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Linguistic Foundations of Narration in Spoken and Sign Languages
Edited by Annika Hübl and Markus Steinbach
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 247] 2018
► pp. 173–206

What is a Narration – and why does it matter?

| University of Bamberg

Despite the increasing interest in textual structure and the specific use of linguistic means in narratives, the concept of Narration has so far not been an issue of theoretical concern within linguistics but has rather been used than defined or problematized. In this respect, the chapter takes a closer look at the concept of Narration itself. The starting point is the basic assumption that the analysis of Free Indirect Discourse (FID) – a phenomenon which seems to be restricted to Narration only – will offer crucial insights with respect to characteristics of the underlying narrative structure when read “against the grain”. In this regard, the alignment of formal approaches of context shift and cognitive approaches of perspectivization leads to the conclusion that the narratological differentiation between narrator and character can be seen as a projection of the grammatical differentiation between speaker vs. observer, which is reflected on the different linguistic levels in a recursive manner. Consequently, I argue that the complex unfolding of different layers of discourse allows for poly-perspectival resp. metarepresentational effects on the textual macro-structure and hence constitutes a core characteristic of Narration. Against this background, the proposed model is not only able to align micro- and macro-structural accounts of Narration but also allows for a new perspective on the specific use of grammatical means in narrative discourse. In this respect, the paper argues that Narration does indeed matter for linguistics.

Article outline
  • 1.The mystery of Narration
  • 2.What is a Narration?
    • 2.1Micro-structural conceptions of Narration: The sequence of events
    • 2.2Macro-structural conceptions of Narration: The double-layered structure of discourse
  • 3.The anatomy of the double-layered structure of Narration
    • 3.1The case of free indirect discourse (FID)
    • 3.2 The How and What of narrative discourse
    • 3.3Is there a narrator at all?
    • 3.4Who speaks?
    • 3.5Interim conclusion: the configuration of narrative discourse structure
  • 4.Narration in oral story telling
  • 5.What about fictionality?
  • 6.Why it matters
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 May 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.247.08zem
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