Ed ited by T E U N A.

VA N D I J K

\\.
\
\\
\
\\
'
\
\\
\

DISCOURSE STUDIES ..
A MULTIDISCIPLINARY INTRODUCTION
Preface and Chapter 1 © Teun A. van Dijk 1997
Chapter 2 © Robert de Bcaugrande 1997
Chapter 3 © Russell Tomlin, Linda Forrest, Ming Ming Pu
and Myung Hee Kim 1997 Contents
Chapter 4 © Susanna Cumming and Tsuyoshi Ono 1997
Chapter 5 © Barbara Sandig and Margret Selting 1997
Chapter 6 © Ann Gill and Karen Whedbee 1997
Chapter 7 © Elinor Ochs 1997
Chapter 8 © Frans van Ecmeren, Rob Grootendorst, Sally Contributors vi
Jackson and Scott Jacobs 1997 Preface XI
Chapter 9 © Jim Martin and Suzanna Eggins 1997
Chapter 10 © Gunther Kress, Regina Leite-Garcia and Theo The Study of Discourse
van Leeuwen 1997
Chapter 11 © Arthur Graesser, Morton Gcmsbachcr and
Teun A. van Dijk
Susan Goldman 1997 2 The Story of Discourse Analysis 35
Chapter 12 © Charles Antaki and Susan Condor 1997
Robert de Beaugrande
The authors' best efforts have been made to seek permission.
In the event of any queries, contact Sage Publications. 3 Discourse Semantics 63
Russell S. Tomlin, Linda Forrest, Ming Ming Pu and Myung
First published in 1997
Hee Kim
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be 4 Discourse and Grammar 112
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilized Susanna Cumming and Tsuyoshi Ono
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in 5 Discourse styles 138
writing from the Publishers. Barbara Sandig and Margret Se/ting
SAGE Publications Ltd 6 Rhetoric 157
® 6 Bonhill Street
London EC2A 4PU
SAGE Publications Inc
Ann M Gill and Karen Whedbee
7 Narrative 185
Elinor Ochs
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320 8 Argumentation 208
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst, Sally Jackson and
32, M-Block Market Scott Jacobs
Greater Kailash - I 9 Genres and Registers of Discourse
New Delhi 110 048
230
Suzanne Eggins and J.R Martin
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
10 Discourse Semiotics 257
A catalogue record for this book is available Gunther Kress, Regina Leite-Garcia and Theo van Leeuwen
from the British Library
11 Cognition 292
ISBN 0 8039 7844 8 Arthur C. Graesser, Morton A. Gernsbacher and Susan R
ISBN 0 8039 7845 6 (pbk) Goldman
Cased set 0 7619 5320 5
Pbk set 0 7619 5321 3 12 Social Cognition and Discourse 320
Susan Condor and Charles Antaki
Library of Congr~ catalog card number 96-072300
Typeset by Mayhew Typesetting, Rhayader, Powys Name Index 348
Printed in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press Ltd,
Broughton Gifford, Melksham, Wiltshire Subject Index 352
184 Ui scu urse <1> Stru c ture <111tl l'rucess

Saussure, F. (1986) Course in General Lingu istics (eds C. Bally and A. Sechehaye, trans. R.
Harris). La Salle, IL: Open Cou rt.
Slagell , A.R. (1991 ) 'Anatomy of a masterpiece: a close textual analysis of Abraham Lincoln's
second ina ugural address', Communication Studies, 42 (2): 155- 71.
Spence, G . (1993) Transcript of closing arguments. United States v. Weaver. Case no. CR 92-
080-N-EJL, US District Court in Boise, ID .
Vickers, B. (1988) In Defence of Rhetoric. Oxford: Clarendon.
Wander, P. (1981 ) 'Cultural criticism', in D.D. Nimmo and K.R. Sanders (eds), Handbook of
Political Communication. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. pp. 427- 528.
Wander, P. (1984) 'The third persona: an ideological tum in rhetorical theory', Central States
Speech Journal, 35 (4): 197- 216.
Warnick, B. (! 992) 'Leff in context: what is the critic's role?', Quarterly Journal of Speech, 78
(2): 232-7.
Whately, R. (1963) Elements of Rhetoric (ed . D. Ehninger). Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois
University Press.
7
N arrative
Elinor Ochs
Narrative Realms
Imagine a world without na rrative. G oing through life no t telling others
what happened to you or someone else, a nd not recounting what you read
in a book or saw in a film . Not being able to hear o r see or read dramas
crafted by others. No access to conversations, printed texts, pictures, o r
films that are about events framed as actual or ficti o nal. Imagine not even
composing interior narratives, to and for yourself. N o . Such a un iverse is
unimaginable, for it would mean a world with out histo ry , myths o r dram a ;
and lives without reminiscence, revelation , a nd interpretive revision .
When we think about narrative, literary form s come to mind as narrative
texts par excellence. At least since Aristotle's Poetics (1962), narrative
genres such as tragedy and comedy ha ve been the preoccupation of
philosophers and critics. As a fundamental genre tha t organizes the ways in
which we think and interact with one another, however, narrative encom-
passes an enormous range of disco urse fo rm s, including popular as well as
artistic genres. The most basic and most uni versal fo rm of na rra ti ve may be
the product not of poetic muse, but of o rdinary conversation .
Scholars of narra tive have argued tha t na rrati ves a re authored not o nly
by those who introduce them but also by the many readers and interlocu-
tors who influence the directi o n of the na rrative (Bakhtin, 198 1; 1986;
Bauman, 1986; Goodwin, 1981 ). This co-authorship is most evident in
conversational narratives, where interlocutors ask questi ons, comment and
otherwise overtly contribute to a n evolving tale (Ehlich, 1980; C . G oodwin ,
1984; M . Goodwin, 1990; Jefferson , 1978 ; Mandelbaum, 1987; QuasthofT,
1980; Ochs et al. , 1992; Sacks, 1978). The interactional production of
narrative maintains and transforms persons and rel a ti onships (Miller et al. ,
1992). How we think about o urselves and others is influenced by both the
message content of jointly told narrati ves and the experience of wo rkin g
together to construct a coherent na rrative.
Our species is fortunate to have access to several co mmunicative modali-
ties available to create a na rrative. N a rratives can be produced through
spoken, written, kinesthetic, pictorial , a nd musical modes of representation .
Spoken and written narratives are commonplace. Dramatic enactments of
events through body movements and facial expressions may be even m o re
I/Hi I ) 1" IJll l " ' · " ' >1111< 11111· .lllfi l'I ()( ' '"
basic a narra tive vehicle, given the historicity, ubiquity, and en ticement of
perfonnance (Ari sto tle, 1962). In deed K enne th Burke ( 1973: I 03) harken s
back to ritual drama 'as the Ur-fonn, the "hub", with all o ther aspects of
human action treated as spokes radiating from thi s hub'. And every picture
tells a story in the fonn of a more o r less com pressed na rrati ve. Indeed the
history of a rt is in part a his to ry o f na rrative represe ntation (Adorno, 1984;
Berger , 1972; Di ssanayake, 1988; M a rsack, 1991 ). In some cases, a narra-
tive is communicated through a series of depictions, as in certain fonn s of
cave art o r certain medieval illustra ted manuscrip ts. In oth er cases, the
seq uence of events is comp ressed into a single represe ntation , requiring th e
viewe r to untangle the storyline from diffe ren t ele ments in the scene. F rom
o ne point of view , minimalist art places heavy demands on viewers by
invi ting them to create a narrative fr om highly abstract and elusive fonn s
an d juxtaposi tion s. F rom ano ther point o f view, m ini mali st liberates the
viewe r fr om having to discern a si ngle, authoritative narrative scripted by
artist or patron . R a th er, the viewe r is free to construe a range of possible
narratives suggested o r inspired by the vis ual fonns (Capps et al., 1993).
T he ra nge of narrative interpretation tha t characterizes paradigms of
vis ual a rt also cha racterizes o ther na rra tive modes , particula rl y mu sic.
In strument s, tonality, and melodic leitmotifs may m o re or less explicitly,
mo re o r less iconically, build cha racters and m ove them through em oti onal
and acti onal realm s. T he ethnomusicolog ist Steven Feld (1982) describes
how the K al ul i people of Papua New Guinea rela te the melodic contours of
bi rd so ngs to particula r fonns of huma n se ntiment , activi ty, and sta tes of
being. Certain pit ches, fo r example, convey sad ness and weeping, which in
tum may evoke loss and abando nment. Ka luli reproduce the se mel odic
con tou rs in sung na rrative perfonnan ces to arouse strong feelings fr om
those liste ning (Schieffe lin, 1976).
