Ruth Wodak's 19th March presentation

1. (Critical) Approaches to Narrative
Analysis
RUTH WODAK
DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF DISCOURSE STUDIES
LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/profiles/Ruth-Wodak/

2. Definitions
‘Grand narratives’, stories
Grand narratives stories,
accounts, examples, etc.
Ruth Wodak, AIM Workshop, 2
London 190309

3. Why study/analyze
narratives?
• ‘The essence of humanness, long
characterized as the tendency to make
y
sense of the world through rationality, has
come increasingly to be described as the
tendency to tell stories, to make sense of
the world through narrative ’ (Johnstone
narrative.
2001: 635)
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London 190309

4. Narratives and Identities
The construction of national identities always necessarily
draws on narratives which relate the past, present and
future in specific ways:
p y
“To put it in a nutshell, the identity narrative
channels political emotions so that they can fuel
efforts to modify a balance of power; it transforms
the perceptions of the past and of the present; it
changes the organization of human groups and
creates new ones; it alters cultures by emphasizing
certain traits and skewing their meanings and logic.
The identity narrative brings forth a new
interpretation of the world in order to modify it
(Martin 1995, 13).
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London 190309

5. Myths and ‘Sense making’
Sense-making
• If the form of a myth as a narrative is a model for making
f f f f
sense of experience, then the content of particular myths
embodies and makes possible this model. …The social
meanings of myth may become identified with the
fundamental organization of understanding by which the mind
knows itself and it world. F thi reason, it i apparent th t if
k it lf d its ld For this is t that
we are fully to understand and explain specific human actions,
we must be able to relate those actions to the social
narratives or myths of the society to which the actor belongs.
It is at least partly through these myths that s/he makes sense
of his world and thus the meaning of their actions …. can
world,
only be grasped through a knowledge of the structure and
meaning of the myth. (Wright 1977, p.194).
• Ruth Wodak, AIM Workshop, 5
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6. Sociolinguistic Perspectives –
Constructing Identities
• Narratives can provide…a SOCIOLINGUISTIC SELF-
PORTRAIT: a linguistic lens through which to discover
people s
people’s on views of themselves (as situated within both
an ongoing interaction and a larger social structure) and
their experiences. Since the situations that speakers
p p
create through narratives—the transformations of
experience enabled by the story world—are also open to
evaluation i the i
l i in h interactional world, these self-portraits
i l ld h lf i
can create an interactional arena in which the speaker’s
view of self and world can be reinforced or challenged
(Schiffrin, 1997, pp. 42, emphasis in the original).
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7. Two Examples – Discourse
and Narrative
Fables, Myths
Fables Myths, Experiences –
‘post-hoc coherence’ (Wodak, 2009)

8. Meanings of ‘Discourse’?
Discourse ?
• A SPECIFIC ‘DISCOURSE’ (‘ +D’) (Racist, Sexist, national,
(‘x+D’) (R i t S i t ti l
liberal, conservative, historical, security, globalisation…)
• ‘DISCOURSE OF’ (Discourse of the EU, Discourse of an
organisation, of men or women, of Hillary Cli t
i ti f f Hill Clinton, ….) )
• ‘DISCOURSE ABOUT’ (unemployment, racism, enlargement…)
• ‘MODE + DISCOURSE’ (visual discourse, written discourse,
( , ,
spoken discourse…)
• DISCOURSE as ‘metaphor’ (lieu de mémoire, as building, as
language, as image….)
• Different language-specific meanings (‘spoken language’,
‘structures of knowledge’…)
Ruth Wodak, ESRC - DA 8
Seminar; Colchester 15/10/08

9. DISCOURSE, TEXT,
DISCOURSE TEXT GENRE
• Discourse implies patterns and commonalities of
knowledge and structures;
• Text is a specific and unique realization of a discourse.
p q
Texts belong to “genres”.
• ‘Genre’: ‘a socially ratified way of using language in
connection with a particular type of social activity’
activity
(Fairclough 1995: 14).
• Text creates sense when its manifest and latent
meanings are read in connection with knowledge of
the world (‘context models’, ‘shared knowledge’,
‘collective memories’ - ‘Resonance’)
CADAAD 11/07/2008, Ruth 9
Wodak

