On the meaning of narrative texts. Reconsidering Greimas' model in the light of a new socio-semiotic narrative theory

This article aims at showing how the teachings of Greimas about his generative model of the meaning of narrative texts can be reconsidered, in the light of the new socio-semiotic narrative theories. What follows is an attempt to show how Greimas’ positions can be better harmonized with the sign theory of Saussure and with the researches of Lévi-Strauss about the social and cultural meaning of myths. Introducing some concepts like the ones of system of values, topic and focus, Perspective and Destination Principle, narrative signifier and signified, some small adjustments to Greimas’ model are proposed, trying to show with some examples how they can turn useful to understand and describe the sense of a story and the interpretations a story activates in the eyes of their addressees.