede/ pseudo-indirect discourse / free indirect discourse, etc., in literary studies. nesobstvenno-priamaia is more a term language teachers, and at times, linguists, use.  It crosses paths very often with the functions (most of them) of what Bakhtin calls chuzhoe, or dvugolosoe, slovo. when you use another's speech , tinting it with your own intonations---formally speaking in third person but actually assuming the point of view of the subject you are talking about.



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