The Use of Narrative as a Speech Behaviour Model

Abstract

Introduction To describe the attitude of a human towards the world, a subject uses various language forms which reveal inner reasons of his or her behavior. This is the unique character of relationships between a human and the world according to philosophical tradition today. Personal being includes social and individual practices in which human arguments about his or her actions, beliefs and desires are reflected. Narrative (in English and French narrative--a story-telling; in Latin narrare--to tell) refers to the concept characteristic for the postmodern philosophy, establishing a self-sentiment as a text being. The term is borrowed from the historiography where it emerged within the context of conception which explains the sense of a historical event not as a naturally determined story but as a sense arising in the context of narration about the event and immanently connected with its interpretation. Narrative approach in modern social sciences narrative turn in social sciences took place in the 80-s of the 20th century. From the point of view of a turn, it is possible to understand the functioning of different forms of knowledge if to view them from a narrative perspective and with realization of significance of narrative in the life of a human [5]. In 1905 a philosopher L. Shestov wrote: If a human found the words to express his attitude to the world, he has a right to speak and he can be listened to, and his attitude is unique which we never met before and it will never occur again. L. Shestov criticized natural-science methodology and stated: Only alternating events are worth the attention of science, these events may be created artificially, if desired, missing a huge amount of single facts. Referring to narrative, we realize that 'single events tell us a lot more than constantly recurring ones' [9]. Narrative in philosophy is interpreted as a way for a human to acquire his identity. In a narrative a story-teller objectifies his own subjectivity. Narrative is not only a means of self-identification but also a way to reach certain social aims. Today narrative is in the spotlight of narratology, social and humanitarian and natural sciences. Specialists in the narratology (J.M. Adam, G. Genette, Th. Pavel, Sh. RimmonKenan, G. Prince etc.) explain the number of studies by the fact that narration in the life of people is becoming more important. Disregarding material and symbolic ways, people are communication verbally. A linguistic product, or discourse is the result of this communication. The results of the study include not only literary texts and everyday language but a scientific discourse as well: musicology (E. Nuke), literary texts (W. Steiner) and film studies (K. Metz) analyze composition and representation; cultural studies study the ways for obtaining legitimation by the authorities through narrative (F. Jameson); in psychology, narratology explanatory schemes are used for studying the memory and cognition (N. Sten, K. Glenn); philosophy and sociology study conventions of narrative to define a rhetorical nature of scientific texts (R. Rorty, E. Gross). Narrative approach in social sciences today implies the presence of in all the areas of human relationships despite certain functional differences:--in psychology narrative helps to understand the identity; in history narratives give a sense to the past; in psychological analysis this is the material for analyzing things; in philosophy narratives are the base for forming a new vision pf the world and organizing communities [13]; in sociology narratives combine all the characteristics of a good methodology--narrative approach in modern social sciences implies a universal character for telling the stories [12]. It means that narrative serves as a form of a human behavior or other social actions which occur under certain conditions and are oriented towards the others. …