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- Volume 1, Issue, 1991
Journal of Narrative and Life History - Volume 1, Issue 1, 1991
Volume 1, Issue 1, 1991
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Chapters in Narratives: Evidence From Oral Histories of the First Year in College
Author(s): David B. Pillemer, Lynne Krensky, Sandra N. Kleinman, Lynn R. Goldsmith and Sheldon H. Whitepp.: 3–14 (12)More LessAbstractThirty college students provided 20-min oral accounts of their first year in college. One week later, each participant divided a typed transcript of his or her memory narrative into self-defined chapters. Two independent coders also "chapterized" all 30 narratives according to their own self-defined criteria. There was considerable agreement among coders and participants in both the number of chapters per narrative and the location of chapter breaks within the narrative. The chapters were approximately the same length as written individual memories obtained in earlier questionnaire studies using similar subjects. In follow-up interviews about the chapterizing process, men were more likely than women to define memory chapters by topics, whereas women were more likely than men to define chapters by emotions. Although the overall incidence of specific memo-ries in the oral histories was low, specific memories were overrepresented in opening chapters and they tended to occur in close proximity to each other throughout the narratives. The memory chapter appears to be a useful and meaningful unit for detailed analysis of extended narratives. (Psychology)
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A Linguistic Approach to Narrative
Author(s): James Paul Geepp.: 15–39 (25)More LessAbstractThis article develops, through an analysis of a single example, a linguistic ap-proach to narrative. I argue that the discourse structure of a text functions to set up a series of interpretive questions, questions that must be answered by any acceptable interpretation, but that also constrain what count as acceptable inter-pretations. I argue that the text I use as an example, a narrative from a woman in her 20s suffering from schizophrenia, is a typical-if striking-example of human narrative sense making. The global organization of the narrative, like all deeply senseful uses of language, flows from the organization of the discourse system (line and stanzas) and from the lived and earned coherence of the narra-tor's life. (Psychology)
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Beyond Reductionism: Narrative Genres in Divorce Accounts
Author(s): Catherine Kohler Riessmanpp.: 41–68 (28)More LessAbstractThere is an inevitable connection between reduction-our need to simplify and order-and representation-our dependence on words and images to stand for what we see and feel. Using divorce as an example, I examine the consequences of three forms of representation and compare what we learn from symptom counts, from lists of marital complaints, and from narrative accounts of mar-riage. All three forms involve reduction and selection, but narratives privilege the teller's language and way of organizing experience into talk. Yet narrative theory has been constrained by its primary focus on the story. Drawing on research interviews, I display various genres within the narrative medium: habit-ual and hypothetical narratives and an approach-avoidance narrative, in addi-tion to stories. Each has a distinctive style and structure and each persuades differently. As a way of dealing with the reductionism of narrative theory, we need to open up our definitions of narrative to include these and other forms. (Qualitative Sociology)
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Children’s Testimony About a Stressful Event: Improving Children’s Reports
Author(s): Gail S. Goodman, Bette L. Bottoms, Beth M. Schwartz-Kenney and Leslie Rudypp.: 69–99 (31)More LessAbstractAge differences in children's ability to recount a stressful event were explored, as were several ways to improve children's reports. Seventy 3- to 7 year olds were videotaped while receiving inoculations at a medical clinic. It was predicted that multiple interviews would maintain memory and strengthen resistance to sugges-tion. It was also predicted that social support would ease intimidation and thus lessen children's suggestibility. To test these predictions, children were inter-viewed either once after a 4-week delay or twice, following 2- and 4-week delays, and under either "reinforcing" or "nonreinforcing" conditions. Age differences in answers to specific and misleading questions and in performance on a photo identification task were prevalent. However, multiple interviews and reinforce-ment supported more accurate reports. Training was effective in reducing false identifications on the photo identification task, especially for older children. Children's accuracy was unrelated to parental ratings of the stressfulness of the event. Our findings have implications for the testimony of child victim witnesses and for child-adult reconstruction of a child's past history. (Psychology)
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Narrative and Self-Concept
Author(s): Donald E. Polkinghorne
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A Linguistic Approach to Narrative
Author(s): James Paul Gee
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