Síntesis estilizada de la bibliografía y los estudios existentes

The research method consisted of the following steps:

• Texts that might be considered Troubles fiction were identified.

• A representative data set was acquired. Magee suggests that there have been around 300 novels published which fit within the class Troubles fiction. This study includes 153 texts.

• Texts were described and coded using data gathering sheets designed for the study.

• Pre-1969 texts, which could reasonably constitute pre-texts, were identified.

• Syntagms (narrative chains) and paradigms (dominant genre type, characters) were identified within the initial (1969-1970) novels.

• Using an historical framework, each research object was coded as a

replication novel, a modification novel or as a challenging novel against an initial set of generic codes and conventions. A picture of small

transformations emerges from this analysis which provides a rich diachronic analysis.

Magee argues that “the conflict is characterized by so many antagonistic forces and interest, internal and external, that it readily lends itself as a focus for many generic influences. There have been sub genres and refinements, and texts, which are exceptions to the rules. What is remarkable, however, is that across the genre spectrum comprising Troubles fiction we encounter again and again the same set of tropes and lurid mischaracterizations - a testament to the ubiquitous cultural

penetration of Britain’s point of view in regard to the conflict” (Magee, 1998, 7).

Magee’s reference to the “sub genres and refinements, and texts which are the exceptions to the rules” assumes that there are rules at some level. For Magee there are “rules”, “refinements”, and “exceptions”. The next question to be asked might legitimately relate to the constitution and relationship of these “rules”, “refinements”

and “exceptions” over time. The present study takes Magee’s assumptions about the genre-spectrum of Troubles fiction and uses social semiotic methodology to reveal the transformations constituted within a diachronic framework.

The research data set consists of 153 Troubles fiction novels randomly

chosen. Following Magee, these novels are considered a hybrid genre in that there are generic conventions, particularly relating to thriller and love stories, which generally constitute some element of the structure, plot and characterisations of specific novels within the generic set. It may be that to be considered for publication Troubles fiction novels must contain conventions of the thriller and the “love-across-the-barricades”

love story, perhaps to varying degrees in specific novels. This is the conventional conservatism that McLiam Wilson satirises in Ripley Bogle (1989), while still adhering to the reproduction of the same generic conventions in his satirical text. It may be that a particular generic form is more accessible to transformation and change.

The novels forming the research set are novels available in the UK through bookshops, public library systems, Amazon and e-Bay. This set of parameters on the research set is pragmatic rather than philosophical or ideological. The Troubles Fiction bibliography compiled by Bill Rolston and Robert Bell and hosted on CAIN was initially used to identify titles. There was no question of including or excluding

specific novels based on aesthetic or ideological evaluation. The base line is that, to be considered a potential research object, the novel should directly deal with the subject of Northern Ireland during the Troubles. One hundred and fifty novels constitutes roughly one quarter of the total output (Magee, 2001, 14) It is believed that the set used in this study offers enough empirical evidence to provide an overview of the development of Troubles fiction. Not all published Troubles novels are analysed within this study but it is expected, although all knowledge must be considered contingent, that the modified encoding/decoding model is flexible enough to contain them.

This study is concerned with the production of genre novels by authors-as-producers in relation to the consumption of genre novels, either specifically (reading concrete texts) or generally (awareness of codes and conventions as a result of general circulation of the genre). To map out material instances of intertextuality, the study employs analytical concepts drawn from semiotics, specifically, paradigms and syntagms, which have their origins in Saussurean linguistics. For the Saussurean linguists, meaning in language is constructed through difference, so that signifiers only have meaning relative to other signifiers, present or absent. The construction of meaning is governed by operations on two planes, the paradigmatic and the

syntagmatic.

Paradigms refer to the choice of specific signifiers in opposition to other possible signifiers. For semioticians working within critical theory frameworks the choice of specific signifiers involves ideological implications. Syntagms are the combinations or chains of elements which form a meaningful whole within a text. In

text or speech, syntagm refers to the syntactical rules and conventions which govern language. In this study, paradigmatic choice relates to the types of characters included in the novel, in particular to choices about characters. Evidence takes the form of logging descriptive words and phrases and constructing a descriptive summary of significant characters. Identifying the syntagmatic axis in this study takes the form of identifying the chains of signifiers which contribute to make meaning within the novels. In relation to popular culture novels, syntagmatic combinations refer to plot and narrative. Following the Russian Formalists, it is possible to suggest that plot and narrative are not necessarily the same. The plot is the story; the narrative is the way in which the story is told. For the purposes of this study, the range and types of plots circulating in novels at any synchronic moment is of interest, as are the

transformations in plots over time.