W hile a narrative may be crafted through a single modality, more often
na rrat ors intertwine a multiplicity o f modalities. Narrators may quote or
ma ke reference to a narrati ve excerpt fr om a boo k or newspaper, blending
o ral and written instrumentali ti es. Or demonstrations involving artifacts
may be inco rpo rated , as when ch ildren in American schools engage in a
na rrati ve acti vi ty called 'sh aring time' in which they tell a sto ry through
both wo rds an d displa ys o f objects bro ught from home (Michaels, 1981).
Similarly, na rra tin g may involve telle rs talking about, looking at, and
pointing to visual repre sen ta tions. This is seen in co urtroom n a rration ,
whe re witn esses an d lawyers piece toge ther a plausible narrative , using
objec ts a nd images th ey construct as evi dence (Goo dwin, 1994) . Scientific
narratives also rely on gra phs, diagrams and other figures . While sometimes
scientists merel y refe r to a figure , in the throes o f working through a
scientific problem they may construct a na rrative acco unt from the per-
spective o f being a symbolic object within a figure (Ochs et al., 1994). At
these moments , scienti sts u se the figure as a frame of reference as they
gest ura lly and vocally na rrate cha nge s in ph ysical states along symbolic
noints within the fi11ure. Pictu re book s a lso interweave images with
N. 111.11 1v1· II\ .
linguis ti c text, inviti ng readers to pursue a narrative line across these tw o
modalities. And theatrical drama can be enacted through a variety of
modalities including pan tomime, voice, written text , visual image. and
musical instrument a ti on.
In some cases, th e interpenetration of commun ica ti ve modalities 1s
evoked rather than actu a li zed . R a ther than using differen t mode s o f com-
munica ti on, the narrat o r implies th ese modes through stylisti c varia tion .
For example, when authors shift from descri pt ive prose to d irect qu o ta tion.
they imply a shift to speech. In so d oin g, they tran sfonn the reader into an
(over)hearer as well. These interpene tra tions produce inte rt exts or hybrid
modes of di sco urse ( Ba khtin , 1981 ; 1986) . The intenni ngling o f implied
modalities is es pecially prevalent in the novel , whe re autho rs craft not only
spoken di a logue but al so inner silen t fonns of communica tion in a literary
fo nnat. Th e play of com mun ica tive channels weaves a co mplex relationship
be tween au th o r, ch aracter, a nd reade r/(o ver)hea rer. If well wrought, such
complexity yields mea nings that render th e autho r an artist a nd the product
a work o f art.
As this di scussion impl ies, narrative plays hos t to a range of genres. In
the co urse of telling a na rrative , speake rs may engage in a wide range of
language activities. F o r example, they may embed an argument within a
narrative, as in th e following exchange 1 among family members narrat ing a
story:
Mom : =We didn 't laugh believe me .
Rh oda : [Yes you did - yo u st[arted to laugh .
Corky: [ ( (shaking head no)) [hh
( ( M om .looks 10 Corky fo r confirma1ion of memory))
Mom: I d o n 't think we did - I [had to go-
Rhoda : [ YES YO U DID !
(from Famil y Dinner C o rpu s: Ochs, I 986- 90c)
In this example, Rh oda accuses her family of laughing a t her during an
embarrassing incident. When an in terlocutor is the butt o f a narra ti ve, he
or she o ften disputes the acco unt of events. G ossi p, a fonn of na rra tive in
whic h a breach in cultural nonn is reco unted , is characteristically con te n-
ti ous (Brenneis, 1984; Ha viland, 1977 ; G ood win, 1990). The highl y con-
fron ta tive nature of goss ip is captured in Goodwin 's ( 1990) account of th is
activity among African America n girls. These pre-adolescents engage in
complex, conflict-laden narratives called ' H e-said-she-said', wherein o ne girl
tell s another/o thers abou t what a th ird girl sai d about her/them (such as
'They say y'all say I wrote everything ove r there'). Th is reported accusation
is refuted (' UHUH. = THAT WAS VIN CENT SAID '), in turn triggerin g
lengthy public discussion.
Not only can narrati ve hou se other lan guage activi ties, it can itself be
incorporated into a larger genre or activity. For example, not only can a
na rrative house a di spu te, it can also be housed with in an ongoin g d is pute.
188 U1 scourse .i s Structure .i nd l' rocess
as when someo ne la un ches a sto ry to ill ustrate a point he or she is
advocat ing. Narrat ives ca n also a ppea r as a part of a prayer. In the
follo wing example, a chi ld begins to say grace at the dinner meal, but in th e
midst of a formulaic thanksgi vi ng, she launches a narrative about even ts in
her da y:
Laurie : =kay - Jesus? - plea :?se - um - help us to love
and .hh um - T hank yo u for letting it be a n:ice day
and for taking a (fine/fun ) nap?
.hh - a :nd - for (letting) M ommy go bye
and I'm glad that I cwied today?
cuz I like cwying [.hh and
Annie?: [( ( snicker))
Laurie : I'[m glad (that anythi ng/everything) happened today=
R oger?: [( ( snick er))
Laurie : =in Jesus nam e
(( claps hands)) A :-MEN 1
(fro m Family D inner Corpus: Ochs, 1986-90)
In thi s example, Laurie's story a bout crying at school when 'M ommy go
bye' is framed wit hi n the sayi ng of grace . H owever, grace does not functi on
si mply as a set of boo kend s for La urie 's na rrative, as visualized below:
Grace I Narrati ve I Grace
Rather, fe ature s o f the gen re of grace seep into the telling of the story :
G r N a ARRA c TTVE e
In particular, a defi nin g fea ture of gr ace is an expressed sentime nt of
tha nkfu lness. T his sentiment o rga nizes Laurie's narrative when she recounts
Tm gl ad that I cwied today' and 'I like cwying'. Events like crying, which
are normal ly associa ted with sadne ss, are imbued with a sensibility appro-
priate to the occasion of gi vi ng thanks fo r a meal. In thi s fashion ,
narrati ves become o rganized by the contexts in which they are constructed.
Whe n we think abo ut writ ten narra tives, man y of us envision them as
different from Laurie 's narrati ve. Del imited by titles and typ ographical
spacing , perhaps eve n a boo k cove r, written texts appear to have defined
bo undaries. H o we ver, even written texts ca n be part of an ongoing com-
m unicative interacti on - fo r exa mp le, a di spute or a supplication or a
political agend a - th at in subtle and profound ways shapes the narrati ve
text. Kenneth Burke (197 3: 1) notes: 'Critical and imagi native works are
answers to questi o ns posed by the situatio n in which they arose. They are
not merely an swers, th ey are strategic answers, siy lized answers.' Scholars
ranging fr om Burke to Russian formali sts (Bakhtin, 1981; Todorov, 1984)
to proponents of cultural studies (Williams, 1982; 1983) implore interpreters
of narrati ve to embed such texts in the social and historical dialogues in
which they participate .
N<tr rati ve 189
Given the variety of modes and genres that realize narrati ve acti vi ty, it is
an enormous task to consider how narrati ve is roo ted in cultural systems of
knowledge, beliefs, values, ideologies, actio n, emotio n, a nd o ther dimen-
sions of social order. T ypically cultural anal yses of narrative focus o n a
particular context of narrative activi ty, fo r example spoken or sung narra-
tive performances (Bauman, 1986; Becker, 1979; Briggs, 1992; Feld , 1982;
Hymes, 1971; Jacobs, 1959; Scollan and Scallon, 1981 a; E.L. Schieffelin,
1976; Tedlock, 1972; W atson-Gegeo and Boggs, 1977; Witherspoon , 1977),
mythic tales (Levi-Strauss, 1955; B. Schieffelin , 1984), conversati onal
narratives of perso nal experience (M iller et al., 1990; 1992; M o rgan , 1991 ;
Ochs and Taylor, l 992b), reading sto ri es (Hea th , 1983), writing stories
(Scallon and Scallon , 198lb), gossip (Besnier, 1993; Brenneis, 1984; M .
Goodwin, 1990; H aviland, 1977), o r classroo m narrative events (Cazden
and Hymes, 1978; M ichaels, 198 1; Ochs et al. , 1994; B. Schieffelin, fo rt h-
coming). Narrati ve in each of these co ntexts is rendered meaningful vis-a-
vis some property of local ethos - for ex ample, an orien tation to wards
auto nomy or intervention , explicit moralizing, sacredness of text, fa cticit y
of text, imagined selves, social asymmetries, and so on. To date no stud y
exami nes na rrative activity as it is vari ously construed acro ss modes,
settings, and participants within a si ngle speech co mmunity. As such , we
need to be cautious in positing broad generalizati ons that identify a culture
with one narrati ve style.