10. Intertextuality, Interdiscursivity,
Recontextualisation, Resonance
• Intertextuality: elements of other texts (words
(words,
phrases, larger elements, quotes, arguments, etc)
incorporated within a text
• Interdiscursivity: combination of different discourses
(in one or more genre/s).
• Recontextualisation: Practices strategies discourses
Practices, strategies, discourses,
arguments may move from one ‘context’, sphere, field,
scale to another (Iedema 1997; Wodak 2000)
• Recontextualized elements transformed according to
the ‘recontextualizing principles’ of the receiving
context (‘resonance’)
( )
CADAAD 11/07/2008, Ruth 10
Wodak

11. An example from Aesop’s fables
Aesop s
The Hare and the Tortoise
A hare one day ridiculed the short feet and slow pace of the
Tortoise, who replied, laughing: “Though y be swift as the
, p , gg g you
wind, I will beat you in a race.” The Hare, believing her
assertion to be simply impossible, assented to the proposal;
and they agreed that the Tortoise should choose the course
and fix the goal. On the day appointed for the race the two
started together. The Tortoise never for a moment stopped,
but went on with a slow but steady pace straight to the end
of the course. The Hare, lying down by the wayside, fell fast
asleep. At last waking up, and moving as fast as he could,
he saw the Tortoise had reached the goal and was
goal,
comfortably dozing after her fatigue. Slow but steady wins
the race.
Ruth Wodak, AIM Workshop, 11
London 190309

12. Everyday Discrimination – Prejudice
Stories
F2: No - she she had kind of a seat behind her and there Constructing contrast
was her child like she had I think (.) and she had ehm (.)
Between expectations
and
eh the bike in her hand or something - I can’t remember experience
()
(.) and she goes really sweetly to the child ‘look sweetie’
g y y
yes that ehm und right away I thought eh she wants to
Scenic story,
performed: how kids
say something say something nice (.) because she also
Are taught/
Socialised into
said it loud so we could hear it well she goes ‘they are
g y
Stereotypes,
and into group
Tschuschen say Tschuschen to them’ (.) and the child
construction
just gazes calmly. Referential strategy
‘tschuschoj’ means
‘foreigner’ Evidence for recontex
tualisation of elite
Discourses and resona-
ting belief systems
CADAAD 11/07/2008, Ruth 12
Wodak

13. PREJUDICE STORIES II (‘THE GAZE )
( THE GAZE’)
• It can be hard to feel really at home in Britain [ ] people look at
[…]
you like you sometimes (.) like you shouldn’t be there and (1.0)
like they don’t want you there (UK, Pakistan, F, 42)
• […]
[ ] when you walk around the city people look at me (.) They do
()
not want migrants to be seen […] Sometimes you are afraid to go
out (↓) (SW, Turkey, F, shawl)
• []
[…] lots of young people were standing around us ( ) and just
y gp p g (-) j
looking at me (-) with my pitch-black HAIR (-) tanned skin
(laughs) and dressed like ah a southerner (--) and then it got
really uncomfortable (-) suddenly (-) so we left the fair pretty
quickly ( ) and drove back to the youth hostel ( ) and I didn‘t dare go
(-) (-) didn t
out on the street anymore (-) I couldn’t wait (-) for the day (.) that we
drove back two days later (--) it was not a great (--) great (.) great
time (G, Italy, M, 31)
(, y, , )
CADAAD 11/07/2008, Ruth 13
Wodak

14. Four-Level
Four Level Model of ‘Context’
Context
• the immediate, language or text internal co-text;
• the intertextual and interdiscursive relationship between
utterances, texts, genres and discourses;
tt tt d di
• the extralinguistic social/sociological variables and
institutional frames of a specific “context of situation ;
context situation”;
• the broader socio-political and historical contexts, to
which the discursive practices are embedded in and
related.(Wodak 2001, 2004, 2008)
Ruth Wodak, ESRC - DA 14
Seminar; Colchester 15/10/08

15. Defining Narrative
Narrative & Genre

16. A definition of verbal narrative
• A narrative can be defined as the telling of
a series of two or more interconnected
events, normally involving one or more
agents/participants.
agents/participants A narrative has a
‘point’ or is ‘tellable’ in the context within
which it occurs
occurs.
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London 190309

17. Narrative as a ‘pre-genre’
(Swales 1990)
•‘
‘narration (
ti (spoken or written) operates
k itt ) t
through a framework of temporal
succession in which at least some of the
events are reactions to the previous events.
Further characteristics of narrative are that
such discourses tend to be strongly
oriented towards the agents of the events
being described, rather than to the events
g
themselves, and that the structure is
typically that of a ‘plot’.’ (
yp y p (Swales 1990: 61)
)
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London 190309

