UNIT 3. Variation Analysis and Narrative Analysis

7.1. Variation Analysis: the study of linguistic change
1. 7.1.1. The vernacular
  1. It is a mode of speech, a variety acquired in pre-adolescent years that is used by speakers of a given language when they pay minimum attention to speech.
    1. Variationists resort to SOCIOLINGUISTIC INTERVIEWS, which allow them to discover regular rules of language and the social distribution of variants.
      1. This is done because it is difficult to collect data as people know that their language is being recorded and observed, they may alter their register and use different forms and structures.
2. Origins: solely in the field of Linguistics
  1. They state that there are patterns of language which vary according to the social environment. These patterns can only by identified by studying a given speech community.
    1. Then, Variation Analysis is concerned with the variation observed in language along different speech communities.
3. Most important figure: William Labov, who views language as a property of the speech community and an instrument of social communication that evolves throughout human history. Important role in VA: Data collection and field work.
4. Techniques: it combines qualitative and quantitative techniques.
  1. Quantitative analysis require the definition of the variants and a classification of the conditions under which those variants may be found, and the frequencies of occurrence of the different variants.
5. Focus: on general trends or patterns.
6. CONSTRAINT (important notion): sometimes the structure of a text imposes certain constraints on its parts (recipes, medical texts, etc)
7. Linguistic change cannot be studied at the level of semantically equivalent words, but also at other levels such as phonological, the syntactic and the textual levels.
7.2. Narrative Analysis
1. 7.2.1. Information structures
  1. TEMPORAL STRUCTURE: a central criterion for the definition of narrative, the linear presentation of event clauses.
  2. DESCRIPTIVE STRUCTURES: they are not central to narratives. They may preface the narrative action or may be embedded within the complicating action.
  3. EVALUATIVE STRUCTURES: evaluation is required in stories but it is optional in other types of text, like recipes.
  4. The different information structres or texts display the arrangements of units in recurrent patterns and they are related to one another to make texts coherent.
2. 7.2.2. Sample analysis of data
3. 7.2.3. Further discussion on Narrative Analysis
  1. 7.2.3.1. Narrative and identity
    1. Social and discourse practices are a frame within which individuals and groups present themselves to others, and in doing so they find themselves in the process of building their identity (social and cultural identity).
      1. Narratives are privileged forms of discourse which play a central role in almost every conversation and they also play an important role in people's construction of identity.
4. Labov considered the vernacular to be the form of language first acquired, perfectly learned and used only among speakers of the same vernacular.
  1. He studied the verbal behabior of black people in narratives of personal experience:
    1. He realized the OBSERVER'S PARADOX, so the elicitation of narratives of personal experience within face-to-face interview was found as a partial solution.
    2. He provided a framework for the analysis of oral narrative. The skeleton of a narrative consists of a series of temporally ordered clauses called NARRATIVE CLAUSES.
      1. Defined Narrative as a particular unit in discourse which contains smallers units which have particular syntactic and semantic properties.
        NARRATIVE CLAUSES are a series of temporally ordered clauses which conform the skeleton of a narrative.
        Narratives contain a beginning, middle and an end. The most important elements are:
        1) Abstract: one or two clauses summarizing the story. 2) Orientation: a clause or clauses giving information about the time, place, persons or situations. 3) Complicating action: sequential clauses describing the different events. 4) Evaluation: clauses that make reference to events that did not occur or might have ocurred. They are means used by the narrator to indicate the point of the narrative. 5) Result or resolution: the set of complicating actions that follow or coincide with the most reportable event. 6) Coda: a final clause.
        Basic characteristic of all narratives: the temporal sequence.
        A sequential clause: a clause that can be an element of a temporal juncture. 2 clauses are separated by a temporal juncture if it results in a change in the listener's interpretations of the order of the events described.
        Narrative is a social phenomenon and it varies with social context. The date extracted from narratives will vary depending on the social context.
        REPORTABILITY: it is related to the fact that telling a narrative requires a person to hold the floor longer, and the narrative to carry enough interest for the audience to justify its telling. A REPORTABLE EVENT: the automatic reassignment of speaker role to the narrator. A MOST REPORTABLE EVENT: the event that is less common that any other in the narrative and which has the greatests effect on the needs and desires of the participants in the narrative.
        CREDIBILITY: extent to which listeners believe the events described by the narrator. Connected to CAUSALITY: the sequence of events is explained by implicit or explicit causal relations.
        Narrator's POINT OF VIEW: reflected in the ASSIGNMENT OF PRAISE OR BLAME to the actors or actions involved in the narrative.
        OBJECTIVITY: an objective event is the one that became known to the narrator through sense experience. A subjective event is the one that the narrator became aware of through memory or emotional sensation.

Next up

UNIT 3. Variation Analysis and Narrative Analysis

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by Roberto Rojas about 7 years ago