Narrative and Time
The term 'narrative' is used either in a narrow sen se to specify the genre of
story or in a broad sense to cover a vast range of genres, including not o nly
stories but also reports, sports and news broadcasts, plans, and agendas
among others. What holds these dive rse modes of narrative together?
Regardless of the contexts in which they emerge, the modalities through
which they are expressed , an d the genres lamina ted within them. all
narratives depict a temporal transition from one state of affairs 10 ano1her.
This attribute does not uniquely define narrative. We may think of th is
temporal attribute as a necessary but not sufficien t characterization of
na rrative. As will be discussed later, narratives depict far more than an
ordering of events.
Literary philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1988) refers to the temporal property
of narrative as the 'chronological dimension' . This transition is captured
linguistically by a sequence of two o r mo re clauses which are tempo rally
ordered (Labov, 1972). This characterizati on encompasses narratives that
are captivating as well as those that a re dull. It includes accounts of
enigmatic events as well as those that a re predictable . A narrative can be a
simple chronicle of events or an account that co ntex tualizes events, by
attempting to explain them and/or persuade others of their relevance .
Narratives may concern past, presen t, future, hypothetical, habitual, o r
other culturally relevant mode of reckoning time. Narratives that are
prima ril y co ncerned wi th pust cv1·11t.1· include bro ad gL:nrcs such as sto ries. Student : Ycah,
histo ries, and repo rt s co nce rn ing either professional o r personal matters. PI: will you see any dyn a mics at all down there?,
Li via Pol anyi ( 1989: 17), for example, notes that 'sto ries and past time (Ochs et al., forthcoming)
repo rt s are specific, affirm ative, past time narratives which tell about a
In this excerpt, the principal investigato r uses a figure on the blackboard to
series of events wh ich too k pl ace at specific unique moments in a unique
take the student and himself on an imaginary narrative journey (Ochs et
past time world ' Will iam Labo v and Jo shua W aletzky (1968: 287) refer to
al., 1994; forthcoming) . The princi pal investigator posi ts a seq uence of
personal stories as 'narratives of personal experience' and characterize them
hypothetical moves, and elicits from the student a consequenti al generic
linguis ti cally as 'one meth od of recapitulating past experience by m atching
event.
a verbal sequence of clauses to the sequence of events which (i t is inferred)
While scientific narratives (such as experimental reports) reckon tim e
actuall y occu rred'. Both of the na rratives excerpted above, about Rhoda 's
primarily in term s of scientific units of measuremen t, autobiography and
embarrassment and Laurie 's crying, are narratives of perso nal experience.
other genres of personal na rrative reckon time in term s of a person' s
Narratives can al so be primarily concerned wi th sequences of events
apprehension of time. As no ted by R icoe ur ( 1988), narrative time is human
taking place in present time, for example , spo rts broadcasts in which
time, no t clock time. Ricoeu r's approach to narrative draws on the
commentato rs narrate action s, strategies, and reactions of players and their
philosophy of M artin Hei degger (1962), who di sti nguishes physical time
audiences. Alternatively, narratives may focus on th e f uture, as with event
from existential time. In Being and Time, Heidegger suggests th at hum ans
sequences such as agendas, prescripti ons, advice, suggestions, inst ructions,
experience time as a fusion of past, present, and fu ture. We experience
fo recasts, warnings, threat s, and planning generally. In the following
ourselves in the present time world, bu t with a mem o ry of the past , and an
excerp t, a you ng girl narrates a series of suggestions, fo rmin g a plan for her
anxiety for the future. A propert y of ou r species is that we have human
birthda y party:
ca res; and these ca res lead us to contex tu alize the present in terms of the
past and future, the past in terms of the present and future, and the future
Sall y: M omm y' I know wh at I'munn a do fo r my bi rthday? -
in terms of the past and present.
Could we paint o ur face for our bi rthday?
It is o ur cares about the present and especially abo ut the future that
M o m: If you want,
organize our narrative recoll ections of past events. Narrative serves the
important funct ion of bringing the past in to the prese nt time consciousness.
T hat is, narrative provides a se nse of con tinuity of self and society. But
Sally: ( ( co unting on her fingers as she speaks) )
perhaps even more importantl y, narrative accounts of past events help us to
M omm y, paint our face , numbe r one -
manage our uncertain future . In Heidegger's framew o rk , when we construct
Okay, now. go to the park , number two ,
narratives about the past, we apprehend them in term s of what they imply
D addy has to play mon ster, number three,
fo r the prese nt and future .
U:m: - number IFOU :?: r' go to miniature gQ!f
For these reason s, narratives that to uch on past even ts are always about
And num ber five go to UC L pool -
the present and future as well (Ochs, 1994). In some cases, narrati ves
And num ber STX? - ki ss Momm y,
provide new m odels, open up novel possibilities, fo r the shape of our lives
H a-ha I'm just kidding,
to come. In other cases, narratives about the past touch off a concern about
(from Family Dinner Corpus: Ochs, 1986- 90)
the present or future . For example, in 'He-said-she-said' narratives told by
African American girls, gossip about the past 'instigate s' one of the
Narratives about hyp othetical worlds can concern hypothetical past,
interlocuto rs (the accused) to defend herself in the present and posit how
present, fu ture, o r generic time and include such genres as plans, science
she will redress the offense in the future (Goodwin , 1990: 271):
fictio n , and narrati ves of personal experience. Fo r example, the followin g
segmen t of hypo th etical narrative is co nstructed by a principal investigato r Barbara: Well you tell her to come say it in
(PI) and a stud en t who are planning how to resolve a scientific problem: front of my fa :ce. (0.6) a nd I' ll put
her somewhere.
PI: If you take you r li:ne there (0 .2) and you-
temperature [quench (0 .5) dQwn to:: whe re I have In conve rsation al narrative, a concern fo r the presen t and future may crop
[((Srudenr looks ar board)) up a t any point in the telling. Co-narrators wander ove r the temporal map,
that word [long ran ge order , focusing o n the past then relating it to the prese nt and futu re and then
[((S rudenf rises, goes ro board)) returning to another piece of the past. F or example, after Laurie reco unt s
 I 'J2 I J1" 11111 ' " ·" '.>1111< 1111" .111d 1'1()11'''
(duri ng grace) how she cried when her mother left her a t school, the family
return s to Laurie's predicament to hel p her face tomorrow (Ochs, 1994:
129):
M other: but ho ney? - I only work -
this - it was only this week that I worked there all
week? because it was the fir st week? of school
[but -
Ann ie: [she cried a t three o'clock too
(0.2)
M o ther: but a fter this? - it - I only wo rk one day a week? there
and th at 's T uesday
Th e family na rrat ively ricoche ts from releva nt bits of the past:
M o ther: Laurie? - yo u didn't tak e ye r ((shaking head no)) -
blank et to school ei ther did yo u.
Laurie: No I (fo r)g_Q! it ((pe wlanc )).
to strategies for conquering the future :
M other: We'll hafta get it out of the close t -
and put it over there with the lunch stuff.
(2 .0)
Jimmy : yes - so yo u could - bring it (wi th/to) school.
What is the im port of experienced time (human time) for understanding
na rrative? One impli cation is that d ifferent narrative genres, such as stories
a nd pla ns, o rganize the same text. The compression of different temporal
domains wi thin a single stretch of d isco urse in tum suggests that genre is
bes t understood as a perspective on a text rath er than as a kind of text
(Ochs, 1994). R a th er than mapping particula r genres on to diffe rent narra-
ti ve sequences, we examine the same stretch of talk o r writing or music or
visua l representation fo r different gen re properties. R a the r than asking,
'What genre is thi s tex t?', we ask, 'H ow (if at all) is this text organized as a
story? a plan? a broadcast? a fo recast?' And so on . The task of the
na rra to rs and schola rs is to pursue the generic threads that run through a
tex t and fathom their in terconnec ti o ns.
For the remainder of th is chapter, the discussion will foc us on charac-
teri stics of o ne na rrati ve genre, namely sto ri es. We will pursue the linguistic,
psychological, and sociological structuring of such narratives.
:'-larrative P oint of View and Plot S tru cture
While narratives ca n in principle reco unt utterly predictabl e events, usually
stories concern noteworthy even ts. Somethin g happened that the storyteller
fi nds surpri si ng, distur bing, in teresting, or o therwise tellable (Labov and
Waletzky, 1968; Chafe, 1980). Stories normally have a point to make,
N. 111.il l VI' I ' ll
which organizes the co nstructi o n of the na rrati ve itse lf. O ften the po int is a
moral evaluation of an occurrence , an acti o n, or a psychological stance
related to a set of events.