18. Narrative and genre
• Some types of narratives have acquired
the status of genres, such as:
g ,
– Fairy tales
– Novels and short stories
– News reports
– Etc.
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London 190309

19. Analysis of Narratives
Narratemes,
Narratemes reported speech,
speech
deixis, sequential analysis,
argumentation, etc.
argumentation etc
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London 190309

20. ‘Morphology’ of Stories –
‘narratemes’ (Propp, 1962; Wright, 1977)
• By deconstructing a large number of Russian
folk tales into their smallest narrative units –
narratemes – Propp was able to arrive at a
typology of narrative structures: thirty-one
generic narratemes for the genre of the Russian
folk tale. While not all are always present, he
found that all the tales he analysed displayed
the thirty one functions in unvarying sequence
performed by eight characters (hero, villain,
victim, and so forth).
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London 190309

21. Propp’s functions adapted by
Wright (Wild West films)
• ‘A member of a family l
b f f il leaves h home (th h
(the hero i i t d
is introduced);
d)
• The interdiction is violated (villain enters the tale);
• The villain gains information about the victim;
• Victim taken in by deception, unwittingly helping the enemy;
• Villain causes harm/injury to family member;
• Misfortune or lack is made known;
• Hero leaves home;
• Hero acquires use of a magical agent;
• Hero is transferred, delivered or led to whereabouts of an object of the search;
• Hero and villain join in direct combat;
• Villain is defeated;
• Initial misfortune or lack is resolved;
• Hero returns;
• Task is resolved;
• Hero is recognised;
• Villain is punished’.
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•
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22. • For example, narratives can be found in:
– Informal conversation
–PPersonal l tt
l letters
– Academic articles
– Speeches
– Media reporting
– etc.
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23. Narrative and temporal sequences
• The series of events that a narrative is
about, in their chronological order (known
, g (
as ‘fabula’, ‘histoire’ or ‘story’)
vs.
vs
• The way in which these events are told,
including the sequence in which they are
presented (known as ‘sjuzhet’, ‘discours’
sjuzhet , discours
or ‘discourse’).
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24. Narrators
• Distinction between ‘teller’ and ‘tale’.
• Distinction between ‘who tells’ and ‘who
who tells who
sees’.
• Distinction between first-person and third-
first person third
person narrators.
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25. Oral narratives and turn taking
turn-taking
• Narratives as extended conversational
turns
• C ll b ti narratives
Collaborative ti
• Sequential narratives
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London 190309

26. Labov’s (1972) approach to the
structure of oral narratives of personal
experience
• Study of personal narratives told by black
yp y
youngsters and adults in south-central Harlem.
• Model of the main elements included in these
narratives.
• Emphasis on evaluation in narratives i e the
narratives, i.e.
devices used to convey the ‘point’ or’ tellability’
of stories.
stories
(For a more recent paper by Labov on personal narratives see:
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Papers/FebOralNarPE.pdf)
http://www ling upenn edu/~wlabov/Papers/FebOralNarPE pdf)
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London 190309

27. Elements of oral Function Example
narratives
Abstract Announcement that ‘three weeks ago I had a
speaker has a story to fight with this other dude
tell, and brief summary outside’
Orientation Introduction of ‘I was sitting on the
characters, time, place
, ,p corner and’ shit, smoking
, g
and situation. my cigarette, you know’
Complicating action Narration of core ‘I put that cigarette down,
sequence of events
events. and [ ] I beat the shit
[…]
out of that motherfucker’
Evaluation Indications of the point of ‘But it was quite an
the story, why it is worth experience’, ‘I was
story experience I
telling and listening to. shaking like a leaf’
Result or resolution Indication of what finally ‘After all that I gave the
happened. dude a cigarette, after all
that’
Coda Indication that the story ‘And that was that’
is over and connection
with the ongoing talk.
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28. Stories as examples: Topoi-
Definition
Within argumentation theory, “topoi” or “loci” can be
described as parts of argumentation which belong to
the bli t
th obligatory, either explicit or i f bl premises.
ith li it inferable i
They are the content-related warrants or “conclusion
rules
rules” which connect the argument or arguments
with the conclusion, the claim. As such, they justify
the transition from the argument or arguments to the
conclusion (Kienpointner 1992: 194).
Ruth Wodak, ESRC - DA 28
Seminar; Colchester 15/10/08

