What is "isotopy"

n. 1 (context mathematics English) A form of homotopy that is always an embedding. 2 (context linguistics English) The repetition of a basic meaning trait (seme) within a story.

Isotopy may refer to:

In a story, we detect an isotopy when there is a repetition of a basic meaning trait ( seme); such repetition, establishing some level of familiarity within the story, allows for a uniform reading/interpretation of it. An example of a sentence containing an isotopy is I drink some water. The two words drink and water share a seme (a reference to liquids), and this gives homogeneity to the sentence.

This concept, introduced by Greimas in 1966, had a major impact on the field of semiotics, and was redefined multiple times. Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni extended the concept to denote the repetition of not only semes, but also other semiotic units (like phonemes for isotopies as rhymes, rhythm for prosody, etc.). Umberto Eco showed the flaws of using the concept of "repetition", and replaced it with the concept of "direction", redefining isotopy as "the direction taken by an interpretation of the text".