Saramago’s punctuation absence formally enacts the breakdown of speech-act discrimination
Evidence
Saramago’s novel imagines a contagion of “white blindness” sweeping a city. Government quarantine, media silence, and the breakdown of communication structures organize the narrative. Its method is dense, comma-spliced third-person narration without speech-quote conventions, formally enacting the breakdown of speech-act discrimination. — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 1287
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the chapter’s earlier books on silence, noise, and communication breakdown (Deep Listening, One Square Inch of Silence) — the same theme of breakdown enacted formally. — connects to: Punctuation choices subtly shift tone through the feel of each mark — Bryan A. Garner, Jeff Newman, Tiger Jackson, The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style,…, 32; Low word-deed correlation stems from context neglect, not human untrustworthiness; the MOC “The Loud Cost of Quiet — What We Protect and Sacrifice When We Choose Silence”
- SEED: A possible essay: how formal literary devices (no punctuation, polyphony, fragmented narration) prefigure AI’s flattened treatment of speech acts in crisis communication.