29. Argumentation (Topoi)
Topos of advantage/disadvantage and
f /
usefulness/uselessness
Topos of definition and name interpretation
Topos of danger and threat
Topos of finance/economy
Topos of reality
Topos of numbers
p
Topos of law
Topos of authority
Topos of history
Topos of culture
Ruth Wodak, ESRC - DA 29
Seminar; Colchester 15/10/08

30. Some Fallacies
The argumentum ad hominem is a verbal attack on the antagonist s personality and
antagonist's
character instead of trying to refute the antagonist's arguments.
The argumentum ad misericordiam consists of unjustifiably appealing for compassion and
empathy in cases where a specific situation of serious difficulties intended to evoke
compassion and to win an antagonist over to one's side is faked or p
p g pretended.
The argumentum ad populum encompasses populist appeals to “masses” of people, to
“mobs” or “snobs”.
The argumentum ad ignorantiam is an appeal to ignorance. This means that a standpoint,
argument or thesis is to be regarded as true if it has not been refuted, I.E., if it has not been
proven not to be the case.
The argumentum ad verecundiam is the misplaced appeal to deep respect and reverence
(Latin verecundia) for authorities.
The “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”-fallacy (i.e. A before B, therefore B because of A) relies
on mixing up a t
ii temporally chronological relationship with a causally consequential one.
ll h l i l l ti hi ith ll ti l
The straw man fallacy amounts to “twisting somebody’s words”, I.E., to presenting a
distorted picture of the antagonist's standpoint in order to be able to refute the standpoint or
argument more easily and to make it less tenable.
Ruth Wodak, ESRC - DA 30
Seminar; Colchester 15/10/08

31. An example from an official speech
• This is the final portion of a speech delivered by Italian PM Silvio
Berlusconi to the US Congress on 1st March 2006:
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, distinguished Members of Congress,
the bonds between Americans and Italians are strong and enduring I
enduring.
am convinced that they will continue to strengthen and that the United
States will always find in Italy a partner nation with which it can share
the same vision of the world.
Allow me to conclude by sharing with you a brief story. It is the story of
a young man, one who had just graduated from high school. His father
took him to a cemetery that was the final resting place for brave young
soldiers,
soldiers young people who had crossed an ocean to restore dignity
and liberty to an oppressed people. In showing him those crosses,
that father made his son vow never to forget the ultimate sacrifice
those young American soldiers had made for his freedom. That father
y g
made his son vow eternal gratitude to that country.
That father was my father, and that young man was me.
I have never forgotten that sacrifice and that vow, and I never will.
g
Thank you.
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London 190309

32. Narrative and the
representation of speech
t ti f h
• Much of our ‘action’ in our lives is
action
communicative, verbal action.
• M h of what h
Much f h t happens i stories i not (
in t i is t (or
not just) what people/characters do, but
what they say.
• In a corpus based study for example
corpus-based study, example,
Semino and Short (2004) found that, in
news reports, th representation of speech
t the t ti f h
accounts for almost half of all words
(approximately 47 per Workshop, of the data). 32
cent
Ruth Wodak, AIM
London 190309

