Ethics and Narrative Genre:

Narratives are everywhere. We tell narratives about ourselves and we make the world meaningful through storytelling. We position others through the narratives we tell and are positioned by stories told about us. And yet, while narratives have, of course, been analysed in critical discourse studies (CDS), including in one of its most popular approaches, the discourse-historical approach (DHA), this article proposes to go a step further by systematically integrating the concept of narrative into the core of the DHA. More specifically, I consider narrative from the perspective of the concept of narrative genre. That is, I propose a focus on how meaning arises via the narrative genres of romance, tragedy, comedy and irony, i.e. through (modes of) emplotment. Such an integration does not contradict the DHA’s (and CDS’) focus on detailed textual analysis or reject existing foci, e.g. on argumentation, but recognises the centrality of the narrative form for social life and offers further concepts for empirical analyses. This focus on narrative genre contributes, furthermore, to the critical study of meaning-making by revising Jürgen Habermas’ Critical Theory and offering a novel integration of the latter into the DHA, thus providing a theoretically justified, immanent foundation for its critique.

This chapter presents a tentative and large categorized system of narrative genres (i.e., a “narrative genre system”). It is related to the division of the objects or materials of research and analysis in the synthetic narrative generation study based on computational methods. Although, throughout the book, the author consciously uses Japanese narratives that include both universal narrative characteristics and local or cultural features, this narrative genre system is also constructed using Japanese narrative genres as concrete materials. As an overview, the narrative genre system includes five narrative categories: the narrative genre as a work in the narrow sense, the narrative genre as a work in the broad sense, the narrative genre as social and emergent phenomena, the narrative genres invading the real phenomena, the narrative genres as human physiological and psychological phenomena. In each explanation, after the corresponding narrative, genre category is defined and explained, and a concrete genre under the large genre category is treated for discussing the characteristics.

From Narrative Games to Playable StoriesToward a Poetics of Interactive Narrative Marie-Laure Ryan (bio) The genres of digital narrative are, if not innumerable like the genres of narratives, at least very varied. They include stories generated by artificial intelligence (AI) systems, which have yet to produce narratives that people would want to read for the sake of entertainment; human-generated stories, such as the news, gossips, or autobiographical sketches that circulate constantly through the Internet; and interactive narratives produced through a collaboration between the machine and the user—or, to be more precise, through a manipulation by the machine of human-produced data in response to the user’s input. In this article I focus on the third kind, more particularly on the design problem of integrating the user’s activity into a framework that fulfills the basic condition of narrativity: a sequence of events involving thinking individuals, linked by causal relations, motivated by a conflict, and aiming at its resolution. [End Page 43] Whether or not interactive narratives practically exist or are still chimeras depends on what is expected of the user’s participation: the more active and the less constrained the user’s role—in other words, the more lifelike, though life is not free of constraints—the more problematic its integration into a well-formed narrative arc. For intensity of user participation, freedom of choice, and depth of immersion, nothing can beat the imaginary Holodeck of the TV series Star Trek, which Janet Murray, in her 1997 classic Hamlet on the Holodeck, proposes as the model of the new kind of narrative experience that digital technology will make possible. The Holodeck is a computer-generated, three-dimensional simulation of a fictional world. The user is invited to step into this world, to impersonate a character, and to interact through language and gestures with synthetic (i.e., computer-created) agents. No matter what the user says or does, the synthetic agents respond coherently and integrate the user’s input into a narrative arc that sustains interest. The Holodeck may be the Holy Grail of New Media, but it is also, as Brenda Laurel calls interactive narrative, “an elusive unicorn we can imagine but have yet to capture” (2001: 72). It would take an artificial intelligence far beyond the capabilities of existing systems to be able to process whatever the user decides to do or say, and a creativity far beyond the imagination of the best novelists and playwrights to be able to integrate this input into a well-formed plot. (Imagine Shakespeare having to write Hamlet without being in control of all the characters!) At the other end of the spectrum of ease of implementation is hypertext fiction, a genre that limits the user’s agency to selecting an item from a menu of possible choices. What hypertext gains in actual feasibility over the Holodeck, thanks to the simplicity of its algorithm, it loses in ability to create narrative meaning and immersion in a fictional world: narrative is a linear, causal sequence of events whose significance depends on their position on a temporal axis, while hypertext is a network of textual fragments that can be read in many different orders. Unless the user’s choices are severely restricted, it is highly unlikely that they will produce a sequence that respects narrative logic. This is not to say that it is impossible for hypertext to tell stories; but if readers are to construct a causal sequence of events out of fragments presented in a variable order, they will have to do so by mentally rearranging the fragments [End Page 44] into other configurations than the order in which they were initially presented on the screen. The purpose of this article is to explore forms of interactive narrative that offer a compromise between the unrealistic demands made on AI by the Holodeck and the very programmable but narratively challenged and interactively limited algorithm of hypertext fiction. In these moderately interactive forms, the user manipulates one or more characters in the fictional world and affects this world from within, rather than manipulating fragments of text from a metatextual perspective. My overall purpose is manifold: to provide reference points and...

