Continuity and change in narrative study
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Patrick Colm Hogan
Abstract
Since its ancient origins, narrative theory has involved two broad types of analysis — componential and functional. Componential analysis seeks to isolate the elements and operations that make up narrative. Functional analysis explores the purposes of narrative. Commonly, writers isolate two functions — one emotive, the other ethical and/or political. The broad framework of narrative theory has remained largely the same since its inception. Changes have primarily been a matter of expanding the scope or detail of componential or functional analyses. In the twentieth century, there was a particular expansion of the ethico-political part of functional analysis. One distinctive feature of very recent narrative theory is its use of cognitive neuroscience to expand our componential analyses treating narrative causality and plot organization and our functional analyses treating emotion. Unfortunately, the work on emotional functional analysis has not been integrated with its ethico-political counterpart. This lack of integration may be due to the political economy in which cognitive literary study arose. Moreover, the future of such integration may be less a matter of the analyses themselves and more a matter of the political economy in which these analyses are embedded.
Abstract
Since its ancient origins, narrative theory has involved two broad types of analysis — componential and functional. Componential analysis seeks to isolate the elements and operations that make up narrative. Functional analysis explores the purposes of narrative. Commonly, writers isolate two functions — one emotive, the other ethical and/or political. The broad framework of narrative theory has remained largely the same since its inception. Changes have primarily been a matter of expanding the scope or detail of componential or functional analyses. In the twentieth century, there was a particular expansion of the ethico-political part of functional analysis. One distinctive feature of very recent narrative theory is its use of cognitive neuroscience to expand our componential analyses treating narrative causality and plot organization and our functional analyses treating emotion. Unfortunately, the work on emotional functional analysis has not been integrated with its ethico-political counterpart. This lack of integration may be due to the political economy in which cognitive literary study arose. Moreover, the future of such integration may be less a matter of the analyses themselves and more a matter of the political economy in which these analyses are embedded.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introductory remarks 1
- Narrative research and the challenge of accumulating knowledge 7
- The role of narrative in personality psychology today 17
- The promise (and challenge) of an innovative narrative psychology 27
- Biographical structuring 37
- Narrative pre-construction 47
- A new role for narrative in variationist sociolinguistics 57
- Story formulations in talk-in-interaction 69
- Continuity and change in narrative study 81
- Dialogue in a discourse context 91
- Rhetorical aesthetics and other issues in the study of literary narrative 103
- Narrative as construction and discursive resource 113
- The narrative negotiation of identity and belonging 123
- Narratives in action 133
- Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis 145
- Life “on holiday”? 155
- Stories: Big or small 165
- Entitlement and empathy in personal narrative 175
- Frankie, Johnny, Oprah and Me 185
- Rescuing narrative from qualitative research 195
- The performance turn in narrative studies 205
- Applied ethnopoetics 215
- The self-telling body 225
- Narrative thinking and the emergence of postpsychological therapies 237
- Do good stories produce good health? 249
- Living stories 261
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introductory remarks 1
- Narrative research and the challenge of accumulating knowledge 7
- The role of narrative in personality psychology today 17
- The promise (and challenge) of an innovative narrative psychology 27
- Biographical structuring 37
- Narrative pre-construction 47
- A new role for narrative in variationist sociolinguistics 57
- Story formulations in talk-in-interaction 69
- Continuity and change in narrative study 81
- Dialogue in a discourse context 91
- Rhetorical aesthetics and other issues in the study of literary narrative 103
- Narrative as construction and discursive resource 113
- The narrative negotiation of identity and belonging 123
- Narratives in action 133
- Thinking big with small stories in narrative and identity analysis 145
- Life “on holiday”? 155
- Stories: Big or small 165
- Entitlement and empathy in personal narrative 175
- Frankie, Johnny, Oprah and Me 185
- Rescuing narrative from qualitative research 195
- The performance turn in narrative studies 205
- Applied ethnopoetics 215
- The self-telling body 225
- Narrative thinking and the emergence of postpsychological therapies 237
- Do good stories produce good health? 249
- Living stories 261
