Documentary functions: the uses of documents in non-fictional texts
Articles
Overview
published in
- Visual Studies (Visual Studies) Journal
publication date
- April 2020
start page
- 63
end page
- 69
issue
- 1
volume
- 36
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
- 1472-586X
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1472-5878
abstract
- Among the phenomena that define the spirit of our times, there is a growing tendency towards the registration and storage of data. Included within this phenomenon that some theorists call documentary inflation, the current spotlight on non-fictional narratives gives intelligibility to data and documents. Using some examples taken from documentary cinema as its basis, this article proposes a typology of the uses (or functions) of documents. Four different documentary functions are defined and articulated starting from the logical opposition between syntagmatic and paradigmatic: narrative, referential, systemic and revealing.