Sevcan IŞIK 2 ÖZ Bu çalışmanın amacı Doris Lessing'in kısa hikayesi Yaşlı Şef Mshlanga'yı (1951) Greimas'ın aktan modeline göre incelemektir. Hikaye, adının bilinmediği başkarakterin çocukluğundan ergenliğine geçen süreyi kapsamaktadır. Hikayeyi anlamak için siyah kültür ve beyaz kültür arasındaki çatışmayı gözlemlemek çok önemlidir. Takma adı Nkosikaas (Ö1) olan başkarakterin siyahiler ile ilgili fikri çocukken okuduğu masallardan ve ailesinden edindiğidir. Yaşlı şef Mshlanga (Ö2) ile

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... na kadar bu fikre inanmaktadır. Bu karşılaşmadan sonra Ö1 siyahilere karşı daha nazik olmaya başlar ve onlarla selamlaşır. Bu şekilde davranarak siyahilerin topraklarında yaşamasını haklılaştırmaya çalışıyor gibidir ancak bunun siyahilere bir faydası yoktur. Hikâyenin anlamı yüzeysel anlamdan başlanılarak soyut veya derin anlama yapılan bir araştırmayla bulunmaya çalışılacaktır. Yüzeysel anlamı araştırırken hikâye üç ana kesite ayrılacaktır. Bu kesitlerde birey ya da soyut şeyler olabilen özneler zaman ve uzamdaki yerlerine uygun olarak gösterileceklerdir. Bunun yanı sıra, aktanların figurative yapılarına değinilecektir. Son olarak, semiyotik karelerde anlatının ana temasını oluşturan zıtlıklar anlam bilimsel düzeyde gösterilecektir. Anahtar Kelimeler: Göstergebilim, Doris Lessing, Siyah kültür, beyaz kültür ve zıtlıklar. ABSTRACT This paper aims to analyze the short story The Old Chief Mshlanga (1951) by Dorris Lessing according to Greimas's actantial model. It covers the period from the childhood of unnamed protagonist to her adolescence. In the story, the opposition between black culture and white culture is of great importance in giving the meaning of the text. As a child, the girl whose nickname Nkosikaas (S1) has an instilled white perspective towards the natives. She takes for granted them through the fairy tales she has read and through the white culture imposed on her by her parents. This is her inverted reality until she encounters the old Chief Mshlanga (S2). After that S1 changes her attitude towards the natives, offers and takes greetings with them and by doing this she tries to justify her position as a white settler in the lands of S2, which brings no gain to the blacks neither in the sense of the unequal treatment of them or the usurpation of their lands. The meaning of the story will be searched from surface level to the abstract or deep one, that is, narrative, discursive and logical-semantic respectively. In the former, the story will be segmented into three main segments which will include a many sub-segments. In these segments, the actions and actants that can be an individual or an abstract thing will be displayed in accordance with their places in time and space. Besides, there will be a focus on the figurative natures of the actants. Lastly, when the logical-semantic level is concerned the oppositions that compose the main theme of the narrative will be shown in semiotic squares. According to semiotic theory "meaning is not inherent in objects, they do not signify by themselves, but meaning is constructed by a competent observer -a subject -capable of giving 'form' to objects" (Martin and Ringham 118). In this context, Algirdas Julien Greimas (1917-92) who was a French semanticist and semiotician emphasizes the importance of narration because he believes that meaning is given through narration that can be perceived through other systems besides natural languages. Thereupon, it is stated Greimas' semiotics, which is generative and transformational, goes through three phases of development. He begins by working out semiotics of action where subjects are defined in terms of their quest for objects, following a canonical narrative schema, which is a formal framework made up of three successive sequences: a mandate, an action and an evaluation. He then constructs a narrative grammar and works out a syntax of narrative programs in which subjects are joined up with or separated from objects of value. In the second phase he works out a cognitive semiotics, where in order to perform, subjects must be competent to do so. The subjects' competence is organized by means of a modal grammar that accounts for their existence and performance.