Beni-Suef University International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences (Dec 2021)

Conceptual structure and semantic structure of the discourse of « In those arms » a novel of Camille Laurens

  • Rania Ahmed

DOI
https://doi.org/10.21608/buijhs.2021.168403
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 2
pp. 57 – 93

Abstract

Read online

This research proposes a cognitive semantic study of the mental framework of the self in search of its identity in the universe of the other. It is the self of the heroine of Camille Laurens' novel Dans ces bras-là, which espouses a postmodern vision in the construction of its fragmentary novelistic discourse. The present study postulates an analysis of the conceptual structure with which the semantic structure of Camille Laurens’s text identifies. It tends to study the cognitive framework of the quest for the ego and to analyze the categories that emerge from it. It is about defining the concepts by which the heroine's ego has segmented her environment of men into meaningful categories. My aim is constructivist and my approach is based on two levels: The extra-linguistic level where I will study the conceptual structure of Laurens' text, and the linguistic level where I will study the semantic isotopes that dominate the text in view to access its cognitive coherence.

Keywords