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Article published In:
Stance, resonance and the power of engagement
Edited by Bracha Nir and Elisabeth Zima
[Functions of Language 24:1] 2017
► pp. 94–120

Resonance as a resource for stance-taking in narratives

| University of Haifa

This paper traces the recurrence and manipulation of devices in monologic narrative texts produced by university students based on a semi-structured elicitation. It focuses on a detailed analysis of multiple texts produced by different speaker-writers of Hebrew, to illustrate the function of structural resonance of both clauses and combinations of clauses (Clause Packages). The analyses show that while lexical devices reflect a more distanced (less evaluative) discourse stance (Berman 2005), the use of creative resonance (Du Bois 2014) between syntactic structures can either enhance or undermine the narrator’s own explicit perspective on events. Stance is thus not only highlighted by resonance in monologic texts (Sakita this issue); in fact, stance is engaged with in a way that is very similar to what has been illustrated for dialogue (Dori-Hacohen this issue; Dutra this issue; Nir & Zima this issue). It is suggested that the power of this engagement can be fully assessed only if lexical and syntactic resonance are systematically analyzed.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Resources for stance-taking in discourse
    • 1.2Narrative discourse stance
  • 2.Resonance and stance-taking in monologic narratives
    • 2.1Alignment and dis-alignment in monologic narratives
  • 3.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24.1.05nir
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