Genre is determined by both paradigmatic selections and syntagmatic

combinations. Genre is governed by expected codes and conventions. Popular culture generic conventions which figure in this study of the hybrid Troubles genre include conventions associated with romances, thrillers, crime novels, bildungsromans, comedy and fantasy novels. In relation to Peirce’s typology of signs, all text is

symbolic (Chandler, 2002, 37). If this assertion is accepted, then the question of what constitutes “reality” within popular culture texts is an issue. Cultural products can be, but are not necessarily, representations of the real. In figurative art, representing the real might consist of producing a style of work which resembles, or seems to

resemble, the real. In text, which is always symbolic, representing the real refers to codes and conventions of written language which are subject to diachronic

transformations. Discussing the representation of the real in popular culture is not to invoke the literary genre of “realism”. In the context of this study, what is of interest is verisimilitude, which, in relation to textual representation, is a question of using modality markers, where modality refers to a relationship with the material world (Hodge and Kress, 1988, 27).

Verisimilitude, or modality, in this context is a matter of the codes and conventions, which the readers of a particular genre, at a particular given historical moment, learn to read and interpret as “real”. Modality markers might include

reference to historical and geographical facts in the material world. However, realism in Troubles fiction is inescapably interlinked with ideology. Eagleton insists on the ideological nature of all fiction, arguing that where history enters the text it does so as ideology, as an amalgam of certain perspectives on any given society at any given time (Eagleton, 1976, 70). According to this reading, popular fiction is only ever ideological in its representation of life. Representations of the Troubles in the novels are the product of the authorial, and general, cultural ideology, and are interpretations of events or characters or situations. That is not to suggest that there is a Thing-in-itself that evades the grasp of the individual consciousness, but that Northern Ireland is a site of struggle, and there are a number of different possible interpretations of events there which are the product of differing ideological positions.

A data gathering instrument which includes bibliographic information and content description was developed for analytical use. The data categories are shown in Figure 2. An example of the information captured in each of the records can be found in Appendix A.

Categories in Data Gathering Sheets Description and function

Bibliographic information The information includes recording author, title, publisher, date of

publication, place, nationality of author, where known

Dominant affective genre The dominant genre type that best describes the novel is recorded.

Plot summary label A plot summary statement is recorded for each novel.

Representations of key characters Paradigmatic choices about heroes, villains and female characters.

Modality markers Where possible modality markers are established and identified. These include reference to the material world (places, people, institutions, events).

Ideology stance Ideological stance is related to positive, neutral or negative attitudes towards the personnel, policies, politics and activities relating to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Evidence of ideological stance might be drawn from the plot, from representations of characters, or from clues in the narrative or style of discourse

Figure 2: Categories in the Data Gathering Sheets

Decisions about the inclusion of certain representations of characters are decisions made along the paradigmatic axis. Decisions about plot and genre are syntagmatic decisions. There is a relationship between plot, genre, characters, modality and ideology. Form and content are inter-linked, and form is ideologically bound as is content, for example, early Troubles thrillers tend towards particular ideological positions regarding Republican activists.

Magee categorises all Troubles novels as forming part of a “catch-all” genre, in which specific novels use elements of particular genres, especially thriller and romance generic characteristics, to a greater or lesser degree. The unifying feature in this set of novels is the fact that they are all representations of events and characters relating to the contemporary Troubles in Northern Ireland. In this study, the dominant affect genre type which best describes the form of individual novels is recorded. This inevitably rests on decision-making by the researcher, and is, in the final instance, interpretative and subjective.

In the case of some novels, the dominant genre type is relatively easy to identify, for example, Gerald Seymour’s Harry’s Game (1975), a well-known thriller which has been filmed and televised. In other novels, the dominant genre type is more difficult to identify, for example, it might be possible to interpret Robert McLiam Wilson’s Eureka Street (1995) as primarily a love story or primarily a bildungsroman.

In social science methodology, the “solution” to this “problem” would be to base interpretation on a large interpretative research group or to acknowledge that the interpretations are the products of one researcher. As regards replication of

methodology, although the particular interpretative activity could not be replicated by another researcher, the method of undertaking the interpretative activity could be replicated. This methodology can thus be replicated, but the results of the application of the method might not be the same. This is the case with any research project based on subjective, interpretative, hermeneutic data analysis.

This study takes as a hypothesis that certain codes and conventions have become generic norms for Troubles fiction novels to such an extent that they are

referred to within all Troubles fiction, although the specific ways in which they are used differ. Eagleton (1976) differentiates between the general mode of literary production, by which he means the generic and plot elements which will be transformed by the author-as-producer into the product, by which he means the specific conjunction of elements within particular concrete novels. Although it is quite old, typical of its time and productive environment in its dependence on

Althusserian structuralist Marxism, this theorisation, which follows Marx’s model of general production and Althusser’s notion of practice as the transformation of raw means of production into product by the work of labour, in the case of fiction by the intellectual work of the author, is nevertheless a useful model for this study because it allows us to differentiate between generic codes and specific instantiations of codes, and to relate specific instantiations of codes to each other within the broader generic framework.