Stories a re not so much depicti o ns of facts as they a re cons truals of
happenings. Kenneth Burke (1962) looks at stories as selections rather than
as reflections of reality. And Erving G offman notes :
A tale or anecdote, that is, a replaying, is not merely any reporting of a past
event. In the fullest sense, it is such a statement couched from the personal
pe rspective of an actual or potential participant who is located so that some
temporal, d ramatic development of the reported event proceeds from that starting
point. A replaying will therefore incidentally be something that li steners can
empathetically insert themselves int o, vica ri ously reexperienci ng what too k place .
A replaying, in brie f, recounts a personal experience, not merel y reports on an
event. (1974: 504)
Ricoe ur (1981: 278) call s point of view the configu rational d im ension of
narrative. Aristotle introd uced the term my rh os o r ' plot' to characteri ze
how events a nd emotions are interwoven to form a coherent narrati ve. It is
plot that distinguishes a list of events fr om a hi sto ry of events o r a story of
events (Frye, 1957; R icoeur, 198 1; White, 1981 ). In creating a plo t, hi s-
torians and storytellers give structure to events within a sense-making
scheme . T he plot knits togeth er circumstan tia l elements such as scenes,
agents, agency (i nstruments), acts, and purposes int o a co herent scheme
tha t revolves around a n exceptional, usually troubl ing, event (Burke. 1962).
The plot can be seen as a th eo ry of eve nt s in th e se nse th at it provides a n
explanatio n of events from a particul a r poin t of view (Feldman , 1989: Ochs
et al., 1992) . In this sense, stories are a kin to scientific narra tives. Wh ile
scien tific na rra tives de-emphasize agents and mo ti ves (Latour, 1987), they
share wi th story na rratives the propert y of recounting so mething out of th e
usual - an enigma, a discrepancy, an oddi ty, a challenge, an upset tha t
disturbs the equilibri um. F urthe r, both scientific and perso nal narra tives try
to shed light on tha t problem by placing the problem within a sequence of
cause-effect events and ci rcumsta nces.
T he capacity to create and deciph er plo ts is a quintessential facult y of th e
human species. Jerome Bruner ( 1990) has proposed that na rrati ve is a basic
instrum ent of folk psychology . Stories are cultu ra l tools par excellence fo r
understanding un usual and un ex pected conduct. In storytelling, narra to rs
intertwine two domains of behavior, what Bruner calls 'dual landsca pes':
(I) situational circum stances an d protagonists' actions, and (2) protago -
nists' mental states. Often, for example, narrators explain an unusual and
unexpected action in term s of a protagonis t' s tho ught s and feelings . In so
doing, na rrative serves to ' render the exceptional comprehensible' (1990:
52). Because stories reco un t events that depart from the o rdinary. they also
serve to arti culate and sustain comm on understandings of what the culture
deems o rdinary. For this reason among othe rs, narrative is a powerful
means of socializing children and other novices into local no ti ons of
situational appropriateness. Co-narrators often comment on how they
 194 Disco urse as Stru cture a nd Proc ess
would beha ve in th e repo rted eve nts and how othe rs should have conducted
them selves. As participants lo th ese narrative interactio ns, children come to
unde rstand what is expec ted, normal, and a ppropria te.
Building a Narrative
Ho w are story narratives constructed ? H ow a re they initiated and de vel-
oped , a nd how do they come to comple tion?
When we see a printed text, a title o r o ther visible feature ma y initi all y
ide nt ify the text as a possible story. Wh ile sto ries told in conve rsation do
not have titles, they d o o ften have story p refaces (Sacks, 1992). Instead of
ab rupt ly begi n ni ng a story, a telle r tran si tions into it wi th the co-operation
o f othe r interl ocu to rs. This ac ti vity is accom pl is hed through story prefaces
such as ' Y o u want to hear a story?', wherein interlocutors indicate an
inte nti o n to tell a relevan t story and elicit a go-ahead to do so from others.
Tellers of stories in conversa tio nal interaction often have an additional
task: not o nl y d o they let o th ers know that a story is coming up (which will
occupy the fl oo r for more than o ne utterance), they also need to link their
story at least vag uely to current talk. This goal may be accomplished
through repeti tion of some portion of the pri or talk, as in the followin g
example (Jefferson , I 978: 22 I):
R oge r: Speakin about f ort ies. T worked o n a k-o:n Morganelli 's
Forty.
Sometimes sto ry prefa ces are in troduced by someone other than the person
who eventually initiates the story. F o r example, women so metimes preface
and forwa rd a sto ry to their husbands to tell (C. Goodwin, 1986;
Mandelba um, 1987). Tn the excerpt below, Phyllis prefaces a story in a way
that retain s her husband Mike as its prin cipal tell er (C. Goodwin, 1986:
298):
Phy I:
MTike siz th ere wz a big figh t down there las' night,
Curt : O h rill y?
(0.5)
Phy I:
W ih Keegan en, what.
Paul (de W a::/d? ]
M ike :
P aul de W a:J d. Guy o ut of.
Once a story is launched , it ass um es a particular structure. The elements
that comprise a sto ry have been analysed by philosophers, folklori sts,
li tera ry cri ti cs, a nd discourse a na lysts at leas t si nce Ari stotle. Aristotle
(I 962) described in some detail the a rch itecture of tragedy and comedy. H e
cha racterized traged y in term s of principles of plot, character (moral
habits), language, th oug ht , spectacle (manner) , a nd melody. For Aristotle,
Narrative 195
the soul of tragedy is the plot , and characte r is o f seco nd ary impo rtan ce. A
plot mu st have a beginning, a mi dd le, and an end . but thi s progression is
no t as obvious as it might first appea r:
A beginning is that which does not come necessaril y after so meth ing el se. but
after which it is na tural fo r another thing to exi st or co me to be . A n end. o n the
contrary, is that which naturally co mes after so mething else, either a s its
necessary sequel or as its usual (and hence probable) sequel, but itself has no thing
after it. A middle is that which both comes after something else and has an o ther
thing follow ing it. A well-constructed plot, therefore. will neither begin at some
chance po int nor end at some chance point , but will o bserve the pri nciples here
stated . (1 962: 52)
Literary studies such as Vladam ir Propp 's The M orph ology of the Fo lkta le
(1986), Northop Frye's Th e Anatomy of Criticism (1957), Paul R icoeur' s
Tim e and Narrative ( I 988), and R oland Barthes's The Semiotic Challenge
( 1988) continue to draw o n these Ari sto te lian principles in analysing the
structure of story narratives.
William Labov's (1972) linguisti c analysis of narra ti ves of personal
experience also harks back to Ari stotle's notio n of the narra ti ve essentials
of a begin ning, middle and end . R ather than analysing written na rratives,
Labov gathered oral narratives of purported lived experiences in the co urse
of interviewing a population of speakers in New Y o rk City . The narratives
were produced in response to the interview question, 'Were you ever in a
situation where you were in serious da nger of being killed?' Examining
these narratives, Labov comments that some 'are complete in the sense that
they have a beginn ing, a middle, and an end', but o ther mo re fully formed
narratives display the following structural feature s of personal experience
narratives (1972: 363): (1) abstract (fo r example, ' M y brother put a kn ife in
my head'), (2) orientation ('This was just a few days after m y father died') ,
(3) complicating action ('I twi sted his arm up behind him . '), (4)
evaluation ('Ain't that a bitch?'), (5) result o r resolution ('After all a that I
gave the dude the cigareete, after all that '), and (6) coda (' And that was
that').
These elements a re echoed in 'story granun ars', which, somewhat pa rallel
to Propp's morphology of Russian folktales, articulate a syntax of story
narratives (Mand ler and Johnson , I 977; Mandler, 1979 ; Stein and Glenn.
1979; Stein and Policastro , 1984). In these analyse s, stories have grammati-
cal constituents, which in tum are composed of internal constituents . Th e
constituents and the rules tha t order them a re see n as reflectin g ou r tacit
knowledge of story structure. In Stein and Gl enn ( 1979), m ajor story
constituents include: (1) a setting, either (2) an ini tia ting event or (3) an
internal response, (4) an overt a ttempt , (5) a consequence. Stein and
Policastro (1984) add a sixth story component: a reacti o n to (3), (4), or (5) .
Jean Mandler and Nancy Johnso n (1977) include as well an 'ending'
component, and make a further di stinction between stories that are goal-
oriented and those that are not. Those that a re goal-oriented parallel the

196 Discourse as Stru c ture an d Process
Stein and Glenn model. Stories that are not goal-oriented consist of (1) a
setting, (2) a beginning, (3) a simple reacti on - eithe r a n emo tional response
or an unplanned action - and (4) a n endin g. All constituents comprising a
story episode, and with the exception of the se tting , a re seen as invariantly
o rde red.
