| Chapter 3: | Methodology |
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of linearity will be used as the theoretical frameworks of the present study.
3.1. Identifying Functional Events
Given that an event, bringing a change of state, is the most fundamental requirement in narrative, labelling of events and states in terms of Propp's functional events is one of the methods to analyse the basic story structure (Toolan, 1988). As discussed earlier, Propp (1968) claimed that functional events, as an act of a character defined from the point of view of its significance for the course of the action, can be extracted as basic components of the tale. Following Propp's definition of functional events, the first phase of analysis will be the extraction of all the functional events making up these selected tales.
To be able to extract the functional events from the tales, it is necessary to explain the distribution of narrative roles by the characters in each tale. The 31 functional events proposed in Propp's study are distributed among seven leading dramatis personae. These leading narrative roles can be defined as follows (Propp, 1968, pp. 79–80):