Narrative 255991 222408257 2008-06-29T05:18:26Z ClueBot 4928500 Reverting possible vandalism by [[Special:Contributions/12.71.17.3|12.71.17.3]] to version by 72.78.171.141. False positive? [[User:ClueBot/FalsePositives|Report it]]. Thanks, [[User:ClueBot]]. (427835) (Bot) A '''narrative''' or story is a construct created in a suitable format (written, spoken, poetry, prose, images, song, [[theater]], or [[dance]]) that describes a sequence of [[fictional]] or non-fictional events. It derives from the [[Latin language|Latin]] verb ''narrare'', which means "to recount" and is related to the adjective ''gnarus'', meaning "'''knowing'''" or "'''skilled'''".<ref>Oxford English Dictionary Online, "narrate, ''v.''". Oxford University Press, 2007</ref> (Ultimately derived from the [[Proto-Indo-European language|Proto-Indo-European]] root ''gnō-'', "to know".<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/61/roots/IE177.html The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.]</ref>) The word "story" may be used as a synonym of "narrative", but can also be used to refer to the sequence of events described in a narrative. A narrative can also be told by a character within a larger narrative. Stories are an important aspect of [[culture]]. Many works of [[art]] and most works of [[literature]] tell stories. Most of the [[humanities]] involve stories. Stories are of ancient origin, existing in [[ancient Egypt]], [[ancient Greek]], Chinese, and Indian culture. Stories are also a ubiquitous component of human communication, used as [[parables]] and examples used to illustrate points. [[Storytelling]] was probably one of the earliest forms of [[entertainment]]. ==Conceptual issues== [[Semiotics]] begins with the individual building blocks of [[Meaning (semiotics)|meaning]] called [[sign (semiotics)|signs]] &mdash; and [[semantics]], the way in which signs are combined into [[code (semiotics)|codes]] to transmit messages. This is part of a general [[communication]] system using both verbal and nonverbal elements, creating a discourse with different [[modality (semiotics)|modalities]] and forms. In ''On Realism in Art'', [[Roman Jakobson]] argues that ''literature'' does not exist as a separate entity. He and many other semioticians prefer the view that all texts, whether spoken or written, are the same except that some authors [[encode (semiotics)|encode]] their texts with distinctive ''literary'' qualities that distinguish them from other forms of discourse. Nevertheless, there is a clear trend to address literary narrative forms as separable from other forms. This is first seen in [[Russian Formalism]] through [[Victor Shklovsky]]'s analysis of the relationship between composition and style, and in the work of [[Vladimir Propp]] who analyzed the [[Plot (narrative)|plot]]s used in traditional folktales and identified distinct functional components. This trend continues in the work of the [[Prague linguistic circle|Prague School]] and of French scholars such as [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] and [[Roland Barthes]]. It leads to a structural analysis of narrative and an increasingly influential body of modern work that raises important [[epistemology|epistemological]] questions: What is ''text?'' What is its role in the contextual [[culture]]? How is it manifested as art, cinema, theater, or literature? How are poetry, short stories and novels of different [[genre]]s? ==Literary theory== For general purposes in Semiotics and [[Literary theory|Literary Theory]], a "narrative" is a [[Plot (narrative)|story]] or part of a story. It may be spoken, written or imagined, and it will have one or more [[point of view (literature)|points of view]] representing some or all of the participants or observers. In stories told verbally, there is a person telling the story, a [[narrator]] whom the audience can see and/or hear, and who adds layers of meaning to the text nonverbally. The narrator also has the opportunity to monitor the audience's response to the story and to modify the manner of the telling to clarify content or enhance listener interest. This is distinguishable from the written form in which the author must gauge the readers likely reactions when they are [[decode (semiotics)|decoding]] the text and make a final choice of words in the hope of achieving the desired response. Whatever the form, the content may concern real-world people and events. This is termed ''personal experience narrative''. When the content is [[fiction]]al, different conventions apply. The text is projecting a narrative voice, but the narrator is [[ontology|ontologically]] distant, i.e. belongs to an invented or [[imaginary world]], and not the real world. The narrator may be one of the characters in the story. [[Roland Barthes]] describes such characters as "paper beings" and fiction comprises their narratives of personal experience as created by the author. When their thoughts are included, this is termed ''internal focalisation'', i.e. when each character's mind focuses on a particular event, the text reflects his or her reactions. In written forms, the reader ''hears'' the narrator's voice both through the choice of content and style (the author can [[encode (semiotics)|encode]] voices for different emotions and situations, and the voices can either be overt or covert), and through clues that reveal the narrator's beliefs, values, and [[ideology|ideological]] stance, as well as the author's attitude towards people, events, and things. It is customary to distinguish a [[first-person narrative|first-person]] from a [[third-person narrative]] ([[Gérard Genette]] uses the terms ''homodiegetic'' and ''heterodiegetic'' narrative respectively). A homodiegetic narrator describes his or her personal and subjective experiences as a character in the story. Such a narrator cannot know anything more about what goes on in the minds of any of the other characters than is revealed through their actions, whereas a heterodiegetic