T he concept of se11ing is common to lite rary , li nguistic, and psycho-
lo gical m odels of narrative. St ory grammars and linguistic conceptualiza-
tions of setting define setting in terms of the physical, social, and temporal
co ntext of protagonists' conduct. Literary analyses of stories and cultural
psychological approaches (Bruner , 1990; 1991; Feldman , 1989) emphasize
tha t setting goes beyond time and space and social ci rcumstance to encom-
pass the psychological climate that anticipa tes a begi nnin g narrative event.
T he historical rise of the novel and other narrative genres is linked to
grea ter a ttent ion to what Bruner (1990) calls th e ' mental lan dscape',
including the emotional states, morality, perspecti ves, and motives of
protagonists as the y enter a crucial narrative event. It is the psychological
climate that colors protagonists as tragic hero/heroines or co medi c fools .
Aristotle notes , for example, that a tragedy rests o n establishing that th~
protagonist is of high moral fiber and that the protagonist is a n un witting
victim of circumstance s. T his psychological context is established in
settings .
While pieces of the setting appear at the sta rt of stories, na rrators may
also delay re vealing crucial aspects of the setting until much late r in the
story. There are many re asons for this. One is that the narra tor may wish
to slowly disc lose vita l elements of the con text to build suspense. If the
na rrator were to reveal all the relevan t background ini tially, th e story loses
its dramatic ten sion. An other reason is that na rrators themselves a re not
always aware of importan t details of the sto ry setti ng at the sta rt of the
storytelling. It is o nly when the story is unde r way that storytellers make a
co nnect io n between a pri o r circumstance and the troublesome event of
concern in the narrati ve. In conve rsa tional storytelling, a na rra to r may be
reminded of such circumstances by co-na rrato rs participating in the inte r-
action (Ochs et al. , 1989). In therapeutic conve rsat io ns, the psycho therapi st
is often instrumental in evoking unmentioned sta tes of mind, actions, or
con ditions that may render a narrative event more mean ingful (Capps and
Ochs, 1995a; 1995b)
Ye t anothe r reason for late revela ti ons of settings is tha t narrators at fi rst
try to present themselves in the best light as protagonists (Ochs et al.,
1989). T hey build settings in such a way that their emotions and actions
see m reasonable and worthy of an in terlocutor's empa th y. H oweve r, some-
times the best laid plans of mice and me n run a mok , when other co-
narrato rs bring out undi sclosed pieces of the setting that unravel this
positive self-po rtrayal. Such disse mbling occu rs in the narrative excerpt to
follow. T he story opens with nine-yea r-old Lucy complaining about how
her school principal inadequately punished a girl who pulled up her friend's
dress in fron t of th e boys:
N.1rr.1 t1 vc I 'J 7
Lucy: I don't thin k Mrs. um Andrew' s being fair because um
When we were back a t school um -
this girl? - she pulled um - Vicky's dress ( ( puts hand to knee ) )
up t'here ( (ges tures with hand high on chest)) in fr ont of the boys
Mom : mhm?
Lucy: she only - all she did was get a ~ in detention
Her fa mily sympa thizes with Lucy's pe rspecti ve. Then , unexpectedly, her
six-year-old brother Chuck introduces a piece of the sett ing unbekn own st to
her parents: Lucy herself had been pu nished by the princi pal and for the
same length of time (one day) as the girl who embarrassed her friend :
Chuck: Lucy? - you onl y went to it once - right?=
Father: =(( clears throat))
(I .0) ( ( Lucy arches her back, eyes open wide. looks shocked, starts
shak ing her head 'no' once, fathe r looking at her))
Mother: (Y o u' [ve been in it / You can tell us can't you?)
Father: [I'm lis?tening)
Lucy: (( low to Chuck ) (th anks)
(0.4)
Lucy : ( (lo uder)) [yeah - th a t - (was
Mother: [(She was in it) once?
(0.6)
Lucy: Once.
(Ochs et al. , 1992: 47)
Lucy's plight is a common one in conversational storytelling . When we tell
stories among intimates such as family members a nd friend s, we a re
vulnerable to their knowledge of ou r lives. They can at any moment
introduce background information tha t underm ines the poi nt we as
narrato rs are trying to convey.
All characterization of stories specify a key event that disrupts the
equilibrium of ordinary, expected circumstances. F o r exampl e, the no tio ns of
'complication' (Aristotle, 1962), ' trouble ' (Burke, 1962), 'devia ti o n from the
ordinary' (Bruner, 1990), 'co mplicating acti on' (Labov, 1972), 'initiating
event' (Stein and Glenn , 1979), and 'inci ting event ' (Sharff, 1982) all
concern an unpredictable o r unusual o r problematic event on whi ch a
narrative episode focuses. In the story that La urie tells while saying grace.
for instance, she focuses on the problema tic event of 'M ommy go bye.' In
Lucy's story, the focus initially is on the problematic conduct of a school-
mate: ' this girl? - she pulled um - Vicky's dress up t'here in front of the
boys.'
In many stories, the key troublesome even t is seen as provoking
psychological responses and actions th at attempt to reinsta te a sense of
equilibrium. In Mandler and Johnson' s (I 977) framework, these a re goal-
 198
D isco urse as Stru cture and Process
direc ted stories. For example, in Laurie 's story, ' Mommy go bye' is seen as
inci ting La urie to cry. Tn Lucy's story, the schoolmate's transgression is
seen as inci ting the princi pal to punish the transgresso r with one day's
detention .
These psychological and act io na l responses in tum have outcomes, which
in tum may engender f urther psychological resp onses and actions. For
example, in Lucy's story, Lucy becomes upset when she discovers that the
principal gave the schoolmate onl y one day's detention. She tells her family
that the principal is no t fa ir; and when her mother asks her, 'You think she
should have go tten suspended ?', Lucy responds, 'At ~1·
Tn a study of the narrative construction of agoraphobia, Lisa Capps and
Elinor Ochs (I 995a; I 995b) found that the naiTa tives of panic experience
told by an agoraphobic woman consistently delineate a series of spiraling
problematic events, wherein one problem leads to another. For example, a
traffic jam is seen as inciting heightened awareness. This realization in turn
incites panic, which then incites the protagonist to ini tia te a series of
attempts to mitigate panic that fail , inciting further panic until eventually
the protagonist communicates her di stress and escapes the situation. In
staclcing problem upon problem, the narrator constructs a world in which
she is helpless and driven by panic.
When storytellers recount that a problematic eve nt incited psychological
responses or acti ons, the story appears to be capped in past time. As
discussed earlier, however, stories have a way of edging into the future , and
storytellers often frame an inciting even t, a psychological response or an
attempt to handle that event as still unresolved, still problematic at the time
of the telling. For example, in Laurie's story, while Laurie herself treats the
problematic event of 'Mommy go bye' as fi nished business (Tm glad (that
anything/everything) happened today in Jesus name A:-MEN! '), her mother
does not. Laurie's mother treats bo th ' M ommy go bye' and Laurie's
response as current problems, wh ich pro voke her to propose a set of future
actions to help. In the case of panic stories, the sufferer of agorapho bia
consistently frames panic as not only a past problem but also an ongoing
problem with debili tating consequences. Tndeed a hallmark of agoraphobia
is the tendency to ruminate about the consequences of past panic episodes
for future life experiences. The storied past becomes a rationale for the
here-and-now and beyond (Capps and Ochs, l 995a; 1995b).
Many narratives appear to be motivated by narrators' current dissatis-
faction wi th how they or some other protagonist handled a situation, as in
Lucy's com plain t about the response of her school principal to a school
problem. Indeed one motivation for narrators to initiate sto ries is to work
through with other interlocutors how they currentl y feel or should feel
about some element of a past situation. The writer Vaclav Havel notes
in his Letters to Olga (1989) that this motivation is part of an all-
encompassing quest to relate our personal lives to a broader horizon of
relationships, places, objects, ideologies, values, and other human concerns.
Our experiences are full of enigmas, and we tell stories to probe with others
Narrative 199
these mysteries and frustrati ons. While the chara cter of co-narration vanes,
the activity offers an opportunity and a potential for communal reflection
not only on the meaning of particular experiences but also on the meaning
of life on historical, cultural and cosmological planes.
In many communities, the activity of problem -solving through collabor-
ative narration is emblematic of friend ship, collegiality, or family member-
ship. Unfortunately, members of these communities are not always able to
enjoin familiars to narrativel y work through problems. Even in close
physical proximity of family and friends, persons may feel awkward or
incapable of presenting an unresolved narrative. In the absence of informal
problem-solving encounters of this so rt , would-be narrators may bring their
stories to community practitioners. In a number of societies, these prac-
titioners are said to engage in 'disentangling' (Watson-Gegeo and White,
1990), and in others, 'psycho therapy' .
