Narrative Competence: A Navajo Example of Peer Group Evaluation

Abstract

s present a brief resume of the entire story or the result of the story. They are used both to introduce the story and to frame the following action as narrative for the audience. Narrative frames are often generic markers; they also mark the boundaries of the narrative itself, separating it from other types of discourse. Abstracts, then, are only kind of frame which structurally mark the following bits of discourse as narrative; they differ from other types of frame, such as the formulaic once upon a time or one day in that they also provide a summary of the narrative action which follows. A good example of this type of frame, the abstract, is the first sentence of an eleven-year-old girl's personal narrative: My story is about when I was at my house. Interestingly, this quite limited abstract focuses the attention of the audience on a particularly significant generic marker-the notion that the action occurred at grandma's house. This phrase might initially seem to be an orientation rather than an abstract; however, this particular phrase is quite consistently characteristic of personal experience narratives concerning skinwalker contact. It is used repeatedly in skinwalker narratives and may be considered a generic marker. This abstract, although definitely limited in scope of summarization, does cue the audience that a culturally significant form is about to be performed; it also indirectly summarizes the action of the narrative to follow in a general way. In other words, the audience is led to expect a narrative where the individual and skinwalker are involved in some type of int See Labov, Language in the Inner City and Kernan, Semantic and Expressive Elaboration. 168 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.163 on Wed, 21 Sep 2016 05:58:02 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms NAVAJO EXAMPLE OF PEER GROUP EVALUATION teraction and where the individual triumphs.12 The specific content of the tale is then spun out in the following narrative. This abstract kind of frame is rarely used by these Navajo children in introducing their skinwalker narratives. This may be a result of the kind of narrative session in which these stories were told, however. Since many of these narratives build on familiar plot structures involving familiar characters, intricate abstracts of the actions to come are not necessary (as in the example above). If of these skinwalker personal experience narratives were to occur within an extended bit of conversation or dialogue, apart from such a narrative session, perhaps the likelihood of the incorporation of abstracts would in-