narrator describes the experiences of the characters who do appear in the story and, if the story's events are seen through the eyes of a third-person internal focaliser, this is termed a ''figural narrative''. In some stories, the author may be overtly omniscient, and both employ multiple points of view and comment directly on events as they occur. [[Tzvetan Todorov]] (1969) coined the term [[narratology]] for the [[structuralist]] analysis of any given narrative into its constituent parts to determine their function(s) and relationships. For these purposes, the story is ''what'' is narrated as usually a chronological sequence of themes, motives and plot lines. Hence, the plot represents the logical and causal structure of a story, explaining why the events occur. The term ''[[discourse]]'' is used to describe the stylistic choices that determine ''how'' the narrative text or performance finally appears to the audience. One of the stylistic decisions may be to present events in a non-chronological order, say using flashbacks to reveal motivations at a dramatic moment. {{IPA|}} ==See also== * [[Applied Drama]] * [[Literary technique]] * [[Folklore]] * [[Narrator]] * [[Narratology]] * [[Narrative structure]] * [[Narreme]] as the basic unit of narrative structure * [[Organizational storytelling]] * [[Organization story]] ===Other specific applications=== * A narrative [[case study]] is a case study that tells a [[story]]. * [[Narrative environment]] is a contested term that has been used for techniques of architectural or exhibition design in which 'stories are told in space' and also for the [[virtual]] environments in which computer games are played and which are invented by the computer game authors. * [[Narrative film]] is [[film]] which uses filmed reality to tell a story, often as a [[feature film]]. * [[Narrative history]] is a genre of factual historical writing that uses [[chronology]] as its framework (as opposed to a thematic treatment of a historical subject). * [[Narrative poetry]] is poetry that tells a story. * [[Narrative Therapy]] is a school of (family) psychotherapy. ==Sources== {{reflist}} ==Further reading== *Clandinin, D. J. & Connelly, F. M. (2000). Narrative inquiry: Experience and story in qualitative research. Jossey-Bass. *[http://books.google.com/books?id=yVBXPf50EV0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22making+social+science+matter%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&sig=CNCTRgLt1z1rRBTbFsPrUf_w_M0 Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). ''Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).] *[http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/Publications2006/0604FIVEMISPUBL2006.pdf Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). "Five Misunderstandings About Case Study Research." Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 12, no. 2, 219-245.] *Genette, Gérard. (1980 [1972]). ''Narrative Discourse. An Essay in Method''. (Translated by Jane E. Lewin). Oxford: Blackwell. *Hunter, Kathryn Montgomery (1991). "Doctors' Stories: The Narrative Structure of Medical Knowledge." Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. *Jakobson, Roman. (1921). "On Realism in Art" in ''Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structuralist''. (Edited by Ladislav Matejka & Krystyna Pomorska). The MIT Press. *Labov, William. (1972). Chapter 9: The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax. In: "Language in the Inner City." Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. *Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1958 [1963]). ''Anthropologie Structurale''/''Structural Anthropology''. (Translated by Claire Jacobson & Brooke Grundfest Schoepf). New York: Basic Books. *Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1962 [1966]). ''La Pensée Sauvage''/''The Savage Mind (Nature of Human Society). London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. *Lévi-Strauss, Claude. ''Mythologiques I-IV'' (Translated by John Weightman & Doreen Weightman) *Linde, Charlotte (2001). Chapter 26: Narrative in Institutions. In: Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen & Heidi E. Hamilton (ed.s) "The Handbook of Discourse Analysis." Oxford & Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. *Norrick, Neal R. (2000). "Conversational Narrative: Storytelling in Everyday Talk." Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. *Polanyi, Livia. (1985). "Telling the American Story: A Structural and Cultural Analysis of Conversational Storytelling." Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishers Corporation. *Shklovsky, Viktor. (1925 [1990]). ''Theory of Prose''. (Translated by Benjamin Sher). Normal, IL: [[Dalkey Archive Press]]. *Todorov, Tzvetan. (1969). ''Grammaire du Décameron''. The Hague: Mouton. *Toolan, Michael (2001). "Narrative: a Critical Linguistic Introduction" *Turner, Mark (1996). "The Literary Mind" ==External links== *[http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pcraddoc/narhand1.htm Some Ideas about Narrative] notes on narrative from an academic perspective *[http://www.storycode.com StoryCode] - is a free book recommendation service based on the analysis of narrative structures. *[http://www.narratology.net Narrnet - The Narratology Network] *[http://www.uni-koeln.de/%7Eame02/pppn.htm Manfred Jahn. ''Narratology: A Guide to the Theory of Narrative''] *[http://www.NewYorkNarrative.com New York Narrative - NYC Story Blog] This is a clog (community blog) where writers can share their narratives. *[http://aton.ttu.edu] Narrative archive at Texas Tech University [[Category:Fiction]] [[Category:Style (fiction)]] [[Category:Fiction-writing mode]] [[Category:Narratology| ]] [[Category:Semiotics]] [[Category:Mental structures]] [[da:Narrativ]] [[de:Erzählung]] [[es:Relato]] [[eo:Rakonto]] [[fr:narration]] [[he:סיפר]] [[ja:物語]] [[nn:forteljing]] [[pl:Narracja]] [[pt:Narração]] [[ru:Нарратив]] [[sv:Berättelse]] [[uk:Наратив]] [[zh:敘事]]