Beyond bartlett: Narratives and remembering

Abstract

This paper explores some of the ways in which narratives can shed light on mental processes, particularly those involved in remembering. Information appears to be stored in the mind in the form of minimal ‘ideas’ of referents, events, and states. At a particular time during the production of a narrative a particular idea may be active, semi-active, or inactive in the mind of the speaker. Ideas that are already active are typically verbalized with pronouns and low pitch, newly activated ideas with full noun or verb phrases and intonation peaks. Combinations of ideas appear linguistically as intonation units, whose properties are discussed. The typical intonation unit in English has the form of an independent clause which is linked to the preceding intonation unit with ‘and’, and ends with a clause-final intonation. When sentence-final intonation occurs, it typically signals the boundary of a coherent sequence of intonation units. Often the coherence is that of a paragraph-like unit, distinguished by a coherent location, coherent temporal sequence, coherent character configuration, and coherent event structure. Just as intonation units shed light on the capacity of the mind to handle active information, so these paragraph-like units help us to understand the nature of peripheral memory.