33. Some of the functions of narratives
• Projection of p
j particular representations of
p
‘reality’
• Projection of personal identity
• Strengthening of intimacy and group identity
• Strengthening of feelings of national identity
• Persuasion
• Explanation
• Moral teaching
• Psychological healing
• Projection of alternative worlds
• Entertainment
• etc.
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34. Main points
• Narrative is generally regarded as a crucial phenomenon in
communication, and as central to what it means to be
human.
• Narrative, as a mode of discourse, can be seen as a ‘pre-
genre ; however
genre’; however, some genres are partly defined by being
‘narrative’ in nature.
• Narratives may vary along a range of dimensions (
y y g g (oral vs.
written, mode of narration, temporal sequencing, etc.).
• Narratives can be analysed in terms of their main structural
characteristics.
h t i ti
• Narratives can have a wide range of functions in
communication.
communication
• Narratives are often concerned with things that are said
rather than things that are done.
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35. Further approaches
to the study of narrative
• Narrative and children’s linguistic
development ( g Hudson and Shapiro
p (e.g. p
1991)
• Narrative and gender (e g Coates 2003)
(e.g.
• Narrative and mental representations (e.g.
Rumelhart 1975, Schank and Abelson
1977)
• Narrative and medicine (Charon 2006)
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36. Narrative and the construction of
‘reality’ in news reports
• Two news reports on the same topic from
different newspapers: see separate
handout.
handout
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37. A corpus-based study of speech
corpus based
presentation in narrative
• Semino and Short analysed speech presentation
(as well as writing and thought presentation) in a
corpus of fictional and non fictional narratives
non-fictional narratives,
including prose fiction, newspaper news reports
and (auto)biography.
( ) g py
• We proposed a revised model for the analysis of
speech presentation (see separate handout)
• In this model, the categories are ordered in
terms of decreasing (apparent) interference from
the narrator/reporter and of increasing
narrator/reporter,
vividness, dramatisation and (apparent)
faithfulness to the original utterance.
g
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38. Speech presentation in the two
news reports
• According to Semino and Short’s method of analysis,
speech presentation accounts for 53 per cent of the
words i th S report and f 80 per cent of the words
d in the Sun t d for t f th d
in the Guardian report.
• The Guardian article includes a roughly equal number of
voices from the British and Russian sides of the dispute.
• The Sun article predominantly focuses on the voices of
p y
representatives of the British side in the dispute. The
only exceptions are two references to Russia’s refusal to
comply with the extradition request and the direct
request,
speech representation of Mr Lugovoy’s threat in the final
paragraph.
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39. • Semino and Short (2004) found that, in
( )
their press data, the most frequently used
categories were NRSA, IS, and DS.
• The Guardian article includes 29 instances
of speech representation; of these, ten are
f h t ti f th t
NRSA, nine IS, and six DS.
• The Sun article includes 16 instances of
speech representation; of these five are
these,
NRSA, four IS, and six DS.
• How is speech presentation used in the
Sun headline?
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40. • In both articles, DS is primarily reserved for the
voices of the representatives of the British side,
p ,
and particularly Prime Minister Brown and
Foreign Secretary David Milliband. Apart from
one case in each article the Russian side is
article,
represented via the nondirect forms of speech
representation.
p
• In a number of cases, however, short stretches
of direct quotation are included within instances
of nondirect forms of speech presentation in
f di t f f h t ti i
order to foreground the most important parts of
the utterances as in the following instance of IS
utterances,
from the Guardian article:
– with a spokesman warning it would have “the most
serious consequences” f relations b t
i ” for l ti between th t
the two
countries.
• Semino and Short refer to this phenomenon as
‘embedded quotations’. Workshop,
Ruth Wodak, AIM 40
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41. • In both articles, the ‘story’ consists primarily of
, y p y
verbal action, and speech presentation is
therefore the main textual device for the telling of
the story.
• Both articles rely significantly on material that is
attributed to other voices and both privilege the
perspective of the British side in the dispute.
• This tendency is much more marked in the S Sun,
where:
– th dispute is a represented as a personalised affair
the di ti td li d ff i
involving primarily Brown and Putin, and
– speech activity is presented metaphorically in terms
of physical violence and aggression via the use of
expressions such as ‘blasts’ and ‘stood up to’.
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42. References
• Charon, R. (2006) Narrative Medicine: Honoring the Stories of Illness.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Coates, J.
Coates J (2003) Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities Oxford:
Masculinities.
Blackwell.
• Hudson, J. and Shapiro, L. R. (1991) From knowing to telling: The
development of children’s scripts, stories and p
p p personal narrative. In
McCabe, A and Peterson, C. (eds) Developing Narrative Structure.
Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 89-136.
• Johnstone, B. (2001) Discourse Analysis and Narrative. In Schiffrin, D.,
Tannen D. and Hamilton H E (eds) Handbook of Discourse Analysis
D Hamilton, H. E. Analysis.
Oxford: Blackwell, 635-49.
• Labov, W. (1972) Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English
Vernacular. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Rumelhart, D.E. (19 ) Notes on a schema f stories. In Bobrow D.G. and
(1975) for G
Collins A. (eds.), Representation and Understanding, New York: Academic
Press, 211-36.
• Semino, E. and Short, M. (2004) Corpus Stylistics: Speech, Writing and
Thought Presentation in a Corpus of English Writing. London: Routledge.
• Swales, J. (1990) Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research
Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Wodak, R
W d k R. (2009) Th Discourse of Politics i A ti
The Di f P liti in Action. B i
Basingstoke:
tk
Palgrave Ruth Wodak, AIM Workshop, 42
London 190309