Abstract
In this paper, we seek to explain the power of perspective taking in narrative discourse by turning to research on the oral foundations of storytelling in human communication and language. We argue that narratives function through a central process of alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, hearer/reader, and character and develop an analytical framework that is capable of generating general claims about the processes and outcomes of narrative discourse while flexibly accounting for the great linguistic variability both across and within stories. The central propositions of this viewpoint alignment framework are that the distance between the viewpoints of participants in the narrative construal – narrator, character, reader – is dynamic and regulated by linguistic choices as well as contextual factors. Fundamentally, viewpoint alignment is grounded in oral narrative interaction and, from this conversation, transferred to the written narrative situation, varying between demonstration and invasion of the narrative subjects and guiding readers’ route of processing the narrative (experiential versus reflective). Our claim is that variations in viewpoint alignment are functional to the communicative context and intended outcomes of narratives. This is illustrated with the analysis of a corporate journalistic narrative that comprises both interactional and non-interactional aspects of storytelling. The concept of viewpoint alignment further explains the oral fundaments of narrative discourse in conversational storytelling and poses new questions on the relation between the dynamic processing of stories on the one hand and their static outcomes on the other.
Highlights
A large part of human communication is inherently narrative, that is, representing specific events of specific persons in a specific spatiotemporal setting
De Graaf et al.’s (2016) review study indicated that health narratives written from a first-person viewpoint tend to result in stronger identification and to be more effective than narratives written from a third-person viewpoint
We elaborate on functions of viewpoint alignment in terms of (a) the narrative styles, evoking acts, events, and sensations in readers; (b) the typical plot elements of the narrative; (c) the temporal pace of the narrative; (d) the routes of narrative processing; and (e) the different relations between character and reader therein. We argue that these functions of viewpoint alignment together show how narrative discourse is conceptually built on the oral speech situation, varying between demonstration and invasion of the narrative subjects and representing these subjects’ discourse from outside and within the narrative events
Summary
A large part of human communication is inherently narrative, that is, representing specific events of specific persons in a specific spatiotemporal setting. Such merging of viewpoints, representing the character’s physical position at the peak of the story, enables readers to share the experience of this crucial event with the character from the inside, as it were, and imagine it in an embodied way (Labov and Waletzky, 1967) This effect is established by the impersonal passive construction (when it was shouted) and nominalization (the relief was great), which, in combination, deactivate the potential viewpoints of other agents in the scene, inviting the reader to keep identifying with this character rather than with others The communicative goals of the narrative are advanced by these rhetorical functions: phronesis will help in informing about which complications the work entails, while pathos and eleos assist in instructing by showing how cautiously the work is done; and most importantly, catharsis serves to engage emotionally and morally with the work by making its experiences tangible, and their importance evident
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