1887
Volume 9, Issue 1
  • ISSN 1387-6740
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9935
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Abstract

Narrative has been analyzed as a way of recounting the memory of the past and negotiating current group membership. But in an institutional context, it crucially functions to project the future, in constructing a record which can serve as an institutional memory available in case of possible challenges. Using as data an extended oral narrative from a social service agency about an incident of violence by a client, this study shows that the strongest structural constraints on the discourse and syntactic structure of the narrative are the requirements for a bureaucratically adequate written record. This analysis serves as a case study of how the larger social structure of legal requirements for adequate records serves to shape the structure of oral narrative, as well as a demonstration of the work oral narrative does in producing and reproducing institutional memory. (Discourse, Narrative, Memory, Bureaucratic Language, Language of Violence)

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/content/journals/10.1075/ni.9.1.08lin
1999-01-01
2024-12-03
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  • Article Type: Research Article
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