Narrative Identities
Narrative is not only a genre of discourse, it is also a social activity
involving different participant roles. Both Bakhti n (1981) and Goffman
(1974) distinguish the narrative role of author (o r, in Goffman's words,
principal) from that of narrator (or, in Goffman's words, animator). As
noted earlier, Bakhtin also inspired the perspecti ve that narrative audience
plays a key role in the construction of narrative (see Duranti , 1986; C.
Goodwin, 1986). The audience is a co-author of narrative form and
meaning.
Jennifer Mandelbaum (1987) suggests that audience involvement varies
in storytelling. She distinguishes between teller-driven and recipient-driven
stories. Teller-driven stories resemble Erving Goffman's description of a
story: ' Sometimes [the participant] will sustain his story across several
consecutive turns, the interposing talk of others largely taking the form of
encouragement, demonstrations of attentiveness and other " back channel"
effects' (1974: 509). In recipient-driven storytelling, recipients take a more
acti ve role: ' teller and recipient together work out what a storytelling
is "about" and how it is to be understood' (Mandelbaum , 1987: 238) .
Recipient-driven storytelling characterizes situations in which the recipient
is also a story protagonist, especially when the recipient is the butt of a
story. This observation resonates with M arjorie Goodwin's (1990) study of
'He-said-she-said' interactions, where the primary story recipient is both the
object of accusation and highly active in structuring the ensuing story.
Charles Goodwin (1986) points out that story recipients vary in their
knowledge and expertise concern ing story details. -In storytelling interac-
tions among adult Americans, recipients who are more knowledgeable tend
to contribute more to the ongoing tellin g. Their knowledge can be viewed
as an entitlement to narrate (see also Shuman, 1986) . Knowledge is not
always a basis of narrative rights, however. Carolyn Taylor's (l 995a;
 200 Disco urse as Stru cture and Process
I 995bJ stud y of famil y sto rytelling suggests that American ch ildren often
don't get to tell stori es about themselves, but rather are expected to lis ten
as one or both parents ass ume this right. In parallel fashion, the medical
anthropologist Basil Sampso n writes an article called 'The sick who do not
speak' (1982) in which he portrays how persons who have been sick or
injured in Australian aborigine communities do not have the right to tell
the story of their illness. The sick are thought to be not themselves in this
condition and therefore unable to portray events. Instead those who cared
for the sick person retain this right.
The assignment of the roles of teller and aud ience, or teller and recipient,
to whole narratives ultimately breaks down in conversational storytelling in
which man y participants construct the story. Particularly where storytell ing
includes close friends and family members, the telling can be widely
di stributed . Particularl y in the se cases it makes better sense to assign
the roles of teller a nd audi ence/recipient tum-by-tum as the storytelling
evol ves. At one moment a participan t may be teller and the next a
recipient.
In examining family storytelling, Ochs et al. (1992) found it useful to
consider all family members present as co-tellers in that telling routinely
shifted from one family member to another in the course of a story. We
distinguished an initial teller, someone who introduces a story, from other
tellers, those who contribute to the telling of a story once introduced.
Rather than assuming a minor role, family members as other tellers
contributed substantially to story construction, including supplying pieces
of the setting, positing psychological responses, and attempting to resol ve
the central story problem . For example, after Lucy as initial teller intro-
duced the story about the schoolmate who gets only one day of deten tion,
her mother con tinues the story by suggesting Lucy's psychological response
to the schoolmate's offensive acti ons:
Lucy:
she only - all she did was get a ~ in detention
M other:
mhm? - .i'.2!:! think she should have gotten suspended?
(0.6)
Lucy: at LEAST
M other: (cuz Lucy) was re all y embarrassed
((n odding yes, talking while eating ))
( 1.6)
Mother:
(I mean you/Lucy rea lly) would have liked to kill the - the
girl - huh?
Lucy:
[((nods yes slowly, as she che ws, f ork in mouth))
Mother: [(cuz) you were upset with her -
( ( speaking very fa st)) but you were held back
because you (thought) your school was goin' to do it
and the school didn't do it and you feel upset
Na rrati ve 201
Other family members also chime in as co- tellers. Lucy's yo un ger bro ther
Chuck, for example, sugge sts that he wo uld give more detention as
punishment:
Chuck: I th ink? she should - be: in there fo r a h- whole MONTH? or
~ ~~
so=
?: =(well maybe)
(0.6)
Chuck: each day she('d) hafta go there - each day each day each day
even if? . ..
And as noted earlier, it is Chuck who takes the story in a radically different
direction when he discloses that Lucy herself was in detention .
Narrati ng Lives
When those involved in narrative interactions actively participate as both
tellers and recipients, they exercise their enti tlement to co-author a narra-
tive. When that narrative concerns a Jived experience, co-authors impact
the understanding of that experience. It is not only a narrative but a life or
a history that is collaboratively constructed. Narrative is a sense-making
activity; it is also a primary vehicle for retaining experiences in memory.
Entitlement to co-tell a narrative is then a powerful right, encompassing
past, present, future, as well as imagined worlds.
As co-tellers draft a story, they script one or more narrative messages.
The message may concern what happened, discerning truth status of events.
Hence telling a story becomes, for better or for worse, a means of estab-
lishing a sense of reality in memory. On the other hand, the narrative
message may concern what should have happened , discerning the moral
status of events (Duranti , 1994; Ochs et al., 1992). Indeed, because narra-
tives have at least one point of view, they inherentl y convey judgments. All
of the narratives illustrated in this chapter communicate strong moral
messages, but perhaps the most striking is the story of Lucy and the girl
who got one day's detention in school. Everyone in the family throws in
their moral judgment first about the girl and then about Lucy. Very often,
story narratives are vehicles for socializing val ues of a family or a public
institution such as a school or a community at large.
Messages about truth and morality contribute to causal explanations that
narratives routinely construct. Because they present a point of view and ·
because they frame an even t as provoking responses, story narratives in
particular allow co-tellers to build explanations about situations (Ochs et al.,
1992). In some cases, co-tellers work together to build a compatible account
of events. In these cases, collaborative storytelling helps to create solidarity
- for example, a coherent family, institution, or community culture.
However, in other cases, co-tellers challenge one another's explanations
of emotions, actions, and circumstances. This often happens when stories
202 I )1~1 our~ •· .1~ ~ tru 1 tun: .111d l 'rl!l . l' '>~ N.11 1.1t 1v1· 20 \

a re narrated among th ose who share a hi story with one another and with communities to represen t and reflect upon events, thoughts and em o ti ons,
the protagonists in a story narrative. In societies such as mainstream but this opportunity may be asymmetrically allocated , gran ting reflective
America, those pri vy to background relevant to a n unfold ing story may rights to some more than to others. Crucial to the construction of a self, an
introduce elements that radically alter the storyline. Fo r example, in the other , a nd a society, co-narration crafts biographies and hi sto rie s; yet th e
story about school d etenti on, Lucy's younger brother's revelati on of her mean ing of experience and existence - what is possi ble, actual, reaso nable,
detention experience undermines Lucy's explanation of why the school desi rable - tends to be defined by some more tha n others. T o these end s.
pri ncipal is not fair. Whereas Lucy had based her sense of injustice o n the narrative has the capacity to limit , indeed impriso n, or to expand and
gravity of t he schoolmate's transgression, her b rothe r p rovides an transform the human psyche.
alternative basis for Lucy's judgment: the principal was not fair to give
Lucy and the schoo lm a te equa l amounts o f d etention . Co-narration that
involves challenging a nd redrafting storylines is aki n to academi c a nd legal Recommended Rea din g
challenging and revisio n o f explanations fo r events . In both cases, chal- Bakhtin (1981)
lenges recast a narra tive account as a version of experience rather than as Bruner (1990)
fact. As such , collabo rative storytelling of pe rsonal ex periences is a Dura nti (1986)
province for socializing intellectual skills demanded in p rofessional worlds Goodwi n (1984)
Goodwin (1990)
(Ochs and Taylo r, l 992a; Ochs et al., 1992).
