Narrative Discourses and Discoursing in Narratives: Analyzing a Poem from a Sociolinguistic Perspective

Abstract

1. Language, Sociology, and Literature In the past decade, linguistics has evolved as a discipline in any number of exciting directions. In the core theoretical subfields, scholars have developed multiple models of linguistic behavior, some complementary, some in open competition with one another. In syntactic theory, for instance, a growing number of generative grammars (each sporting the almost obligatory identifying initials: GB, UCG, LFG, HPSG) make markedly different claims and predictions about linguistic data. At the same time, the range of natural languages subjected to relatively thorough syntactic analysis has also been significantly extended. But in an altogether different trend, those areas in which linguists' concerns overlap with those of neighboring disciplines such as neurology, artificial intelligence, and psychology have taken their own long strides towards independent respectability. These domains of interdisciplinary investigation offer particularly exciting prospects for future growth because of the opportunities they foster for the mul-