emplot

English

Etymology

em- +‎ plot

Verb

emplot (third-person singular simple present emplots, present participle emplotting, simple past and past participle emplotted)

1. To place an event in the context of a plot or story-line to make a narrative.
   • 1991, Dorothy Matilda Figueira, Translating the Orient‎^[1], page 8:

     One thing is, however, certain: Through the early rudimentary translations from the Sanskrit, India was emplotted by the West. By this I mean that incomplete projections from a variety of sources were given a voice defined through narrative, and received the authority of signification.

   • 2013 February 7, Jackie Ellis et al., “The long-term impact of early parental death: lessons from a narrative study”, in J R Soc Med, →DOI:

     Each story was then interrogated to determine how it was emplotted (i.e. how the informants organized and evaluated their stories, around what sets of issues, actors, events, the language used, etc.) and compared with establish what the individual stories have in common and where they diverged around specific social or cultural circumstances and variation in meaning for individuals.

   • 2014, Brian Treanor, Emplotting Virtue‎^[2], page 171:

     Emplotting a narrative gives us an "as-if" experience of ways in which human action relates to happiness (eudaimonia) by illustrating the manner in which certain sorts of conduct lead to flourishing or decline.

Related terms

• emplotment

Translations

to place within a storyline or plot

Anagrams

• tempol