Narrative Structures in Cross-linguistic Perspective: English, Hobongan, and Daqan

Marla Perkins

doi:10.15462/ijll.v9i5.107

Abstract

It has been noted (Perkins, 2009; Zwaan 1999; Zwaan and Radvansky, 1998) that causality, character, location, and time are the four main aspects of narrative discourse, even if not attended to in equal ways—for example, in English, character is highly ranked, and the locational/spatial components have often been underestimated. However, this is not a universal ranking. In a partial report on field work conducted in Borneo in 2012-2015, I note typological patterns in stylistic preferences within a selection of short narratives in English, Hobongan, and Daqan (the latter two are Austronesian). The strategies identified in the languages, by which the rankings of the various types of narrative information are foregrounded or backgrounded, include focus particles (Hobongan), specificity of description, or lack thereof (each), what component is most involved in driving the narrative forward (each), and frequency of information given about different components of the narrative (each). For example, English narratives center around a character or characters, and a great deal of specific information is given about such characters. In Hobongan, by contrast, the characters are backgrounded relative to the locational information provided, which is given specific description and is marked repeatedly as the focus of the narrative. In Daqan, still another pattern can be identified, that of a given duration providing the justification for and coherence throughout a narrative. It is suggested that analyses of the stylistics of information in narrative be included in typological categorizations and linguistic descriptions of languages, and that such analyses need, as much as possible, to be informed by an understanding of preferred patterns in different languages.

Highlights

Psycholinguistic studies on the ways in which people understand and process narrative discourse have identified four main informational elements of narrative discourse: causality, character, location, and time (e.g., León 2016; Hatzipanayioti et al 2016; Wassenburg et al 2015; Mano et al 2009; Zwaan 1999; Perkins 2009; Zwaan and van Oostendorp 1993; Blanc and Tapiero 2001)
The narratives have been standardized to the written forms of the languages that currently exist, not including all of the details, such as annotating pauses and vocalized disfluencies. Such pauses and disfluencies could contribute to the performance aspects of the oral narratives, for example, but because this study focuses on the ways in which the four main elements of narrative discourses are managed in language-specific ways, the performance aspects of the narratives are backgrounded and left to future research
As literacy increases in Hobongan and Daqan, it would be an interesting area of further research to investigate how writers in those languages come to play with their respective linguistic and cultural patterns

Summary

Introduction

Psycholinguistic studies on the ways in which people understand and process narrative discourse have identified four main informational elements of narrative discourse: causality, character, location, and time (e.g., León 2016; Hatzipanayioti et al 2016; Wassenburg et al 2015; Mano et al 2009; Zwaan 1999; Perkins 2009; Zwaan and van Oostendorp 1993; Blanc and Tapiero 2001). The aforementioned psycholinguistic studies indicate that readers or listeners do not make equal use of the various elements of narrative discourse. In both English and French, subjects attended most closely to information about characters, as that information related to narrative flow, or causal elements, of the story. Subjects rarely attended to spatial information unless directed to do so (e.g., Blanc and Tapiero 2001)

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Conclusion