In narrative theory, actant is a term from the actantial model of semiotic analysis of narratives.
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Due credit must be paid to Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917-1992), professor of Semiotics who is widely credited with producing in 1966 the "actantial" model.[1][2] The actantial model reveals the structural roles typically performed in story telling; such as "hero, villain (opponent of hero), object (of quest), helper (of hero) and sender (who initiates the quest)." Each of these roles fulfill an integral component of the story (or "narrative" if you prefer). Without the contribution of each actant, the story may be incomplete. Thus, an "actant" is not simply a character in a story, but an integral structural element upon which the narrative revolves.
An actant can also be described as a binary opposition pairing, such as a hero paired with a villain, a dragon paired with a dragon slaying sword, a helper paired with an opponent. Actantal relationships are therefore incredibly useful in generating problems within a narrative that have to be overcome, providing contrast, or in defining an antagonistic force within the narrative. However, the same character can simultaneously have a different actant (or way of concern) in regard to a different sequence of action, event or episode in the story. Therefore, it should be distinguished from a character's consistent role in the story like the archetype of a character. The concept of actant is important in structuralism of narratology to regard each situation as the minimum independent unit of story.
| “ | [Linguistically], Actants have a kind of phonemic rather than a phonetic role: they operate on the level of function, rather than content. That is, an actant may embody itself in a particular character (termed an acteur) or it may reside in the function of more than one character in respect of their common role in the story's underlying 'oppositional' structure. In short, the deep structure of the narrative generates and defines its actants at a level beyond that of the story's surface content. | ” |
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— Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), p. 89
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In 1969 Julia Kristeva also attempted to understand the dynamic development of the situations in `narratives with Greimas' Actant-Model. She thought the subject and the object can change the positions mutually and the Supporter and the Opposition also change the positions accordingly. Furthermore, the pair of the Subject and the Object sometimes change the position with the pair of the Supporter and the Oppositionist. There are, however, plural overlapping situations in narrative at the same time. To contend with the overlapping situations present in all narrative structure, she called the potential actant shift not "change" but "transformation."
Independently, researching Russian folklores, Vladimir Propp also provided the "7 act spheres":
However, these are not the types of the person in the story, but rather patterns of behavior; therefore the same person acts sometimes as one "sphere", and later as a different "sphere".
Since ancient times, astrology considered and analyzed the position of the persons concerning a situation with the symbols of the celestial objects and constellations. Georges Polti counted up the needed positions in his famous The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. Étienne Souriau reduced them to only 6 positions named "dramaturgic functions" with astrological symbols:
Linguist Lucien Tesnière considered the function of a verb as most important in dependency grammar and invented the term "actant", various persons that accompany a verb:
Algirdas Julien Greimas redefined actants as the 3 pairs "Modulations":
In sociology, AI and programming language theory, actants are the principal concern of the actor-network theory, the activity of which is described as "mediation" or "translation".
In sociology, the term "actant" is an approach neither to speak of "actors" (who act) or of "systems" (which behave). It was coined by Bruno Latour.[3]