Narrative Inquiry - Current Issue

Abstract

Individuals create both personal and culturally shared meaning through narratives; however, sparse research has explored the specific ways in which individuals might use such cultural narratives in creating meaning from developmentally important experiences. In this study, we examine how emerging adults narrate positive romantic relationships, both because emerging adulthood is critical for the development of intimacy and because romantic relationship narratives are pervasive in cultural media. Thematic analysis of 31 narratives from mostly European-descent students attending a private liberal arts university in the Southeast US (mean age 19; 16 self-identified females) revealed three major narrative arcs, Love Grows, Firecrackers and Fairytale, which varied in coherence, coda, and mutuality of the relationship, but did not differ by gender. Further examination and discussion of these narratives suggest how emerging adults are making sense of their first romantic relationships in ways that inform efforts to educate and intervene to promote healthy and positive relationships.

Abstract

This article focuses on how the concept of “turning points” can be used in narrative research when studying people’s (professional) identities and identity formation. By examining various understandings of turning points, we aim to show how they can be identified and used as analytical tools in different ways when conducting narrative analyses of (professional) identity formation. A case study from a research project on police identity is used to illustrate the application of various perspectives on turning points. The article offers guidance for researchers on choosing a context and focus for analysing turning points, as well as on the theoretical perspectives that come with these choices, and thereby suggests directions for analytical attention. The article shows how different perspectives on turning points have consequences for the understanding of professional identities.

Abstract

Turkey is the largest refugee host country in the world with about 3.5 million registered Syrian refugees. In this study, we explored intergroup relations between Syrian refugees and Turks in Turkey. We focused on how Turkish people perceived Syrian refugees in Turkey and how these two groups interacted daily. We used an adaptation of McAdams’ Life Story Interview and asked questions about Syrian refugees in the Turkish context. Using this open-ended, qualitative interviewing technique allowed us to understand how Turks and Syrians interacted on a daily basis and what shaped Turkish people’s perceptions about refugees. We conducted a narrative analysis based on agency and communion themes. Results showed that age of participant was negatively correlated with communion, whereas education of participant was positively correlated with agency. Agency and communion positively correlated with each other. Narratives reflected a range of reflections Turkish citizens had about the large influx of Syrian refugees.

Abstract

This paper examines how disaster-related discourses are produced in storytelling, and whether and in what way these discourses may change in the second telling. We examine two sets of retold stories taken from a corpus of 123 retold stories about the 2010/2011 Canterbury earthquakes in New Zealand. Findings indicate that these storytellers tell structurally similar stories, yet implement subtle linguistic changes which produce different positionings and discourses in the two tellings. We draw on positioning analysis and the ethnomethodological concept of tellability to show how, in the first telling, the storytellers orient to and produce discourses of united togetherness, whereas in the second telling they produce discourses of bravery and heroism. We argue that the positioning and discursive strategies used in disaster stories may change drastically over time, showing how retold stories of the same event change to meet the evolving realities of the teller and their post-disaster community.

Abstract

This study investigated the associations of narrative processing while recounting a past victimization experience with different forms (i.e., physical and relational) and functions (i.e., reactive vs proactive) of aggressive behavior. Moderating effects of respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity and gender were explored. Two hundred college students participated in a semi-structured laboratory interview about a past victimization event, during which their respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and narrative processing (i.e., perpetrator hostility evaluation, narrative coherence, and positive resolution) were assessed. Participants reported their tendency to engage in aggressive behaviors. Findings indicated that low narrative coherence and high perpetrator hostility evaluation, respectively, in combination with RSA activation, were associated with reactive physical aggression in men but not in women. Perpetrator hostility evaluation was also associated with reactive relational aggression for both men and women. Findings shed critical light on the joint influences of narrative processing, physiological reactivity, and gender in subtypes of aggressive behavior.

Abstract

This paper advances the field of narratives by focusing on the narratives of personal experience disclosed by students with mental health conditions, in particular depression, anxiety and borderline personality disorder, in medical consultations. I draw on sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic approaches to the analysis of narratives in interaction, viewing language as a tool for constructing social reality, and examine the content, structural properties and functions of the stories (Labov & Waletzky, 1967; De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2011). Engaging in self-disclosure and sharing stories of stressful and traumatic experience in medical consultations allows the students (1) to explain symptoms and interpret causes of their current health problems, (2) manage accountability, and (3) confront and cope with their painful experience and stigma.

Abstract

Non-fictional narratives have an open-ended character that projects roles and values to those who participate in them. Narrative participation, in turn, entails narrative assessment and identification processes, through which adherence to values and positions may fail or be achieved. In the analysis of interviews with university students across Turkey, we draw on Fisher’s narrative paradigm to focus on how our participants carry out assessments of narrative credibility. To elucidate narrative coherence and fidelity, we take inspiration from an argumentative-rhetorical perspective, and focus specifically on the relationship among the criteria identified in the literature on narrative assessment. Our study of interviewee evaluations of COVID-19 narratives confirms the use of the coherence criteria, calls into question the fidelity criteria, and highlights the relevance of identification as a basic process for fidelity assessments. We conclude by discussing our limitations and directions for further research.

Abstract

Discussions of storytelling and narrative have encompassed abstraction in different ways including master narratives (Bamberg, 1997) and storylines (Harré & van Lagenhove, 1998). These discussions, however, have often viewed storytelling and abstraction as a binary distinction, rather than a spectrum where speakers move between different levels of abstraction when recounting experiences. This article argues for a nuanced approach to abstraction in storytelling that considers how specific details of stories – namely, actors, actions, contexts, and time – are excluded or abstracted in the recounting of experience, with a link between increased abstraction and implied moral judgement. The article first outlines the theoretical basis for this argument, and then shows specific examples of abstraction taken from stories about religious experience. Finally, the productive implications of a nuanced view of abstraction are outlined, including for narrative and discourse analysis, for understanding of storytelling and cognition, and for critical analysis of racist language.

Abstract

This study explored Mandarin-speaking children’s independent ability in using conjunctions to relate events in personal narration. Twenty three-year-olds, twenty four-year-olds, twenty five-year-olds and twenty six-year-olds participated, and they were prompted to tell personal stories. Conjunctions were assessed in terms of the use of seven types of connectives. With age, Mandarin-speaking children used more diversified conjunctions and produced more conjunctions in their personal narratives. Significant differences were found across age groups in the frequency of sequential, temporal, and simple connectives, but the proportional use of these three connectives did not differ across age groups. No gender differences were found in the use of any of the connectives. Mandarin-speaking children relied on sequential, temporal and simple connectives to relate events in their narratives, and the use of causal, additive, adversative and conditional connectives were rare. Chinese mothers’ greater emphasis on knowledge, social rules and moral standards may contribute to this.

This article reviews Narrating Migrations from Africa and the Middle East9781350274549