Transcript Presentazione di PowerPoint

Introducing
Telling
stories
Corpus Linguistics
Dr. Gloria Cappelli
A/A 2006/2007 – University of Pisa
What is a narrative?
A basic story or narrative
consists of the following:
– A plot - something interesting takes place
– Characters
– Chronological structure – references made
to time
– An opening
– An ending which provides some resolution
– A setting in time and place
Let’s work on our joke again…
right (.) three men sat in a pub (.) and er sat there having a
quiet drink (.) and in walks this really drunken old man (.) and
he staggers in and he's all over the place he's knocking drinks
over (.) he's er standing on people's feet and (.) urn all the rest
of it and urn he walks over to the bar this old man (.) and he
orders a pint of lager (.) he er gets his pint (.) and downs it fast
as he can in one (.) and then he staggers over to these three
men (.) these three men are looking at each other nudging each
other (.) right what does he want (.) and ur (.) this man walks
over he says (.) I'vehadyermam I'vehadyermam and one of the
men says (.) piss off! so (.) this this old man he staggers away
and he goes to the bar and he orders another drink (.) another
pint of lager and downs this even faster (.) he staggers back
over to these three men (.) and he says I've had your mam I've
put cream on her body and I've licked it off (.) guy stands up
again he says look go away (.) so er this old man staggers back
to the bar (.) all over the place he orders another pint (.) this
one downs even faster and he comes and again again he comes
back over to these three men (.) he says I've had your mam I've
put cream on her body I've done things to her you wouldn't
understand (.) well they've had enough so (.) one of the men
stands up he says look dad you're drunk go home.
Activity
The joke displays the basic
characteristics of a
narrative.
Can you identify the
elements of the narrative
in this joke?
Activity
Now please suggest ways in which
the speaker has attempted to make
his story more alive and vivid for his
listener.
Linguistic elements which make an
oral narration more vivid
Word choice plays a fundamental
role. At the LEXICAL level we have
vivid descriptions, sometimes
through informal lexical items:
– Knocking drinks over
– Standing on people’s feet
– Listeners nudging to each other
– The man stuggers
Linguistic elements which make an
oral narration more vivid
The storyteller tries to reproduce
the way the drunk man talks
through graphological
expedients:
– I’vehadyermam
Linguistic elements which make an
oral narration more vivid
Use of direct, realistic and in some
cases vulgar expressions, which
are nevertheless common in such
a situation or which reproduce
expressions typical of spoken
English:
– Piss off
– Look dad you’re drunk
Linguistic elements which make an
oral narration more vivid
The syntactic level plays its part too. The
switch from the past tense to the present
tense and the use of this man and these
men contribute to bring the scene alive.
right (.) three men sat in a pub (.) and er sat
there having a quiet drink (.) and in walks this
really drunken old man
three men sat in a pub = elliptical dialectal
expression three men were sat in a pub =
three men were sitting in a pub
The structure of narration
The joke can be divided into 3 separated
but repeated episodes which build to
the final climax.
Can you identify them?
The role of repetition and structure
The repetition of episodes allow the
audience to share the joke more fully
with the teller.
Children enjoy the familiarity of a repeated
episode in their bedtime stories and so in
the same way a listener to this joke can
“predict” the story.
The listener knows what’s coming next,
until he’s finally surprised by the
unexpected end and therefore amused.
The role of repetition and structure
A certain structure is recognizable in our
conversational exchanges.
We need structure and predictability to a
certain extent, so that the processing
labour required to arrive to the
intended meaning and to the intended
effects does not “exceed our
strengths”.
The way we structure communicative
events is partly cultural/conventional
and partly cognitive.
Oral Narration
When we speak, we often tell
stories, even when they are not
jokes.
Narration serves many purposes in
conversation. In some cases it is
used to reinforce one’s opinion on
a topic.
