Chapter 4. Constructing perspectives as positioning resources in stories of the self

Perspectivation – verbal practices to represent perspectives – can be used in personal storytelling to negotiate moral claims which are crucial to the teller’s self. The perspectives of different interactants in the story-world can show up in complicated fusions or as contested battlefields, contrasting, backing or commenting each other. Preferably in reported speech and scenic re-stagings of episodes, the narrator as “almighty author” can shape or frame the voices of problematic interactants within the story by means of rhetorical devices, which enables him to gain authentification and persuasive power while refraining from explicit evaluations.

Published online: 28 February 2013
https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.17.05luc