Heath (1983)
Challenging how another is telling a story, like all human actions , is Labov and Waletzky (1968)
socially organized. There a re expectations concerning which stori es are Miller et aL (1990)
ch allengeable. F o r example , Heath ( 1983) notes that the white working Ochs et aL ( 1992)
families in her study discouraged challenging written narra tives. Similarly, Ricoeur (1988)
Sacks (1992)
family, institutional and co mmunity cultures may structu re who assumes
Stein and Policastro (1984)
the role of cha llenger. In many communities, fo r example, a dults more than White (198 1)
children a re given this en titlemen t (Heath, 1983 ; G oody, 1978; Ochs a nd
Taylo r, 1992b; Ochs and Taylo r, 1994). In the whi te middle-class Am erican
families studied by Ochs and Taylo r, mo thers cha llenged m o re than twice Notes
as often and fathers more than three times as often as d id child ren in 1 am indebted to Lisa Capps and Teun van Dijk fo r their careful reading of earlier drafts and
collaborative na rrative interactions. Because na rrative activity is ubiquitous thei r suggestions. T his wo rk is partly supported by the Spencer Foundation fo r Educational
in these households, the recu rrent na rrative roles of family members help to Research.
constitute their famil y identities. When a family member routi nely assumes Transcription conventions
the role of challenger, th is narra tive role becomes part of thei r family .hhh inbreath
identi ty. In middle-class American famil ies, challenging narrati ve accounts hhh outbreath
is a routine social action that contributes to the identity of pa rent but underline emphatic stress
---- sound stretch
especially the identity of father. The p redilection fo r pa rents, especially
(0.2) pauses in seconds and fractions of seconds
fathe rs, to challenge is well understood by young chi ldren , who in tum (.) micropause (less than 0.2 seconds)
display a predilection to sabotage or only m inima lly comply with parental ((com ment)) non-vocal actio n or transcriber's comment
efforts to elici t their stories. Familiar to these households a re exchanges of falling (final) intonation
the type: 'What did yo u d o a t school today?' ' Nothing.' Children in these rising (final) intonation
continuing (final) intonation
fa milies are loath to have their stories problematized and redrafted by
?, slightl y rising (final) intonation
auth oritati ve co-narrato rs. bolded text phenomenon of focus
overlapping tal k or actions
doubtful hearings
Conclusion bu- cutofT sound or syllable
oyouo low in volume
>well< speeded up speech
Narrative activity in these ways is a t once a di scursive medium for collec- CAPS loud volume
tive probing and problem-solving and a tool fo r instantiati ng social and sudden pitch rise
personal identities (Mumby, 1993). Narra tive activity allows members of vocal fry
2()11 I li" 111 ir"' ,1, S1n1111 m · .ind l'ron·ss
Many of the examples uscU m this review arc drawn fr om the 1:am ily Di nne r Corpus
gathe red during 1986- 90 as pa rt of a larger project ' D iscourse Processes in American
Families', suppo rted by the Na tional Institute of Child Health and Development (grant no . l
ROH HD 20992-0lAl ). Members of the research team included principal investigators Elinor
Ochs and T om Weisner. and resea rch assistan ts Mau rine Bernstein , D ina Rudol ph . R uth
Smith, and Carolyn T aylo r.
References
Adorno , Theodor (1984) Aesthetic Theory. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Aristotle (1962) Poetics (trans . James H utton ). New Yo rk : W.W . No rton.
Bakhtin, M ikhail (19 81 ) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (ed . M . H olquist, trans. C.
Emerson and M . Holquist). Austin , TX : Unive rsi ty of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, Mikhail ( 1986) Speech Genres and Other Lare Essays (tra ns. Vern W. McGee).
Aust in, TX : Uni versi ty of Texas Press.
Ba rthes, Roland (1 988) The Semiotic Challenge . New York : Hill and Wang.
Bauman, Richard (1 986) Sto ry, Performan ce. and Event. Camb ridge : Cambridge Uni ve rsity
Press.
Becker, Alton L. (1979) 'Text- building, epistem ology, and aesthetics in Javanese shadow
theatre', in Alton L. Becker and A.A. Ye ndoya n (eds), The Imagination of Reality: Essays
in Sou theast Asian Coherence Systems. N orw ood. NJ : Ablex . pp. 211 - 43 .
Berger, John (1 972) Ways of Seeing. London : BBC and Penguin Books.
Besnier , N iko ( 1993) ' Reported speech and affect on Nukulaelae', in Jane H . Hill and Judith
Irvine (eds), Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge
Uni versity Press. pp. 161 - 81 .
Brenneis, D onal d ( 1984) 'Grog and gossi p in Bhatgao n: style and substance in Fijian Indian
conversati on' , American Ethnologist, 11: 487 - 506 .
Briggs, Charles L. (1992) " ' Since I am a woman, I will chastize my relatives": gender, reported
speech, and the (re )production of social relations in Warao ri tual wailing', American
Ethnologist , 19: 337- 61 .
Bruner, Jerome (1 990) Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press .
Bruner, Je rome ( 1991 ) 'The na rrative construction of reali ty', Critical Inquiry, 18: 1- 21 .
Bu rke, Kenneth (J 962) A Grammar of M otives and a Rhetoric of Motives. Cleveland and New
York : Meridian Books.
Burke , Ken ne th (1 973) The Philosophy of Literary Fo rm. Berkeley, CA: Unive rsi ty of
California Press.
Capps, L .. Bjork , R. and Siegel, D. (1 993) 'T he meaning of memo ries', UCLA M agazine, 4
(4): 8- 10.
Capps. L. and Ochs, E. (1995a) 'Out of place' , Discourse Processes, 19 (3): 407- 40.
Capps, L. and Ochs, E. (1995b) Constru cting Panic. Cambridge, MA : Harva rd Uni versity
Press.
Cazde n, Cou rt ney and Hymes, Dell ( 19 78) ' Na rrative thinking and storytelling rights: a
folklorist's clue to a criti que of education', Keystone Folklore, 22 (l - 2) : 21 - 35.
Chafe , Wallace (ed .) (1980) Th e Pear Sto ries: Cognitive, Cultural, and Linguistic Aspects of
Narrative Produ ction. Norwood, NJ : Ablex .
Dissanayake, Ellen (1988) What ls Art Fo r? Seattle: Unive rsity of Washington Press.
Duranti , Alessandro (1986) 'The audience as co-author: an introduction ', Te xt, 6 (3): 239 - 47.
Duranti, Alessandro (1994) From Grammar to Politics: Linguistic Anthropology in a Western
Samoan Village . Berkeley and Los Angele s: Unive rsity of California Press.
Ehlich, K . (ed .) (1980) Erzahlen im A l/tag ( S to ry telling in Everyday Life). Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp .
Feld, Steven ( 198 2) Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weep ing. Poetics. and S ong in Ka luli
Exp ression. Philadelphia : Universi ty of Pennsylvania Press .
N;i rr.1tivP 20S
1:elJ111a11, Carol ( 1989) ' Mo11 ologuc as .pruhlc111-sulv111g 11arra11 vc'. 111 1' . Nclso11 (cd ).
Narratives f rom the Crib . Cambridge , MA : Harvard Universi ty Press .
Frye, Northrop (1957) The Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton, NJ : Princeton Unive rsi ty Press.
Goffman, Erving (1974) Frame Analysis: an Essay on the Organization of Experience. New
York : H arper and Row.
Goodwin, Charles (1981) Conversa tional organiz ation: In teraction between Speakers and
Hearers. New Yo rk: Academic Press.
Goodwin, Charles (1984) 'Notes on story structure and the organization of pa rticipation', in
M . Atkinson and J . Heri tage (eds), Structures of Social A ction. Cambridge : Cambridge
University Press. pp. 225- 46.
Goodwin, C harles (1986) 'Audience diversity, part icipati on and interpretation ', Text. 6 (3):
283- 316.
Goodwin, Charles ( 1994) ' Professional vision' , American Anthropologist, 96 (3): 606- 33 .
Goodwin, Marj orie H arness (1990) He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organi:arion among
Black Children. Bloom ington, fN : Indiana University Press.
Goody, E. (1978) Questions and Politeness: Strategies in S ocial Interaction. Cambndge :
Cambridge Universi ty Press.
Havel, Vaclav ( 1989) Le11ers to Olga. New York : Henry H olt .
Haviland , John Beard (1977) Gossip, Reputation, and Kn owledge in Zina cantan . Chicago:
Unive rsity of Chicago Press .
Heath, Shirley Brice (1983) Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and
Classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heidegger, Marti n (1962) Being and Time (trans . John Macquarrie and Edwa rd Robinson).
New Y ork: Harper and Row.
Hymes, D ell (1971) 'The "wife" who " goes out" like a man : re-interpretations of a Clackamas
Chinook myth ', in P. and E.K . Maranda (eds), Stru ctural Analyses of Oral Traditions.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Jacobs, Melville (1959) The Context and Style of an Oral Lirerature. Chicago : Unive rsi ty of
Chicago Press.
Jefferson, Gail (1978) 'Sequential aspects of storytelli ng in conversation', in J. Schenkein (ed .).
Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction. New York: Academic Press . pp.
219- 48.
Labov, William (1972) Language in th e Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov, William and Waletzky, Joshua (1968) 'Narrat ive analysis', in W. Labov et al. (eds). A
Study of the Non-Standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City .
