terms

Question 1

Narrative

Answer 1

a story (prose or verse) that involves characters, events, settings, and actions

Question 2

Content

Answer 2

what a narrative is about

Question 3

form

Answer 3

how a narrative is told

Question 4

Genre Conventions:

Answer 4

a set of rules that are common to a specific genre of writing and that can be used to categorize works for study

Question 5

Audience

Answer 5

who a text is created for; the intended readership, listenership, viewership of a
text

Question 6

Discourse

Answer 6

the language-in-use at a given time (temporal) and in a given place or
institution (spatial)

Question 7

Institution:

Answer 7

a society or group of people (often represented by physical spaces and
structures) founded and organized by established laws, practices, or customs

Question 8

Signifier

Answer 8

the physical thing that gives meaning (the word, image,
hand gesture, etc.)

Question 9

Cultural Capital

Answer 9

Cultural Capital: a person’s cultural assets (education, intellect, manners, manner of
speech, etc.) that determine their ability to access and help shape social institutions
(academic, legal, medical, etc.)

Question 10

Conspicuous Consumption

Answer 10

an attempt to express class and identity by being seen buying and consuming the right items

Question 11

Imperialism

Answer 11

a state sanctioned and operated policy of increasing a country’s power, usually
through the acquisition of land (military), extension of laws (legal) and religion (church), and/or
control of trade (economic)

Question 12

Reader-Response Criticism:

Answer 12

a theoretical perspective that focuses on the reader’s perception
of a text to assert that the “production” of meaning in a text is determined by the individual
reader

Question 13

First-Person Narrator:

Answer 13

a story that is told by a participant in the story or someone who knows of the
events of the story and is retelling it, represented in the text as “I”
* narration is limited to what the first-person narrator knows, experiences, infers, or finds out from other characters
* can be a character recounting past events that he/she witnessed or heard about, a peripheral character in the action of the story, or a direct participant in the action of the story

Question 14

Second-Person Narrator:

Answer 14

story is told directly to a narratee addressed as “you”
* this “you” can be an implied audience, the reader of the story, another fictional character, or the narrator themself
* this “you” often experiences that which is narrated

Question 15

Third-Person Omniscient Narrator:

Answer 15

the narrator knows everything about the characters and events in the narrative
* uses proper names or third-person pronouns (he/she/it, they) to refer to all characters
* not generally involved in the narrative, but is simply telling the story

Question 16

Third-Person Limited Narrator

Answer 16

narrator tells the story in the third-person (he/she/it, they), but remains limited to the perceptions, thoughts, and knowledge of one character in the narrative
* the character is used to focus the story in third-person limited narration
* very useful for examining the same object/event through different consciousnesses

Question 17

Amateur Detective:

Answer 17

the detective must be a person of singular genius that continually outsmarts all other characters
* they may be helped by other characters to some extent, but they are ultimately responsible for
solving the story’s puzzle
* position relational to the reader: they serve as a mind the reader can confront and try to outwit

Question 18

The Second:

Answer 18

serves as a sounding board and hype-person for the detective
* they are the “regular mind” amazed by the detective’s abilities
* position relational to the reader: if we are in competition with the detective, we are positioned
alongside the second

Question 19

Middlebrow Literature:

Answer 19

traditional literary conventions; familiar to read and enjoy
represents the social and cultural values of the common Briton
discursive code words: popular, mass appeal, mass culture, conventional, traditional

Question 20

Highbrow Literature:

Answer 20

stylistically innovative and diverse: create a form for what you are expressing; “Make it New” (Ezra Pound) represents the ability of its makers and the values of aesthetes discursive code words: perverse (immoral), coterie, clever, difficult, exclusive

Question 21

Metafiction:

Answer 21

fiction that draws attention to itself as fiction by frequently or infrequently reminding readers that they are reading a work of fiction

Question 22

Insider:

Answer 22

a person who is accepted in a specific space and is afforded certain privileges based on their insider status, insiders (always) know, (sometimes) understand, and (usually) follow the rules associated with that space

Question 23

Outsider:

Answer 23

a person who is not accepted in a specific space

Question 24

Hard-Boiled Detective:

Answer 24

a cut above: tough, street smart, witty, capable, stoic
* incorruptible: unlike everyone else around them, the hard-boiled detective does not let money, power, or sex corrupt them
* you’ve got to have a code: may not play by the legal rules, but has an unimpeachable sense of fairness

Question 25

The Money:

Answer 25

money matters: arrogant, untouchable, corrupt, politician, businessperson
* money talks: bends people to their will using the promise of money
* above the law: the money is usually above the law, but sometimes suffers non-legal consequences

Question 26

The Femme Fatale:

Answer 26

a cut above: sexy (wily, cunning), street smart, capable, mercurial
* it’s a man’s world: but the femme fatale knows how to maneuver within to her best advantage
* gets while the getting’s good: her morality may seem suspect, but it is based on the power imbalances between men and women

Question 27

The Muscle:

Answer 27

a wolf among men: brave, violent, street smart, flaunts reputation
* sends Sicilian messages: has a history of violence, and everyone knows it
* what’s in a name: may work with for a crime boss, but does not rely on this connection for power

Question 28

Mirrored Scenes:

Answer 28

scenes in film that mirror one another in terms of cinematography, composition, setting, subject matter, etc.

Question 29

Strategies:

Answer 29

the rules institutions put into place to ensure the proper behaviour of individual agents within the institution

Question 30

Tactics:

Answer 30

the actions (may be improper or frowned upon) an individual agent makes to subvert or jam the gears of the institution and its strategies

Question 31

Institutional Capital:

Answer 31

a currency accrued or lost based on one’s knowledge of and performance within a specific social institution

Question 32

Subjective Violence:

Answer 32

out of the ordinary violence that happens outside the normal functioning of social structures this violence is “not in the game” and is highly visible

Question 33

Objective Violence:

Answer 33

the everyday systemic violence done against people in the normal functioning of social structures this violence is “in the game” and remains invisible because it has become so normalized

Question 34

Literary/Creative Non-Fiction:

Answer 34

the recounting of a true story in a way that has a clearly literary structure

Question 35

New Journalism:

Answer 35

a style of journalism created in the 1960s and 70s that tells stories from a subjective perspective, often using literary techniques, rather than an objective perspective

Question 36

Counternarrative:

Answer 36

Counternarrative: a narrative that challenges or revises another narrative, typically by providing more information/context or by examining an issue from a different perspective