Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience

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Narrative Analysis Oral Versions of Personal
Experience

• By William Labov and Joshua Waletzky

Miriam D. Dufer
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Goals

• Present an analytical framework for the analysis
  of oral versions of personal experience in
  English
• Introduce definitions of the basic units of
  narrative
• Outline the normal structure of the narrative as
  a whole
• Present some general propositions about the
  relation of formal properties to narrative
  functions based on an examination of a moderate
  body of data

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008
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Narrative Defined

• One method of recapitulating past experience by
  matching a verbal sequence of clauses to the
  sequence of events that actually occurred
• Functions of Narrative
• Referential
• Evaluative

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008
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The Basic Framework of Narrative

• Temporal sequence
• An important defining property that proceeds from
  its referential function
• Displacement sets
• Semantic interpretation when the clause is moved
  to different positions
• Coordinate clauses
• Identical displacements
• Restricted clauses
• Neither free nor temporally ordered in the strict
  sense
• Temporal juncture
• Two clauses that are temporally ordered with
  respect to each other

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008
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Narrative Clause

• A narrative N may be represented as a set of n
  clauses
• Any sequence of clauses that contains at least
  one temporal juncture is narrative
• Narrative Heads
• The finite verb of a narrative clause
• Carries the tense maker of the clause
• Heads of coordinate clauses are coordinate heads

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008
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Sequences

• Related narrative sequences
• Surface structure of narrative
• Narratives with rather different surface
  structures but equivalent semantic
  interpretations
• Isolated primary sequences
• The narrative with the most explicit statement of
  this relation as the basic underlying form and
  derive other equivalent narratives from it

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008
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Overall Structure of Narratives

• Orientation
• Complication
• Evaluation
• Resolution
• Coda

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008
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Conclusion

• Related the sequence of narrative elements to the
  inferred sequence of experience that is being
  recapitulated
• Narrative units, restricted clause, free clause,
  and narrative clause
• Outlined principal elements of simple narratives
  that perform both referential and evaluative
  functions

Miriam D. Dufer ENGL 805 Spring 2008