Barbara Johnstone

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Narrative
Structuralist narratology
Personal experience narrative (PEN)
The development of narrative skill & style
Narrative research across disciplines
Current research
Conclusions

Herakles
attaking a Centaur Cadmus slaying the dragon

 narrative is present in myth, legend, fables, tales, short

stories, epics, history, tragedy, drame [suspense drama],
comedy, pantomime, paintings (), stained-glass windows,
movies, local news, conversation. Moreover, in this infinite
variety of forms, it is present at all times, in all places, in all
societies; indeed, narrative starts with the very history of
mankind; there is not, there has never been anywhere, any
people without narrative; all classes, all human groups,
have their stories, and very often those stories are enjoyed
by men of different and even opposite cultural backgrounds
() Like life itself, it is there, international, transhistorical,
transcultural.
Barthes (1975: 237)

Definition
a discourse genre
a specific talk in which a sequence of clauses
is matched to a sequence of events (cf. Labov)
talk that represents events in the past
story=narrative with a point (everyday parlance)

myth= the sacred (hi)story of creation

(cf. Eliade)

= fable, fiction, invention

transformed and enriched in time by each teller, under
the influence of different cultures

cf. Claude Lvi-Strauss, Mythologiques (a

work of cultural anthropology) traditional
narrative around the world, though superficially
varied, all deals with a limited number of basic
themes.

abstract elements of meaning that are expressed in myth:

male/female
mineral/ vegetal
raw/cooked

cf. Vladimir Propp Morphology of the folktale(1928/1968),

all folktales have the same syntagmatic deep structure

1. Introduction of
characters &
their original
situation;
2. Interdiction
addressed to
the
hero/heroine;
3. Violating ban;
4. The villain;
5. The disaster;
6. The miraculous
happy ending.

In the 60s, mile Benveniste made the

difference between histoire and discours:
story= the events
discourse= the presentation of the events
in a narrative

Ronald Barthes: the analysis of narrative

stops at the analysis of discourse

People talk about their past

to
to
to
to

share their experiences

justify for something
praise themselves
merely entertain

They make choices as they narrate by

using a variety of devices.

They searched for:

Invariable semantic deep structure of PEN
Surface differences vs. social characteristics of the narrators
Findings:
Functions of individual clauses:
2.

Referential clauses events, characters, setting

Evaluative clauses the point of the story

Functions of a fully developed narrative:

1.

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abstract
orientation
complicating action
evaluation
result or resolution
coda

Importance:
Connected talk is orderly and describable in
terms of its structure and function
Like

syntax, discourse can be modeled in terms of

variable surface structure and
invariable deep structure

Reference is not the only function of talk

PEN is context related

New studies => computer generated narrative

Children learn to take other people's perspectives

& to provide orientational and evaluative detail
- Variation of strategies
- Simple syntax
- Fallowing the functions of narrative in their
community
=> variation in narrative:
* geographic
* social class
* ethnicity
* gender

Narrative rhetoric
History as story
Research method in education (narrative
study of lives)
Poststructuralist literary narratology

Interdisciplinary:
nu
rs
ing

comparative literature
communication

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philosophy

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linguistics

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psychology
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sociology and social work

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rhetoric

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art

All the structuralist approaches to myth and

literature agree that:
a) There are abstract levels on which structures and meanings
are the same
b) Narrative can be separated from the events it is about

Political effects of narrative: storytelling can be

used as a resource to dominate others, to express
solidarity, for resistance and conflict

Through telling, we construct our experiential

worlds

Olga Sutherland
Andrea V. Breen
Stephen P. Lewis

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Definitions
Narrative vs. Discursive analysis
Context
A case study
Conclusions

Story = what people say

Narrative
a way of structuring stories
a series of events and their associated meanings for the
teller (cf. Riessman) => (on broad) any written, verbal, and
visual forms of expression that construct meaning by
establishing sequences of experiences.
a form of social interaction (cultural dependent)

Personal narratives can be analyzed through rhetorical,

cultural, historical, political, and performative perspective.

Narrative inquiry focuses on the

storyteller (sequencing & temporality)

Discursive forms of inquiry focuses on

how narrative structures and the context
of storytelling are produced through talk
and writing

attention to the context of the storytelling

treatment of the micro-details of storytelling

NA treats the entire story as an analytic unit

(focus on temporality and sequentiality of events)

DA is more focused on the micro-details

(identify the micro-details of language use involved in temporal and
sequential ordering of events )

Intended audience in storytelling (predicted by the author,

and their role in the story & the storys listener/reader)

In writing, the narrator orients the reader => anticipated

responses from the reader and the socio-cultural context

They searched for:

Narrative sequences of autobiographical data (71 websites,
97 accounts containing prose or poems)
How the participants to online autobiographical accounts of
non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) construct events and
experiences as sequentially linked and temporarily
related
The studied levels of language : lexical, grammatical, social
and pragmatic

Strategy: discursive-narrative
Narrative analytic questions:
how stories are assembled
for whom
for what purpose

Findings:
narrators constituted their experiences as intense
and unbearable using a range of discursive practices and
devices :
producing contrasting descriptions of emotional states,
using figurative language (images, metaphores), vivid or vague
descriptions, and extreme case formulations
Involving the potential audithory

people treat narrative conventions (e.g., narrative types,

forms) as resources to be used in the course of narration

Importance:
It incorporates analytic concepts from discourse
analysis into the narrative analysis
It remembers the importance of analyzing the
narrators social or interactive orientation

Narrative analysts focus on identifying narratives

structures and components

Discursive narrative approach highlights stories

action-orientation and the way stories are
constituted for the occasions of their production

Narrative construction should be situated within

social dynamics and context

Johnstone, Barbara. (2003)."Discourse Analysis and Narrative." The Handbook of

Discourse Analysis. Schiffrin, Deborah, Deborah Tannen and Heidi E. Hamilton (eds).
Blackwell
Publishing.
at
http://www.blackwellreference.com/subscriber/tocnode?
id=g9780631205968_chunk_g978063120596833
Sutherland,Olga, & Breen, Andrea V., & Lewis, Stephen P. (2013). Discursive Narrative
Analysis: A Study of Online Autobiographical Accounts of Self-Injury. The Qualitative
Report Volume 18, Article 95, pp.1-17. at
http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR18/sutherland95.pdf
Barthes, Roland & Duisit, Lionel. (1975). An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of
Narratives in New Literary History, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 237-272. at
http://www.uv.es/fores/Barthes_Structural_Narrative.pdf
Eliade, Mircea. (1978). Aspecte ale mitului. Bucureti: Editura Univers.
at
http://monoskop.org/images/5/5a/Eliade_Mircea_Aspecte_ale_mitului_1978.Pdf
Lvi-Strauss, Claude. (1955). The Structural Study of Myth in American Folklore
Societys The Journal of American Folklore, Vol.68,
No.270, pp.428-444. at
http://people.ucsc.edu/~ktellez/levi-strauss.pdf
Propp, Vladimir. (1968). Excerpts from: Vladmir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale. at
http://homes.di.unimi.it/~alberti/Mm10/doc/propp.pdf