Asignatura: Aplicaciones del Anlisis del Discurso en Lengua Inglesa.

Grado en
Estudios Ingleses. Curso 2016/17. Cdigo: 17301
Lecturer: Dr. Laura Hidalgo Downing, office: 308 module VI bis.
Laura.hidalgo@uam.es

Session 1: Narrative, telling stories (From Michael Toolan, Telling stories, in Maybin
& Swann, chapter 2).

A son rings his mother on the phone and says Guess what happened and the mother
replies Oh my God!

Narrative or story is a core way of structuring, representing and making sense of

countless things we do. It pervades artistic and everyday genres, from conversation, to
science, advertising and medical appointments.

Narratives encapsulate two connected scenes or situations (a) a state, (b) a significant
change of that state.

Functions of narrative:

- Entertain.
- Explain ourselves to others.
- Establish rapport and closeness.
- Making and remaking of identities.

Labovs model of narrative

1. Abstract
2. Orientation
3. Complicating action
4. Evaluation
5. Resolution
6. Coda.

The abstract encapsulates the point of the story. It may be a brief narrative summary or
some kind of signalling and opening of the story: Guess what happened! I had a funny
experience the other day. Did I ever tell you about?... etc.

Orientation is the equivalent of setting, that is, it identifies time, place, situations and
characters, usually before the beginning of the storys action. Much of this material,
however, may appear in strategic points throughout the story.

The complicating action answers the question And then what happened? It is the
backbone of the narrative formed by the sequence of narrative clauses.

The resolution normally contains the last of the narrative clauses which began the
narrative action, telling us how the complication was resolved.
It is followed by the coda, which provides the storys ending and attempts to bridge the
gap between the narrative time and our present time. The coda can take the form of
some general statement or observation about the effects of the event on the narrator,
such as So, there you areit was very funny/scary etc.

Evaluation comprises the devices by which the narrator indicates the point of the
narrative, or why it is felt to be tellable. It reveals the narrators attitudes and emotions
towards the events related.

In initial studies, Labov and Waletzky (11987) claimed that evaluation formed a
separate section, just after the complicating action and before the resolution,
emphasizing thus the break between them. Labov (1972) Revisd this view years later
and suggested that evaluation can be spread thoroughout the narrative, forming a
secondary structure. In many studies of narrative, evaluation does not appear as a
separate section.

TASKS FOR WEEK 13TH TO 20TH FEBRUARY

TASK 1: CHILDRENS NARRATIVES

Apply Labovs model to the analysis of the childrens narratives and answer the following
questions:

1. Each of the narratives below are distributed according to grades, from younger
(grade 1) to older children (grade 5) (US). Identify whether each narrative
contains the narrative parts of Labovs model, or whether there are some
missing in any of the grades.
2. What differences do you observe between the narratives of the younger
children and the older ones?
3. Do all stories have one single narrative episode with one resolution of the
complicating action or is it the case that there are some stories with two or
more mini-narratives, each with their own resolution?
4. How do the stories of the older children especially the past one, become more
complex?
5. Consider evaluation. How does evaluation reveal different degrees of
complexity and maturity as the children grow, in the choice of evaluative
words, adjectives, etc, in the position and frequency of evaluative language,
etc.?

Task 1: childrens narratives

Read the following narratives written by children between grades 1 and 5 (US). Analyse
the narratives and describe the features that characterize them, bearing in mind the
discussion of narrative in class. How do the narratives become more complex as the
children are older?

Narratives by children
http://www.thewritesource.com/studentmodels/

Grade 1

My Trip to Mexico

One time I went to Mexico. It was a blast! I met people there. I went horseback riding. I
saw a box holding an armadillo. I went to a water fall. I tried to catch a frog with one leg.
I couldn't catch it. It was fun in Mexico.

A Happy Day

One day baby Josh came home. He was in a yellow blanket. My mom let me hold him.
He was blowing bubbles. He didnt cry.

Grade 2

The Horrible Day

One morning I woke up and I was turned around on my bed. Then I fell off! I walked
downstairs and I almost fell over my dog. Next I fell asleep in my cereal and my brother
stole my toast!

Then I had to walk to school because our car ran out of gas. I was late for school, and I
got stuck outside in the rain! Guess what? I really didnt like this day at all.

Grade 3

The Sled Run

One day it snowed like crazy! So school was cancelled. I had Amy over to play. We
decided to go sledding. So we started to slide down the hill. We sledded for a long time.

One time we decided to go down together. Amy sat in the front seat and I sat in the back.
We started to go down the hill. Then CRASH! We ran into a bush!

Amy went flying and I got my feet caught in the bush! Amy looked like a spider caught
in its own spider web. I had a lot of fun that day, and I will never forget it!

Grades 4-5

Indys Life Story

I am going to tell you about my dog and how I got him. I dont remember exactly how it
happened, but at some point my parents asked if I wanted to have a dog. I, of course, said
yes. We couldnt decide what kind of dog to get at first, but at last we found a great breed,
the Shetland sheepdog. We called a good breeder. I was so excited about getting a dog!

Before I knew it, I was on my way to the breeder. I went inside and saw dogs everywhere.
It was so hard to pick which one to get. I saw one I liked. It was a small blue merle. He
looked perfect, so I asked if we could get him. It turned out that he was too young to sell.
So I kept looking. When I finally decided on one, we were all very happy. It still took a
few weeks until he was old enough to bring home. It seemed to take forever until the day
came, but it did.

It was so exciting. We were on our way to pick up our newest family member. When we
went to pick him up, we realized that we had everything except the most important thing,
a name! On our way home, we came up with what seemed like the perfect name: Indiana.
This name came from his head coloring, believe it or not. His head was the same color as
Indiana Joness hat. Like all dog names, it was shortened to Indy and eventually shortened
to Ind.

We loved Indy, yet it wasnt all fun and games. We had to make major adjustments for
him. When he was young, we had to blockade parts of the house because they were too
dangerous for him. Another reason we had to block things off was that Indy was not ye t
housebroken. We also had to move my cats food because Indy kept eating it. Finally, we
had to build him a kennel.

Yes, we had to make a lot of changes, but Indy has changed a lot since the day we got
him. He is no longer a puppy, and he is housebroken! Now hes pretty much everyones
buddy. We are so glad we found him.

Further References

News & Publications ACEI Publications Research Round-Up Volume 25, No. 4
Multimodal Literacy Narratives: Weaving Threads of Young Childrens Identity Through the
Arts

http://www.acei.org/volume-25-no-4/multimodal-literacy-narratives-weaving-threads-of-
young-childrens-identity-through-the-arts.html