數學小說初探：以結構主義敘事分析比較兩本小說

A Preliminary Study of Math Fiction: Comparisons of Two Novels Through Perspectives of Structuralism and Narrative Analysis

10.6173/CJSE.2009.1706.04

林芳玫(Fang-Mei Lin)；洪萬生(Wann-Sheng Horng)

數學與敘事 ； 數學小說 ； 結構主義 ； 敘事功能 ； 數學作為一種文學比喻 ； Math and Narrative ； Mathematical Fiction ； Structuralism ； Narrative Function ； Mathas Literary Metaphor

科學教育學刊

17卷6期（2009 / 12 / 01）

531 - 549

繁體中文

從一個新的文類(genre)來看，數學小說(mathematical fiction)已經相當成熟，而它對數學教育與文學寫作的影響也逐漸顯現。本論文從「數學與敘事」(mathematics and narrative)切入，試圖探討數學與說故事乃至文學敘事之關聯。我們以《遇見哥德巴赫猜想》及《博士熱愛的算式》兩本小說為分析對象。至於研究、比較這兩本小說的理論觀點，則是利用從結構主義語言學發展出來的敘事分析。其中，我們發現數學小說的敘事風格，與作者所運用的數學知識息息相關，也因此演變成為一個嶄新的文類，為數學的「隱喻」(metaphor)賦予了極有價值的意涵。另一方面，由於這兩部小說都涉及數學知識普及活動，因此，運用我們發展的指標給予適當評價，也為我們打開一個全新的科普書寫與分享空間，提升中小學師生乃至一般社會大眾的閱讀興趣。

As a relatively new genre, mathematical fiction has emerged as mature and wide-spread, and its influence on both math education and literary writing has become increasingly important. This paper uses ”math and narrative” as a point of departure, attempting to explore the relationship between math and story-telling, as well as math and literary narrative. In this paper, two novels are compared and analyzed: Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture and The Housekeeper and the Professor: A Novel. We adopt structuralism as a literary method to compare the narrative functions and contrasts in these two novels. We conclude that the mathematical issues described in the novels are related to the authors' narrative and literary styles, thereby endowing math with a new role of serving as a metaphor in literary works. Meanwhile, these two novels can be regarded as works of popular math writing, so we used the indicators of popular math books to evaluate these two novels. These two novels open up a new space for the writing of popular science, as well as raising the reading interests of schoolteachers and students as well as the general public.

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