Hybrid Fictionality and Vicarious Narrative Experience

Abstract

This article discusses the recent trends in Fictionality Studies and argues for a point of view focusing more on the narrative dimension of fictionality than on the fictive story content. With the analysis of two case studies, where a non-fictional third-person narrator represents the experience of nonfictional protagonists, the authors maintain Fictionality Studies should take into account not just prototypical cases of fictionality but also those that are more hybrid in nature, cases where signposts of fictionality are used locally in narratives that are globally marked as nonfiction. The examples—an interview and an online museum exhibition—show that the employment of fictional modes of mind representation and cognitive attribution occur in conversational and documentary storytelling even if the reference is to the actual world. The results indicate that the procedures used to present and engage with other minds travel between fictional and nonfictional narratives, and between stories artistically designed and those occurring in conversational or documentary environments.