Talk show story
Handout A
The following transcription is an extract from
the TV programme This Morning, hosted by
Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. This
magazine programme appears regularly on
weekday mornings and is divided into several
sections that deal with items such as fashion,
cookery, advice giving and interviews with TV
personalities. In this transcription, the hosts
are talking to their expert psychologist Raj
Persaud. They have been discussing how
parents should deal with children asking
questions. Raj has already said that parents
should praise children for asking questions
even if they don't know the answer to them.
RAJ: and another good answer is I don't know the answer and
let's go and find out together
RICHARD: I'll tell you one thing when we moved to London
and we'd been here for about a month and we were just
driving around looking at the sights and we were driving
past Buckingham Palace right and Chloe's in the back of
the car right this is so funny urn and she said there it is
there's Buckingham Palace woah woah oh we should open
the window oh and the Queen lives there oh look the flag's
up the Queen's in there now and she said is that the
Queen's house then? and we said yeah she said ooh fancy
building a palace next to the main road
RAJ, R & J: (laughter)
JUDY: on the main road (laughs) which is logical
RICHARD: which is very observant absolutely why did they do
that she said and actually I couldn't think because the road
was probably there when they built it although there
wouldn't have been cars on it
RAJ: I hope you praised her for making a good point
RICHARD: well we fell apart
Some questions
1. How does Richard signpost to
his listeners that he is about to
tell a story?
With standard expressions such
as…
–
I’ll tell you one thing
He signals that he’s going to
interrupt the discussion and take a
longer turn than usual to tell a
story.
The metalanguage of narration
Certain expressions in English signal
the shift between humorous narration
and serious narration. They act as
“special brackets” (Goffman 1974).
Narration is rich in formulae. Some
other expressions, for instance, are
common openers.
The metalanguage of narration
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Kidding aside…
Now, I’m not really serious about this
Just kidding/joking
Have you heard the one about…
Have you ever stopped to think why…
Did you know that…
I’ll always remember the time…
Did I ever tell you about…
Then there was the time we…
I must tell you about…
You’ll never guess what happened yesterday…
I heard a good one the other day…
I had a funny experience last week…
Back to Richard’s story…
2.
What function does the word right
play in the telling of this story?
Richard gives background information
to the story – the who, what, where
and when. This background
information is separated from the rest
of the story by the use of the word
right.
The rest of the story is told in rapid
dramatic dialogue building up to the
climax, i.e. Chloe’s unanswerable
question.
Back to Richard’s story…
3. How does Richard want us to
evaluate the story?
Just before the dialogue, Richard
prefaces the story with the words
this is so funny, which tells the
listener how he wants them to
interpret it.
Back to Richard’s story…
4. Why does Richard tell the story?
Richard explains that he couldn’t
answer Chloe’s question and Raj
picks this up, relating back to the
previous discussion on children’s
questions.
Narration to support one’s ideas
Richard’s reason for telling this
story is to support his opinion. The
general topic of the discussion
triggered him into remembering a
specific story and this illustrates
how often narration provides
specific examples to illustrate a
general point, a way to make the
general point more personalised and
understandable.
Narration creates EMPATHY among
the speakers.
Speakers’ collaboration
The fact that Raj picks up
Richard’s point means that he
is collaborating with him to
show the relevance of the
story.
Speakers’ collaboration can be
expressed by several
linguistic expressions
Speakers’ collaboration
– Laughter
– Acknowledgement: yeah, mmm,
that’s right
– Relevant comments:
• “I hope you praised her for making a
good point”
• “[…] which is logical…”
Narration and argumentation
In many cases narration provides a
light-hearted/serious way to learn
and reinforce ideas on a topic.
Labov's theory of narrative structure (1972).
•
•
•



According to Labov, in an essay entitled “The
transformation of experience in narrative syntax”, narrative
is natural to both written and spoken language and its
structure can be divided into the following:
abstract (signals that a story is about to begin; is a brief
explanation of what the story is about);
orientation (context in which the story takes place, the
who, what, where and when of the story);
action (the 'what happened' element of the story);
resolution (what finally happened);
coda (signals end of story and can link back to the present
situation);
evaluation (comments, gestures running throughout the
story to show how this is interesting).
