Kaip atsiveria referencija? (Keletas metodinių pastabų)
How Does Reference Work? (Several Methodological Comments)

Summary/Abstract: Today we perceive theatre (performance) as a structure and semiotic model. This is how it is presented to us by the semiology of theatre. Semiology excludes from its terminology the concepts of referent and reference and this encourages the discipline as well as semiologists of theatre to look for other methods of analysis. The paper regards the issue of referent in terms of semiology of theatre and discovers its weakest link. Semiology of theatre referring to linguistic methods interprets a performance as text, thus the sign exists in it as an expression of signifier and signified. The reference of such a sign is defined by the limits of the text and exists only in its context. The theory of discourse (and theories of interpretation and reception) creates a possibility to analyse a performance as a discourse - here language as langue turns into language as parole (speech). Speech implies communication in the form of dialogue. Thus the demand for context and for reference is formed. The process of “speaking with each other” during the performance uses contextual signs. That is such signs, which direct their meaning towards understanding. Understanding, in this case, is a process and realises itself only at the end of the performance, when all meanings of signs are collected into a single totality. The totality of signs reveals a different, transcendental and ontological reference, which is the meaning of the performance. Conclusion: The understanding of theatre (performance) as dialogue and discourse which could be analysed with the help of the theories of reception and interpretation would reintroduce the importance of reference into the research of theatre. It would be possible to reveal the uniqueness and universality of theatre (performance) through the theory of reference.

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