Stranger than Fiction? A Few Methodological Notes on Linguistic Research in Film Discourse

This theoretical essay addresses a number of methodological problems pertinent to linguistic research on film discourse.First of all, attention is paid to the interdependence between contemporary film discourse and everyday language, with a view to dispersing doubts about the former's legitimacy in language studies.Also, the discussion captures the interface between a character's identity portrayal and the target audience's socio-cultural background and expectations.Another objective is to elaborate a model of film discourse's twofold layering, viz. the fictional layer and the film crew's layer; and two communicative levels, namely the characters' level and the viewer's level, on which meanings are communicated and inferred by the viewer, who is conceptualised as the recipient.Additionally, the notion of recipient design will be endorsed in order to demonstrate that meanings are purposefully communicated to, and thus gleaned by, the viewer.Several postulates are propounded concerning the viewer's understanding and appreciation of film discourse.