All these elements are not always present, but this is a
useful framework for evaluating oral stories. The elements
usually occur in the order given, but evaluation can occur
at any point.
Hands on work
Analyse Richard’s story according
to Labov’s theory of narrative
structure.
Then analyse this passage taken
from About a boy.
‘Where are your shoes?’ she shrieked when he came home. (Will had given him a
lift, but it was November, and wet, and during the short walk across the
pavement and up the stairs to the front door of the flats he had soaked his
socks through again.) He looked at his feet, and for a moment he didn’t say
anything: he toyed with the idea of acting all surprised and telling her he didn’t
know, but he quickly realized she wouldn’t believe him.
‘Stolen,’ he said eventually.
‘Stolen? Why would anyone steal your shoes?’
‘Because…’ He was going to have to tell the truth, but the problem was that the
truth would lead to a whole lot more questions. ‘Because they were nice ones.’
‘They were just ordinary black slip-on shoes.’
‘No, they weren’t. They were new Adidas trainers.’
‘Where did you get new Adidas trainers from?’
‘Will bought them for me?’
‘Will who? Will the guy who took us out to lunch?’
‘Yeah, Will. The bloke from SPAT. He’s sort of become my friend.’
‘He’s sort of become your friend?’
Marcus was right. She had loads more questions, except the way she asked them
was a bit boring: she just repeated the last thing he said, stuck a question mark
on the end of it and shouted.
‘I go round his flat after school.’
‘YOU GO ROUND HIS FLAT AFTER SCHOOL?’
Or:
‘Well, you see, he doesn’t really have a kid.’
‘HE DOESN’T REALLY HAVE A KID?’
Fiona: Marcus! What happened to your shoes?
Marcus:They stole them.
Fiona: Why would anyone want to steal your shoes?
Marcus: I could see I had to tell the truth. The problem was, the
truth would lead to a lot more questions.)
They were nice ones.
Fiona: They were just ordinary brown lace-ups.
Marcus:No, they weren't. They were cool new trainers.
Fiona: Where did you get cool new trainers?
Marcus:(She had loads more questions.)
Will bought them for me.
Fiona: Will? The guy who took us to lunch?
Marcus:Yeah. He's sort of become my friend.
Fiona: He's sort of become your friend?
Marcus:(She kept repeating the last thing I said. Except she
shouted it.)
I go round to his place after school.
Fiona: You go round to his place after school!
Marcus:You see, he doesn't really have a kid.
Fiona: He doesn't really have a kid?
Will:I have a 2-year-old. Ned. He's got blue eyes and sort of sandy-coloured
hair...
...and he's about 2'3. And his mum left.
-Really?
Will:Yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously it was a very big shock... because we were so
happy, you know? Sandra's neurology practice was just up and running...
and then one day her bags were packed, and my best friend was waiting
outside... in his Ferrari. Yeah. You know, the Modena? The one with the
supercharged engine, where you can see it through the back back window?
Spat:You got dumped then?
Will:Yeah.
Spat:May I ask, does your ex see Ned at all?
Will:Sorry, I didn't catch your name.
Spat:Suzie.
Will:Suzie. She doesn't see much of him, no.
Suzie:How does he cope with that?
Will:You know, he's a very good little boy. Very, very brave. They've got amazing
resources, don't they? Just the other day I was thinking about my ex. He
came crawling up, put his little pudgy arms around my neck, and he said:
"You hang in there, Dad."
Suzie:God, that's amazing for a 2-year-old!
Will:Is it? Yeah, well, he's very special. Very, very special. Sometimes I think,
you know, he's the one taking care of me. Teaching me the ways of the
world. Oh, sorry. Thank you.
(My God, what a performance! I was even fooling myself.)
Suzie:There you go. You okay?
Will:Yeah. Perfect, thanks. Trust me?
Suzie:Of course.
(By the end of the evening, I had a date lined up.)