This chapter considers the role of future time within a particular genre of narrative generally referred to as ‘narratives of personal experience’. While systematically linked to present-time conversational topics and concerns (Bauman 1986, Goodwin 1984, Jefferson 1978, Young 1987), narratives of personal experience have been generally characterized (with the exception of Goodwin 1990) as interpretive construals of past personal experience, in contrast to various other genres of narrative such as genres of science fiction or future planning narratives, which depict experiences which might take place at a future time.

In this study, we exploit two Vietnamese corpora: a narrative corpus and a non-narrative corpus. For each of these corpora, there are 24 million words collected from documents of the two genres with publication dates from 2000 to 2020. All of these words are annotated with word boundaries and parts of speech. To examine the use of linguistic features in different genres, we implement statistical analysis for word frequency, parts of speech, linguistic features, and the correlation among these features. The results show that the frequencies of the pronoun “I” and of exclamation words in narrative texts are significantly higher than those in non-narrative texts. Moreover, while adjectives are not correlated with any other features in the narrative genre, they are most likely to co-occur with third-person pronouns in the non-narrative genre.

BackgroundThe dengue virus is endemic in many low- and middle-income countries. In Burkina Faso, the proportion of fevers that could be due to dengue is growing. In 2013, a dengue epidemic spread there, followed by other seasonal outbreaks. Dengue is often confused with malaria, and health workers are not trained to distinguish between them. Three training videos using different narrative genres were tested with nursing students from two institutions in Ouagadougou: journalistic, dramatic and animated video. The study aimed to determine if video is an effective knowledge transfer tool, if narrative genre plays a role in knowledge acquisition, and which narrative elements are the most appreciated.MethodologyA mixed method research design was used. The relative effectiveness of the videos was verified through a quasi-experimental quantitative component with a comparison group and post-test measurements. A qualitative component identified participants’ perceptions regarding the three videos. Data were drawn from a knowledge test (n = 482), three focus groups with health professionals’ students (n = 46), and individual interviews with health professionals (n = 10). Descriptive statistics and single-factor variance analysis were produced. A thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data.Principal findingsResults showed that all three videos led to significant rates of knowledge improvement when compared with the comparison group (p <0.05): 12.31% for the journalistic video, 20.58% for the dramatic video, and 18.91% for the animated video. The dramatic and animated videos produced a significantly higher increase in knowledge than did the journalistic video (with respectively 8.27% (p = 0.003) and 6.59% (p = 0.029) and can be considered equivalent with a difference of 1.68% (p = 0.895). Thematic analysis also revealed that these two videos were considered to be better knowledge transfer tools. Four key aspects are important to consider for a video to be effective: 1) transmitting information in a narrative form, 2) choosing good communicators, 3) creating a visual instrument that reinforces the message and 4) adapting the message to the local context.ConclusionsVideo has proven to be an effective and appreciated knowledge transfer and training tool for health professionals, but the narrative genre of the videos can influence knowledge acquisition. The production of other videos should be considered for training or updating health professionals and their narrative genre taken into consideration. The actual context of constant circulation of new diseases, such as COVID-19, reaffirms the need to train health professionals.

