3 - Sending and receiving information

Summary

Information in the internal and external communication systems

One of the difficulties involved in analysing the ways information is transmitted in dramatic texts results from the embedding of the internal communication system in the external system that we referred to in chapter one. Generally speaking, the informational value of a single verbal or non-verbal signal changes according to whether it is evaluated within the framework of the internal or the external communication system. An example of this would be a particular interior décor presented on stage. Normally, this is of little informational value to the figures acting within it, since it is merely a part of their familiar and automatically perceived environment. For the audience, however, it is often the bearer of important information that reveals something of the characteristics of the fictional protagonists inhabiting it (see below, 5.4.2.3.). Similarly, in the sphere of verbal communication there are speeches that have scarcely any novelty value for the fictional listener on stage, but which serve to clarify certain relationships for the audience. Speeches of this kind are particularly common in the exposition sections, during which the audience has to be informed of the events leading up to the play, although these are already familiar to the fictional characters on stage.