Narrative Inquiry - Volume 8, Issue 1, 1998

Structural and conceptual parallels between paradigmatic and narrative discourse are drawn and a single taxonomy of genres is applied to each. In particular, we argue that narrative depictions of person, place, and time, as reflected in Bakhtin's account of novelistic genres, find their parallels in the paradigmatic discourse of scientific psychology. In the first part of the paper we provide illustrations of the application of Bakhtin's description of narratives of adventure and ordeal to naturalistic and experimental reports in psychology. In the second part of the paper we turn to the theoretical discourse of psychology and illustrate the relevance of Bakhtin's historical typology of the Bildungsroman to various ways in which the notion of development is inscribed in psychological theory. In each case we consider the ways in which implicit narrative structures and themes enable and constrain practice and theory in paradigmatic science.

Despite the belief that narrative may serve as an important vehicle for exploring human experience and selfhood, there frequently exists the paradoxical supposition that narrative accounts cannot help but falsify life itself: Insofar as time is viewed in fundamentally linear terms and experience, in turn, is viewed as that which simply "goes on" in time, narratives may be viewed as entailing an imposition of literary form upon that which is ostensibly formless. After considering the idea of mythical time, tied to the image of the circle, and the idea of historical time, tied to the image of the line, it is suggested that human experience and selfhood are themselves woven out of the fabric of narrative. In light of contemporary understandings of the self, particularly those promoted in certain quarters of post-structuralist and social constructionist thought, it is further suggested that the narrative fabric of the self has become frayed. By rethinking the interrelationship of time, experience, and self via the idea of narrative, there emerges the opportunity to recognize more fully the profound continuities between myth and history as well as life and literature. (Hermeneutics, History, Myth, Narrative, Self, Time)

The narratives of children (2-13 years) who had experienced trauma injuries requiring hospital Emergency Room treatment were analyzed for coherence. Specifically, the degree to which the children embedded their accounts within both an orienta-tive and evaluative context was assessed as well as whether they organized their narratives around high points. In addition, distress of the children at both time of injury and of treatment was rated on a 6-point scale by parents. There were qualitative as well as quantitative changes in the narratives of children at different ages. As well, the children who were more distressed produced less coherent accounts. While 9-13-year-olds who were most upset produced more orientative propositions, highly distressed 2-3-year-olds produced fewer, and all age groups produced fewer evaluative propositions as distress increased. It was proposed that this pattern of decreased evaluation resembled the affect flattening found in victims of posttraumatic stress syndrome. As well, the changes in coherence across the preschool years were discussed in terms of their possible contribution to the phenomenon of infantile amnesia. (Psychology)

This paper aims to examine to what extent preschool Mandarin Chinese-speaking children can create an autonomous replica play narrative. Twenty-four Taiwanese children, 12 four-year-olds and 12 six-year-olds, participated in this study. The focus of investigation is on the linguistic resources (i.e., temporal and referential devices) the children use to maintain story lines and to mark shifts between types of talk in replica play. Developmental shifts are evident in these children's use of temporal and referential devices to build up a coherent play narrative. The four-year-olds exhibit a great difficulty sustaining their narrative talk, making use of temporal devices, and managing reference in their replica play. The six-year-olds, in comparison, use clearer reference and more temporal and causal connectives, but their ability to achieve autonomy in play narratives is limited. Developmental differences found in this study, in general, accord with crosslinguistic results.

Utilizing the life history methodology, this paper will examine the reminiscent memories of parenting patterns and perceived parent-child interaction experienced by 18 adult women over 63 years of age, with the aim of exploring the linkage of these early experiences to the present day relationships these women have with their adult children. (Methodology: Life history)

This article examines the narratives of more than fifty students and teachers who live and work in inner-city areas of the U.S. and South Africa. The purpose of this investigation was to consider some striking similarities in the themes that emerged from the narratives of "most memorable learning experiences" shared by these inner-city learners and their implications for policy. In this article, attention is given not only to the value of these narratives to the individuals who have shared them, but also to the value of sharing these narratives with "Others" (i.e., policy makers, administrators, and curriculum developers) who are engaged in dialogues about the reform of education for inner-city populations here in the U.S. and in South Africa. The U.S. and South Africa are two countries with similarities that make them well-suited for this investigation. Structurally, the U.S. and South Africa are both seeking ways to more effectively educate large numbers of inner-city students who are culturally and linguistically different from the "mainstream" and from the students for whom the majority of instructional materials and school expectations are tailored. With an end to legal segregation in the U.S. and apartheid in South Africa, policy makers in both countries are making critical decisions concerning the reconstruction of education systems for students whom they know very little about. A disjunction exists between the lives of the students and the policy environment that seeks to design and control the educational experiences of inner-city youth. Through narratives, this article helps the reader to appreciate this disjunction and exposes a sharp contrast between the world in which the inner-city youth lives and the world implied by the policies and practices that are proposed. I propose that narratives of memorable learning experiences collected from students and teachers who live and work in inner-city areas can provide insight concerning "what counts" as learning and what aspects of life and school experiences have most shaped their lives as learners. This article demonstrates two important functions of narrative: it demonstrates how students and teachers who live and work in inner-city areas make sense of their experiences through narrative, and how (by listening to the voices of inner-city students and teachers) others can gain a data base from which to craft expanded visions of the possibilities for the change and restructuring of schools. (Content analyses of oral and written narrative data)

A diverse group of child clinicians (n — 39) rated paragraph-long transcriptions of two Euro-American, two African-American, and two Latino children's oral narratives. Clinicians were asked to rate the logic, cohesion, and comprehensibility of the stories using 6-point scales. They were also asked to give a rough estimate of the children's IQ, to comment on the existence of emotional/behavioral and/or learning/language problems, and to assign possible diagnoses. The results indicated clinicians' ratings of the Latino narratives were significantly different from ratings of the Euro-American and African-American narratives, as confirmed by Scheffe post hoc analysis. Diagnoses revealed a distribution by ethnicity of children. Euro-Americans received 21 diagnoses, African-Americans received 33 diagnoses, and Latinos received 53 diagnoses. Further, clinicians' ethnicity and gender did not account for any group differences. The implications of these findings are twofold. First, clinicians seem to be unaware of the differences in Latino children's narrative structure, and seem to be penalizing them for not conforming to the Euro-American structure. Second, it appears that clinicians training and practicing in the U.S. tend to adopt a Euro-American perspective which may desensitize them as to the narrative intricacies of their own culture.

This interdisciplinary study examines the loss of narrative innocence in adolescents' narratives. The study analyzes the development of narrative consciousness and narrative writing abilities by comparing and contrasting the narratives of children (ages eight to eleven) with those of adolescents (ages fifteen to eighteen) from public schools in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The methodology used is literary analysis.

In this essay, I describe moments in my mother's life and examine them as living narratives or "lifestories" and apply critical theory and analysis that has traditionally been reserved for written narratives. I argue that these moments are teaching tools that reinforce and sometimes challenge cultural norms and discuss how her living narratives were revised by me as I began to "tell" them to my own children. I apply performance narrative, fiction, and Native American literature theories to these narratives. I point out the cultural and generational differences in me and my mother, and discuss the influence of the different regions where we spent our childhoods. This essay is a comparative literary study of a multigenerational living text in process. (Literature, Critical Theory)