| Chapter 2: | Narrative and Its Structures |
|
|
This is a limited free preview of this book. Please buy full access.
It is important to note that although most minimalist definitions of a narrative cover the two generally accepted criteria of sequentiality (temporal succession) and causality (either explicit or implicit) between events, the concept of events forming a narrative is better understood only when it is discussed in connection with its related concept (i.e., the plot, or the ways in which events are represented, or ‘the order in which events are recounted’ [Abbott, 2002, p. 16]).
An analysis of narrative structure from this perspective can help us realise that in addition to a single closed storyline of beginning, middle, and end, the structures of different types of narrative may show the varying degree of connectedness, nonrandomness, and sequentiality of events in a plot. Accordingly, a narrative genre can be examined as a certain combination of functional events; the differences between the genres of narrative can be understood as partly the result of the different possible combinations of event sequences (Güttgemanns, 1977).
For example, the differences in narrative structures between literary genres of narrative and personal narrative have been discussed by Ochs and Capps (2001). They showed how the storylines in informal conversations are open-ended, incomplete, or unresolved, whereas interview narratives may first yield a tidy story that subsequently disintegrates. ‘The narrative structures of these types of narrative may or may not encompass a beginning, middle, and end since it depends on how interlocutors attempt to craft the plot’ (Ochs & Capps, 2001, p. 57). Swales (1990) also claimed that