Narrative Inquiry - Volume 29, Issue 1, 2019

When it comes to autobiographical narratives, the most spontaneous and natural manner is preferable. But neither individually told narratives nor those grounded in the communicative repertoire of a social group are easily comparable. A clearly identifiable tertium comparationis is mandatory. We present the results of an experimental ‘Narrative Priming’ setting with French students. A potentially underlying model of narrating from personal experience was activated via a narrative prime, and in a second step, the participants were asked to tell a narrative of their own. The analysis focuses on similarities and differences between the primes and the students’ narratives. The results give evidence for the possibility to elicit a set of comparable narratives via a prime, and to activate an underlying narrative template. Meaningful differences are discussed as generational and age related styles. The transcriptions from the participants that authorized the publication are available online.

The paper purports to present a method that allows to obtain and analyze letters written by older adults to their real or imaginary grandchildren. This enables an insight into their individual life experience. The study used a narrative paradigm. Letter texts were obtained from 128 older adults from Poland, both male and female. Data was analyzed with mixed methods combining qualitative content analysis (using inductive analytical categories described in originally created Coder Completion Sheet) with frequency count. The analysis allowed a systematic description of content (themes in wisdom legacy) and the differentiation of two major formal patterns in the letters: (1) the narrative mode (storytelling); (2) the argumentative mode (legacy without narrative examples: advice, warnings, and wishes). The outcomes demonstrate the letter technique may be recommended for future research in psychology, narrative gerontology and for used in applied psychology also.

The present study aimed to explore the personal narrative skills of Urdu speaking preschoolers, aged between 4 and 5 years. The study also aimed to investigate the gender differences in narrative skills, and relationship and the predictive association between macro- and microstructure skills. A total of 80 preschoolers were recruited using two-stage sampling (convenience and purposive). After screening the participants for intellectual functioning, three personal narratives were collected from each participant. The results revealed non-significant differences on the basis of age and gender. A significant correlation was found between the macro- and microstructure skills in children. NDW (number of different words), TNW (total number of words), and MLU (mean length of utterance) were revealed as significant predictors of macrostructural competencies in children. This was the first research that highlighted the narrative skills of Urdu speaking preschoolers. Hence, the patterns identified might help in extending the theory and research in this field.

We refer to the concept of the hidden story as a story about one’s own life, internalized in the mind and knowable “indirectly”, through a monologue and inference, using linguistic and literary theory tools. The aim of the study was to determine whether the hidden story thus reconstructed would be stable in time. A twenty-one-year-old woman was asked to deliver a ten-minute monologue on her upbringing. After two years the test was repeated. Both monologues were transcribed, analyzed and interpreted to isolate a hidden story from each of them. We reconstructed the earlier and later stories. Two threads: “rebellion” and “heritage” appeared in both stories, but they combined to form a more coherent narrative only in the later one. The “closeness with parents” thread, present in the earlier story, was replaced with the “marital love” thread. The character and pattern of the changes illustrate changes that result from developmental factors.

This paper explores discursive narratives as inextricably linked to the construction of identity, place and history by a number of interviewed individuals. From an interactional sociolinguistics (cf. De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012) perspective, the study explores the context of the East African diaspora (Georgiou, 2006; Manger & Assal, 2006 among many others) as the interviewed participants are all Zanzibar-born individuals for whom the relationship with the island and its history is crucial to their construction of selfhood. The study analyses the narrative voices (De Fina & Georgakopolou, 2008) of those individuals who decided to leave Zanzibar at the time of the 1964 violent political upheaval never to return and those who, on the contrary, decided to go back after a lengthy period abroad. However, more than establishing a division between these two groups, the paper highlights how these individuals take a different positioning (Bamberg, 1997) towards Zanzibar and its history and construct a range of identities in the context of the interview.

This study used qualitative analyses to investigate similarities and differences in narrative production across two task conditions for four first grade Spanish-English emergent bilingual children. Task conditions were spontaneous story generation and retelling using the same story. Spanish stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in vocabulary, while English stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in overall discourse skills. Results show that when the total number of words used was similar across Spanish narratives, the retell included more different words and higher quality story structure than the spontaneous story. When overall discourse scores in the English examples were similar, the spontaneous story required more words than the retell, but also included more central events and greater detail. Yet, the retell included more advanced narrative components. This study contributes to our understanding of narrative skills in young Spanish-English bilinguals across task conditions.

The aim of the present study is to reformulate a descriptive typology previously developed with grounded theory as a result of the qualitative analysis of a good outcome case study. We developed a transtheoretical and easily usable coding system. We describe the developing process of this new coding system, which is focused on the use of language by the psychotherapist. Four researchers were discussing every stage and basing decisions on consensus. As a result, we have developed the Psychotherapist Interventions Coding System (PICS). The resultant coding system is described within 4 group of macro categories: (1) Discursive contract; (2) Facilitators of the therapeutic relationship (3) Facilitators of the client’s speech; and (4) Liberation of constraining speeches. The PICS aims to contribute to developing knowledge on research and how therapist interventions contribute within psychotherapeutic processes, acknowledge the kind of interventions therapists are using in the sessions and assist teaching on novel therapists in training programs.

While sociolinguistic studies of politeness and identities present many disciplinary parallels, their paths have seldom intersected (Garcés-Conejos Blitvich & Sifianou, 2017, p. 227). It is within this context that this paper uses “small stories” research (Bamberg, 2006; Georgakopoulou, 2006, 2007) and identities analysis to study politeness-in-interaction (Georgakopoulou, 2013b). It particularly looks at a group of young Greek women, and focuses on their “small stories” about the tellers’ and others’ management of politeness norms in intimate relationships. A multi-method approach to data collection is used that involves both naturally-occurring narratives-in-interactions in self-recordings, and reflexive tellings in playback interviews. Drawing on Georgakopoulou’s (2007) triptych of “ways of telling-sites-tellers”, and on Bamberg’s (1997) model of positioning, the analysis illustrates the significance of politeness-related identity claims for signaling lay norms of politeness ratified by the local group of friends. It also shows how politeness construction is intertwined with the interactional fabrication of identities.

This paper extends Pentland and Feldman’s (2007) narrative network method and uses it to more clearly understand how new technology affordances and digital spaces impact storytelling and enactment during and immediately after a crisis. To do this, I (a) examine the meaningful roles human motivation and feelings play in online storytelling and enactment, and (b) analyze how context impacts storytelling and enactment, and therefore the construction of narrative networks. Specifically, I analyze a series of Facebook messages exchanged during a recent, very publicized campus crisis to reveal the nonlinear digital stories that are co-constructed online to keep others informed. I demonstrate how crisis-affected populations capitalize on the affordances offered by social media to enact stories, correct stories, and ultimately to aid in sensemaking and sense-giving after a crisis event. Implications of new technology affordances for creating and updating narratives throughout times of high uncertainty are provided.