Glossary
A - L
Appropriation
To appropriate is to borrow or reference from elsewhere, usually without permission. It often adds new layers of meaning and creates irony.
Deconstruction
To deconstruct is to take apart a text to analyse the conflicting forces within it responsible for its meaning/s. Established by the work of Jacques Derrida, the term had a great influence on the course of literary studies from the late 1960s through the 1980s. It challenged readers to closely analyse an author's work and emphasised this role in the production of meaning. For example, to examine the language used, its construction and expose what the author did not say.
Discourse
A term used to designate the forms of representation, conventions and language use producing cultural and historic meanings. It refers to a meaningful passage of language that embodies a particular set of beliefs or concerns.
Enlightenment
An 18th century philosophical movement based on rational inquiry and an optimistic belief in human progress. It explored the idea that gaining knowledge of the true self was the foundation for all other knowledge. It strives to control nature, organise society and lead to moral improvement of 'mankind'. It is often used as another word for modernity.
Grand Narrative (or Metanarrative)
A sweeping historical explanation, global truth or large claim that embodies a particular set of social or cultural beliefs arising from it.
Hyper-Reality
Coined by Jean Baudrillard, the term hyper-reality refers to the condition whereby imitations or reproductions of reality acquire more legitimacy, value and power than the originals themselves. For example, in advertising, images are often hyper-real. Features are exaggerated to create a desire for the product (bubbles on a fizzy drink, sizzling bacon on a burger etc.).
Intertextuality
A term implying that all texts are inescapably related to other texts. It promotes a lateral reading across several different interwoven texts and suggests that no texts are independent of the network of texts that surround and precede it.
M - Z
Metafiction
A work that self-consciously draws attention to its language, literary style and construction to the reader.
Modernism
The name given to the literary, historic and philosophical period from roughly 1880 to 1950. It was marked by the belief in the unity of experience and universal reason. It represented the belief of logic and scientific rationalism and that ideas and concepts were determinate.
Pastiche
An imitation or copy of the style of an original object. In terms of Postmodernism, works imitate the style of another historical period. Frederic Jameson (an American literary critic) sees pastiche as a sign of the failure of originality and the loss of historical sense.
Postmodernism
A period label generally given to cultural forms since the mid twentieth century that challenge certain ideas such as representation, authority, convention and truth. Although the term was first found in architecture, it is now used to describe
Postmodernity
A historical and cultural period particular to the developments in technology and consumer societies of the West. Many view this as a transition away from, or the end of, Modernity. Postmodernity involves a radical questioning of the grounds upon which knowledge claims are made.
Poststructuralism
A term used to describe all the theories that rejected the principles of structuralism. Poststructuralism questions whether it is possible to find coherent systematic structure of meaning or identity.
Self-Reflexivity
An immediate consciousness of what one is doing, thinking or writing. It calls to attention the constructed nature of the text.
Semiotics
The systematic study of signs and symbols and their meaning and use. Semiology was one of the main strands in the great structuralist movement in France between the 1950s and 1960s. It is concerned with issues of communication and meaning as they occur in various sign systems including language.
Simulacrum
The representation or reproduction of reality. Nothing we say or do is truly ‘original’ as everything is constructed from our experiences.
Structuralism
The scientific analysis of human society and the structures which supposedly frame and govern our behaviour. Ferdinand de Saussure believed that language should be examined synchronically (at any given moment) rather than historically and comparatively. Any text only has meaning when considered in relation to another.