Narratives of Vicarious Experience in Professional and Workplace contexts: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

This Introduction to the special issue “Narratives of Vicarious Experience in Professional and Workplace context” presents the first dedicated collection of papers on NoVE in professional and workplace contexts. It begins with a brief overview of the origins of Narrative Pragmatics (NP) that accounts for the breadth of analytic interests NP currently pursues. While traditionally NP focused on Narratives of Personal Experience (NoPE), namely stories about the teller himself/herself, more recently a number of studies have begun to examine Narratives of Vicarious Experiences (NoVE), that is stories about others. The Introduction summarizes some key structural and functional similarities and differences between NoPE and NoVE, focusing on the idiosyncratic features of NoVE with regard to teller perspective, story introduction, epistemic authority, and function. The second part introduces the contributions to the special issue that span different workplaces and professional contexts (from a pharmaceutical company, to a newsroom, to job interviews), and include face-to-face interactions and other media. Consistent across the contexts are several functions of NoVE. They serve as a powerful tool in constructing one's personal and professional identity. They also serve as ‘shared repertoire’ of experiences told through stories that foster group identity and the sense of belonging.