If construal selects what appears in a narrative and relationality decides how phenomena connect, then perspective decides from where and how experience is accessed.
Liora’s walk through the forest provides a lens for understanding how perspective functions within semiotic ecologies.
1. Perspective as a Semiotic Axis
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Vantage: whose experience is foregrounded
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Epistemic access: what knowledge or perception is available
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Alignment: which entities the narrative encourages the reader to identify with
Different languages encode perspective differently — sometimes morphologically, sometimes lexically, sometimes syntactically — creating distinct narrative possibilities.
2. Participant-Centred Perspective
In many languages, the narrative can be anchored tightly to a participant’s experience.
Example — Liora-centred:
Liora bent over the pool. She could see the creature shimmer, though she did not yet understand what it wanted. The forest seemed to hold its breath, waiting for her to act.
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The narrative aligns the reader with Liora’s perceptual and epistemic horizon.
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Suspense emerges from the limited access: we know only what Liora knows.
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Semiotic ecology foregrounds the participant, making events intelligible through her interaction with them.
3. Event-Centred Perspective
Some narratives foreground events themselves rather than participants.
The pool rippled as a faint shimmer rose from its surface. A figure moved, bending close; the forest remained still, holding the moment in suspension.
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Perspective is distributed: we attend to the unfolding phenomena rather than a single experiencer.
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This creates a more observational or “objective” alignment.
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Participants remain semiotic nodes, but the event-network drives the narrative pulse.
4. Multi-Perspectival or Distributed Perspective
Certain semiotic ecologies allow multiple, coexisting perspectives:
Liora leaned forward, unaware that the creature mirrored her motion. The moss shimmered beneath their gaze. The forest, ancient and watchful, seemed to anticipate a change neither could see fully.
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Access is fragmented and layered: the reader simultaneously inhabits multiple experiential horizons.
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Narrative tension arises from knowledge asymmetry between participants, environment, and narrator.
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Perspective becomes a relational property of the scene, not just a property of a single observer.
5. Perspective and Narrative Effect
Perspective choices are not cosmetic. They determine:
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Attention: which entities or events the reader perceives as central
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Suspense: what remains hidden or uncertain
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Empathy: which participants are intelligible as experiencing subjects
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Temporal and causal coherence: how events appear to unfold
In Liora’s forest, shifting perspective changes the scene: from an event unfolding, to a participant’s awareness, to a distributed network of relations — all within the same moment.
6. Liora in Action: Comparative Illustration
Participant-aligned:
Liora watched the pool. The creature hovered just beyond reach. She held her breath.
Event-aligned:
A ripple spread across the pool, catching the light. Above it, something moved. The forest remained silent.
Distributed/multi-perspectival:
Liora leaned close, the creature mirrored her, the water quivered, and the forest seemed to hold its own secret knowledge.
Each construal produces distinct narrative experience, shaped by the semiotic ecology of perspective, not by deterministic cognition.
Next Post
Next, we will explore Orientation in Narrative: how horizons — spatial, social, and discursive — stabilise story worlds and make narrative coherent.
Liora’s ongoing adventures will continue to illustrate how narrative ecology integrates construal, relationality, and perspective into a coherent horizon.
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