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Article published In:
Real Fictions: Fictionality, factuality and narrative strategies in contemporary storytelling
Edited by Sam Browse, Alison Gibbons and Mari Hatavara
[Narrative Inquiry 29:2] 2019
► pp. 268–292

Adjusting to new “truths”

The relation between the spatio-temporal context and identity work in repeated WWII-testimonies

| KU Leuven
| KU Leuven

In this article, we study the diachronic (re)construction of repeated WWII-testimonies. Specifically, we scrutinize how shifting master narratives in the social context may affect how stories are told in a particular time and place. We selected testimonies by two Belgian concentration camp survivors – one Flemish and one Walloon – who both wrote down their story twice, namely in 1946 and 1985. By comparing the “same” diachronically dispersed stories – thus addressing the temporal dimension – and the differences in the narrators’ regional background – thus incorporating the spatial dimension – we study how overlapping and differing storytelling environments influenced the narratives’ construction. In the analyses, we adopt an interactional-sociolinguistic approach to illustrate the storytelling environments’ influence upon the story formulations and the relativity of what is presented as the “truth”, since the narrators continuously adjusted their stories and identities to fit with the ever-evolving storytelling context.

Keywords: master narratives, identity, social context, truth, cross-fictionality, interactional sociolinguistics, WWII-testimonies, WWII-remembrance
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Research question
  • Method and data
  • Sketching the different storytelling contexts: WWII-remembrance in Belgium
  • Analysis
    • Stephen
    • Philip
  • Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.19020.sch
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