Variation in narrative structure: A simple text vs. an innovative work of art

Abstract

The paper is concerned with variation within the narrative type of text, and in particular, with variation between two rather extreme forms of narrative: simple, structurally stereotyped children's stories and an artistic story, ‘The Steppe’ by A. Čexov. The focus is on the signalling of text-strategic continuity and text segmentation, as manifested in the use of markers of temporal text strategy and devices of participant reference. The variation under investigation may be viewed in terms of a scale of prototypicality. At one end of the scale, one may find texts which conform to a standard narrative design, and at the other, texts with innovative strategies. In (near-)prototype texts, initial placement of temporal adverbials and the use of a full noun phrase to refer to participant(s) tend to be used to indicate textual boundaries. Conversely, one of Čexov's important text strategies in ‘The Steppe’ seems to be the blurring of textual boundaries to create the impression of a continuous stream. Major temporal shifts are often signalled through non-initial temporal expressions, and we often find a pronominal reference to participant(s) at major textual boundaries. A narrative which deviates from the expected design, all the same, relies on the readers' intuitions about a prototypical narrative structure. Since text-receivers probably interpret ‘unusual’ texts against the background of a prototype, innovative strategies are a source of artistic effects.