This paper examines ordinary justification of military conflicts and their cultural resources based on interviews with veterans of the 1979-1989 war in Afghanistan. We begin by reviewing studies of public justifications and ordinary perception of wars. Based on the review of studies of the relationship between public opinion and decisions to initiate and terminate military conflicts, we conclude that ordinary perceptions of military conflicts have a prescriptive force. We criticize the utilitarian focus characteristic of studies of public justifications, as well as the limited consideration of cultural resources and beliefs about what is proper in the study of ordinary perception. To overcome these limitations, we turn to the strong program in cultural sociology that postulates the thesis of the autonomy of culture and offers tools for studying justifications - narrative genres and cultural resources. Ordinary justifications of military conflicts are examined using interviews with veterans of Afghanistan as an example. Based on the analysis of 22 interviews with veterans of the war in Afghanistan, three narrative genres of ordinary legitimation and delegitimation of this conflict are identified: social realism, apocalyptic, and skeptical. Each narrative genre is characterized by its own approach engaging cultural resources, different views on the war in Afghanistan and some of its particular events, such as the withdrawal from Afghanistan of the Soviet troops. Ordinary justifications demonstrate relative autonomy from public justifications, the ability of independent work with an extensive cultural repertoire within the Russian historical context.

The objective was to understand how fanfiction narrative genres are classified in repositories, describing the users perceptions and motivations to accomplishthe indexing. The research is descriptive and exploratory, with the Intensive Direct Observation method in virtual groups of fans who write and consume fanfictions;the data supported a qualitative analysis of the fanfictions narrative genres used in theirindexingin digital repositories. The analysis demonstrated that many of narrative genres used in the repositories express concern with the representation of gender, sexual and physical aspects. Furthermore, natural language words, neologisms and other foreignwords are re-semantized to represent narrative genres. It was concluded that narrative genres are used to classify the stories, to express singularities andtogive representation to demands of marginalized groups of the publishing market.

Reviewed by: The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language by Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson Yu Hui (bio) The Narrative Arts of Tianjin: Between Music and Language. Francesca R. Sborgi Lawson. Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010. SOAS Musicology Series. xiii + 198 pp., audio CD, photos, figures, music examples, appendices, glossary, bibliography, index. ISBN 978-1-4094-0588-7 (hardcover), $149.00. Originating in the Warring States period and thriving during the Tang dynasty, narrative art has always been an important folk musical genre in Chinese society with both entertaining and educational functions long before modern electronic entertainment devices became widely available. The Han Chinese subcultures in different geographical areas also cultivated their own regional narrative-art genres throughout history. The Tianjin metropolitan area in northern China is particularly well known for its several narrative-art genres of the local style. Lawson chooses a unique perspective to look into the commonly shared musical, historical, and cultural background of multiple narrative genres in a single geographical area. As the first published monograph of this approach in both English and Chinese ethnomusicological literature, the book provides detailed description and analysis of the musical structures, performance forms, historical development, and social and cultural background of four out of the ten most important popular narrative genres in Tianjin: shidiao, jinyun dagu, kuaibarshu, and xiang sheng. The author writes that "this book is not meant to be an exhaustive study of the narrative arts of Tianjin. Rather, it is an exploration into the ways in which the manner of performance influences and is influenced by the kinds of information that may be communicated during the course of performance" (4). However, the relationship between music and language is still the emphasis in her research. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 introduces the background of the research in the following chapters: "Introduction," "Prologue," "Teahouses and Marketplaces," "Narrative Arts before 1949," "The Iron Rice Bowl: Shuochang Becomes Quyi after 1949," "Social Relationships," and "Language-Music Relationships." These chapters not only give background on the history, culture, social life, and language matters of Shuochang narrative arts but also the author's personal fieldwork experience interacting with the local audiences and her consultants during her several trips in Tianjin in the 1980s. Part 2 is the main focus of this research. It introduces the history, performers, performances, language, and music of four narrative genres in four sections ("Act") and a conclusion. Each "Act" discusses one narrative art with a subtitle indicating the relationships between the performance aspects of chang (singing) and shuo (speech) in each genre: "Tianjin Popular Tunes (Tianjin Shidiao) Chang over Shuo," "Beijing Drumsong (Jingyun Dagu) Chang [End Page 136] vis-à-vis Shuo," "Fast Clappertales (Kuaibarshu) Shuo vis-à-vis Chang," and "Comic Routines (Xiangsheng) Shuo over Chang." The subtitles are well chosen, covering four major types of combination of the elements of shuo and chang in these narrative genres. Part 3 comprises appendices with music scores and the related Chinese-language source referenced in the book, such as speech tones, libretti, Chinese text, and characters. Those are important references for anyone who is interested in an in-depth exploration of the narrative-art genres introduced in this book. An audio CD of the selected music examples transcribed in the appendices is included with the book. Among ethnomusicological monographs on traditional Chinese musical arts published in recent decades, this book has several distinct features. First, by presenting the common background shared by multiple narrative-art traditions in a single geographical area, Lawson helps readers understand the general social, cultural, and historical background of all of these genres. The juxtaposition of the commonalities and distinctions of each genre helps readers better understand and differentiate the characteristics of each. Second, the author integrates her personal experiences in her field trips with ethnomusicological descriptions and analysis, creating an unusual writing style so the readers are immersed into the musical scene easily. Notably, the author writes in greater detail about the phenomenon of social networks (guanxi) and her personal interactions with the local people during field trips, which makes the book itself a narrative story about her research process. Third, Lawson paid meticulous attention to Chinese pronunciations in the romanization of...