New York: Columbia Unive rsity. pp. 286- 338 .
Latour, Bruno ( 1987) S cience in Action. Cambridge, MA : H arva rd Universi ty Press .
Levi-Strauss, Claude (1955) Tristes Tropiques. Paris.
Mandelbaum, J . (1987) ' Recipient-dri ven storytelling in conversati on'. Unpublished PhD
dissertation, University of Texas at Austi n.
Mandler, J .M . (1979) 'Categorical and schematic organiza tion in memory', in C. K. Puff (ed .).
Memory Organization and Structure . New York : Academic Press.
Mandler, J .H. and Johnson, N.S. (1977) ' Remembrance of things pa rsed · story structu re and
recall', Cognitive Psychology, 9: 111-51.
Marsack, Alexander (1991) The Roots of Civilization. Mount Kisco, NY : Moyer Bell.
Michaels, Sarah (1981) '" Sharing time" : children 's narrative style and differential access to
literacy', Language in S ociety, l 0: 423 - 42 .
Miller, P., M intz, J ., Hoogstra, L. and Fung, H. (1992) 'T he na rrated self: young children 's
construction of self in re la tion to o thers in conversational stories of personal experience',
Merrill- Palmer Quarterly, 38: 45- 67 .
Miller, P., Potts, R ., Fung, H., H oogstra, L. a nd Mintz, J . (1990) ' Narrati ve practices and the
social construction of self in childhood', American Ethn ologist. 17 (2): 292- 311.
Morgan, Marcyliena (199 1) ' Indirectness and in terpretation in African American women's
discou rse' , Pragmatics, l (4) : 421 - 51.
 )()(, I li•.c <11 11·.1· ,J'. 'i l111 c 1111<' .111d l'1rn c· ~~ N.1rr.it1vt· 20 7

Mum by, Dennis (1993) N11rrat11•e and Sucwl Cull/ rut. Lo ndon: Sage. Shuman, A. (1986) S tory telling Rights: the Uses of Oral and Written Texts by Urban
Ochs. E. (1994) 'Stories that step into the future ', in D.F . Biber and E. Finegan (eds), Adolescents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Perspec ti ves on Regis ter: Situating Language Variat ion in Sociolinguistics . Oxford: Oxford Stein, N . and Glenn, C.G . (1979) ' An analysis of story com prehension in elementary school
University Press. pp. 106- 35 . children', in R .O. Freedle (ed .), New Directions in Discourse Processing. Norwood. NJ :
Ochs. E .. Jacoby, S. and G onza les. P. (1994) ' Interpreti ve journeys: how physicists talk and Ablex. pp. 53-120.
gesture through graphic space', in M. Biagoli, R . Reid a nd S. Traweek (eds), Located Stein, N . and Policastro, M . (1984) 'The concept of a story: a comparison between childre n's
Knowledges: Int ersections between Cultural, Gender, and Science Studies, special issue of and teacher' s viewpoints', in H . Mandi, N . Stein and T . Trabasso (eds), Learning an d
Configurations, 2 {I): 151 - 72 . Comprehension of Text . Hillsdale, NJ : Erlbaum .
Ochs. E., Smith , R . and Taylor, C. ( 1989) ' Dinner na rrati ves as detective stories' , Cultural Taylor, Carolyn (1995a) ' "You think it was a fight?" Co-<:onstructing (the struggle for)
Dynamics, 2: 238-57. meaning, face, and fam ily in everyday narrati ve activity', Research on Language and S ocial
Ochs. E. and Taylo r, C. ( 1992a) 'Science a t di nner', in C. Kramsch (ed.), Text and Context: Interaction, 28 (3): 283 - 317.
Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives 0 11 Language Study. Lexi ngton, MA : D .C. Hea th. Taylor, Carolyn (1995b) Child as Apprentice-Na rrator: Socializing Voice , Fa ce, Identity, and
Ochs, E. and T aylo r. C. (l 992b) ' Famil y na rrative as political activity', Discourse and Society, Self-Esteem amid the Narrative Politics of Family Dinner. Unpublished PhD dissertation.
3 (3) 301 - 40. University of Southern California.
Ochs. E., Taylor, C., Rudolph, D. a nd Smith, R. ( 1992) 'Story-telling as a theory-building Tedlock, Dennis (1972) Finding the Center: Narrative Poetry of the Zuni In dians. New Yo rk :
activity', Discourse Processes, 15 {I): 37- 72 . Dial Press.
Ochs, E. and T aylo r C. ( 1994) ' Mothers' role in the everyday reconstruction of " fathe r knows Todorov, Tzvetan (1984) Mikhail Bakhtin: the Dialogical Principle (tra ns. Wlad G odzich).
best '", in K. Hall (ed.), Lacating Power: Proceedings of the 1992 Berkeley Women and Minneapolis: University of M innesota Press .
Language Conference. Be rkeley, CA : Universi ty o f California Berkeley. Watson-Gegeo, Karen and Boggs, Stephen T . (1977) 'From verbal play to tal k story : the role
Ochs, E.. Gonzales. P. and Jacoby, S. (fort hcoming) '" When I come down, I'm in the Domain of routines in speech events among Hawaiian children', in Susan Ervin-Tripp and Claudia
State ": tal k, gesture, and graphic representa tion in the interpretive activity of physicists ', in M itchell-Kernan (eds), Child Discourse. New York : Academic Press. pp. 67 - 90.
E. Ochs. E. Schegloff and S.A. Thompson (eds), In teraction and Grammar. Cambridge: Watson-Gegeo, Karen and White, Geoffrey (eds) (1990) Disentangling: Conflict Discourse in
Cambridge Universi ty Press. Pacific Societies. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni versity Press.
Polya ni, L. ( 1989) Telling the American Story: a Structural and Cultural Analysis of White, Hayden (1981) 'The value of narrativi ty in the representation of reali ty', in W.J .T .
Conve rsational Story telling. Cambri dge, MA : MIT Press. Mitchell (ed.), On Narrative. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Propp. Vl adi mir ( 1986) The Morphology of the Folktale. Austin , TX : Unive rsi ty of Texas Williams, Raymond (1982) The Sociology of Culture . New York: Schocken Books.
Press. Williams, Raymond (1983) Writing in Society. London: Verso .
Q uasthoff. U.M. (ed .) (1980) Er:ahlen in Gesprachen ( Storytelling in Conversations). Tubingen: Witherspoon, Gary (1977) Language and Art in the Navajo Universe. Ann A rbor. Ml :
Narr. University of Michigan Press.
R1coeu r, Paul (198 1) Hermeneutics and th e Human Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge Unive rsity
Press.
Ricoeu r, Paul (1988) Tim e and Narrative (trans. Kath leen Blarney and David Pellauer).
Chicago: Uni versi ty of Chicago Press.
Sack s, Harvey ( 1978) 'Some technical considera tions of a dirt y joke', in J. Schenkein (ed.),
Studies in th e Organizat ion of Conversa tional Interaction (ed. Gail Jefferson from four
lectu res delive red at the Universi ty o f Cal iforn ia, Irvine, Fall 1971 ). New York : Academic
Press. pp. 249- 69 .
Sacks, Harvey (1992) Lectures on Conversa tion. Cambridge , MA : Blackwell.
Sam pson, Basi l (1982) T he sic k who do not spea k', in D. Parlcin {ed.), S emantic Anthropology.
New York: Academ ic Press. pp. 183- 95 .
Sch1effelin. Ba mbi (1984) 'Ade : a sociolinguistic analysis of a relati onship', in John Ba ug h and
Joel Sherzer (eds), Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics. Englewood Cliffs . NJ:
Prent ice-H all. pp. 229- 43 .
Schie ffelin, Bambi (forthcom ing) 'Creating evidence : making sense of written wo rds in Bosa vi',
in Elinor Ochs. Ema nuel Schegloff and Sandra Thompson (eds), Interaction and Grammar.
Cambrid ge: Cambridge Unive rsi ty Press.
Schieffelin. Ed ward L. ( 1976) The Sorrow of the Lonely and th e Burning of the Dancers. New
York : St M artin 's Press.
Scallon . R . and Scollan. S. (1981a) Narrative, Litera cy, and Fa ce in lnterethn ic
Communica tion. N o rwood. NJ : A blcx .
Scollon, R. a nd Scollan , S. (1981b) The lite ra te two-year-old: the fictionalization of self:
abs tracting themes: a Chipewayan two-year-old', in R .O. Freedle (ed.), Narrative, Litera cy
and Face in lnterethn ic Commun ication. Norwood, NJ : A blex. pp. 57-96.
Sharif, Stefan ( 1982) The Elements of Cinema: toward a Theo ry of Cinesthetic Impact. New
York : Columbia Unive rsi ty Press.