Actantial model

In structural semantics, the actantial model, also called the actantial narrative schema, is a tool used to analyze the action that takes place in a story, whether real or fictional.[1][2] It was developed in 1966 by semiotician Algirdas Julien Greimas.[3][4]

The model considers an action as divided into six facets, called actants.[1] Those actants are a combined framework inspired mainly between Vladimir Propp's and Étienne Souriau's actantial theories.[5]

Greimas took the term actant from linguist Lucien Tesnière, who coined the term in his discussion of the grammar of noun phrases.[6]

  1. ^ a b Herbert 2006 Tools, Ch.5, Origins and function
  2. ^ Herbert 2006 Actantial
  3. ^ Greimas, Algirdas Julien [1966] Structural Semantics: An Attempt at a Method
  4. ^ Greimas (1973).
  5. ^ Venancio, Rafael Duarte Oliveira, Narrative between Action and Transformation: A. J. Greimas' Narratological Models (December 3, 2016). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2879907
  6. ^ David Herman, Manfred Jahn, Marie-Laure Ryan (2005) Routledge encyclopedia of narrative theory, p. 574