Investigating user behavior in slideshows and scrollytelling as narrative genres in medical visualization

Research Article| August 01 2002 Amir Khusraw and the Genre of Historical Narratives in Verse Sunil Sharma Sunil Sharma Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (2002) 22 (1-2): 112–118. https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-22-1-2-112 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Sunil Sharma; Amir Khusraw and the Genre of Historical Narratives in Verse. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 1 August 2002; 22 (1-2): 112–118. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-22-1-2-112 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsComparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East2003 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

How do games articulate discourses of climate crisis? The article compares a particular discourse of climate change—the Anthropocene—in two digital games: the 4X strategy game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999) and the computer roleplaying game Disco Elysium (2019). Comparing two games separated by decades, production context, and genre reveals productive differences and similarities in the representation of the Anthropocene. The article presents an overview of the Anthropocene discourse from its origins to its relationship to complementary and competing concepts such as the noosphere and Capitalocene. The fictionalized Anthropocene(s) presented in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Disco Elysium are then read for their resonance with these real-world visions of the Anthropocene. The article demonstrates complications to the tendency of various digital game genres to articulate specific discourses of the Anthropocene, ranging from games’ narrative genres and the broader political currents during game production.

In this paper, we present an approach for generating dialogues for characters within the context of computational narratives using personality-based features for deep neural networks. The approach integrates the requirements of both narrative genres and personality traits for the definition of character-based stylistic models. The modelling of characters’ features from existing datasets of complete stories permits the generation of personality-rich character dialogues. We present early results from an evaluation based on a sample of characters’ personality traits across different narrative genres, demonstrating variability in the resulting dialogues.

In the last few decades, the analytical scope of narrative studies has widened from a sole focus on “prototypical” narratives of personal experience to a wide variety of narrative genres. However interesting this may be, there are also some problems with these genres as there is not only sometimes considerable overlapbetweendifferent genres, but there are also differenceswithinthese genres. Furthermore, real-life stories often consist of a mix of various genres, which makes applying genre-labels to these narratives problematic. Hence, instead of making such genre classifications, I propose an abstract “Narrative Dimensions Model” to tease out the relevant characteristics of and differences between various types of narratives. This model consists of two three-dimensional clusters, viz., one revolving around the narrator and containing the dimensions of ownership, authorship and tellership, and one revolving around the narrated events, containing the dimensions of frequency, time and evaluation. I illustrate this by a theoretical exploration of various narrative genres and I conclude by sketching the advantages of conceptualizing and scrutinizing narratives by means of this model.

Drinking stories feature widely in Western societies. Many people eagerly share their stories in the aftermath of drinking events. These stories are also common in books, movies, music and the media. Based on qualitative interviews with 104 young Norwegian heavy episodic drinkers, the article seeks to establish drinking stories as a distinct narrative genre. We argue that this narrative genre of drinking stories comes from an oral storytelling tradition which uses transgressions to trigger interest, entertain, and challenge commonly held views. These transgressions typically come in the form of playful violations of conventions and common sense and tend to centre around five classic themes: sex, bodily harm, bodily fluids, lawbreaking and pranks. While often dismissed as trivial, vulgar and of little literary value, drinking stories are highly valued by many people and have significant consequences for how people experience drinking and behave while being drunk.