Spaces of Communication: Elements of Semio-Pragmatics

by Roger Odin

Overview

Spaces of Communication offers a concise introduction to semiopragmatics and condenses the intellectual trajectory of one of the foundational figures of film studies into a relatively short and accessible volume. It testifies to the author’s deep and rich intellectual engagement with a vast array of objects ranging from the classics of the cinephile canon to television news programs, home movies and mobile phone films.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781041186496
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/01/2025
Series:	Film Theory in Media History
Edition description:	1
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Roger Odin is emeritus professor of Communication at Paris 3 University; Head of the Film and Audiovisual Institute (1983-2003); Theorist of the semio-pragmatic approach (De la fiction, 2000; Les Espaces de Communication, 2011).

Table of Contents

A Democracy of Readings and Objects: Roger Odin’s Contribution to the Theory of Film (Vinzenz Hediger)
What We Make of Images and Sounds: Semio-Pragmatics as Approach and Method
Establishing a Discipline, Cultivating a Field: Roger Odin and Film Studies in France
Moving Semiotics Forward: Semio-Pragmatics and Film Theory since the 1960s
Beware of the Crypt: Semio-Pragmatics and the Question of Communication
After the Elegy of Cinema: Semio-Pragmatics and the State of Film Studies

Spaces of Communication: Elements of Semio-Pragmatics (Roger Odin)

Foreword and Acknowledgements

Introduction: The Semio-Pragmatic Model
On the Difficulty of Getting Away from Immanence
On the Difficulty of Staying Within Immanence
Vacillation
For an Articulation between the Two Paradigms: Semio-Pragmatics
The Semio-Pragmatic Model

1. Context, Constraints and the Space of Communication
Universally Shared Constraints
Natural Constraints
The Narrative Constraint
The Case of Languages
Language and Perception
The Influence of a Language on How We Read Images

“Non-Natural” Constraints and the Notion of the “Space of Communication”

2. The Discursive Space : Communicative Competence and Modes of Production of Meaning
Fictionalizing Mode (First Approach)
Spectacularizing and Energetic Modes
Documentarizing Mode, Moralizing Mode
Fictionalizing Mode (Second Approach); Fabulating Mode

3. Aesthetic Mode, Artistic Mode: Relationship between Modes and Spaces
From the Aesthetic Mode to Aesthetic Spaces
From the Artistic Mode (in Reduced Form) to Inscription in the Space of Art
From the Artistic Mode (Full-Fledged Form) to the Spaces of Art
Relationship among Modes and among Spaces

4. Contextual Analysis and the Space of Communication: The Space of Communication of Family Memory
The Space of Communication for Memory in the “Traditional” Family
The Constraints and the Construction of the Actants
Which Mode(s) to Construct? Private Mode, Intimate Mode
Communication Operators
The Space of Communication for Memory in the New Family Structure
“Freed-Up” Communication
Testimony Mode: Another Mode of Production of Meaning
Other Memory Operators

5. The Space of Communication and Migration: The Example of the Home Movie
The Home Movie: From Archives to Loci of Memory
The Home Movie on Television
From Home Movie to Micro-Histories
The Home Movie in the Space of Art
The Home Movie in the Medical Context

6. Textual Analysis and Semio-Pragmatics
A Stage of the Tour de France on Television
Interpreting the Reproduction of a Painting
Collective Academic Research
The Space of Description and the Construction of the Object of Analysis
From the Space of Textual Analysis to the Space of Interpretation
The Space of Ideological Analysis
The Space of Epistemological Reflection
The Place of Cinema in the Academic Institutional Space

Conclusion

List of Tools

The Different Stages of Construction of the Semio-Pragmatic Model

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

"It is hard to believe that it has taken almost forty years for Roger Odin’s semio-pragmatic approach to finally become accessible in a book for the English-speaking world. Long before the post-cinema debate, Roger Odin started to theorize the many facets of film beyond the theatrical motion picture. Immensely productive particularly with a view to the current transformations of film, Odin’s film theory continues to question and subvert established distinctions: between disciplines and theoretical schools, but also between legitimate and illegitimate objects."
– Alexandra Schneider, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

"With scientific rigor and academic generosity, Roger Odin discloses the analytical machine that underpins his semio-pragmatic approach. Readers not only enjoy a wide breadth of examples, but also witness the trial-and-error approach that ensured the success of semio-pragmatics. At once a methodological synthesis and a balance of intellectual achievement, this book promotes an integral method for analyzing film as a communicative apparatus."
– Francesco Casetti, Yale University

From the Publisher