ABSTRACT
Given that structuralist and semiotic approaches to the dramatic text have established character as fictions constructed through language, and called into question psychologising modes of enquiry which efface the distinction between dramatic construct and real person, as the previous chapter showed, it follows that such approaches should pay detailed attention to the dialogue modes through which the dramatic fiction is created. A key aim of semioticians in relation to the dramatic text is to understand and identify the main characteristics of dramatic discourse.
