Narrative Function Research Articles

“Filling the void”: the diversified grassroots disaster narratives of the 2023 riverine flood in Z City, China

PurposeDisaster narratives constitute a crucial and unique element in disaster understanding, recovery and communication. Along with facing various severe disasters, China’s dominant official disaster narratives have played an indispensable role in promoting post-disaster social solidarity. However, the consequences of “weak” official disaster narratives remain unknown.Design/methodology/approachIn 2023, during a riverine flood in northern China’s Z City, diversified grassroots disaster narratives emerged, “filling the void” when the official narratives were comparatively “weak”. This paper uses this riverine flood in Z City as an uncommon case to analyze the official-grassroots disaster narrative interaction. During fieldwork, first-hand and second-hand data from in-depth interviews, on-site visits and public information were collected.FindingsBased on fieldwork, this paper first introduced the “weak” official disaster narratives in Z City. Second, this paper organized and classified these grassroots disaster narratives into three interconnected stages: the flood’s causes, government and social responses, and recovery. In “filling the void,” “sacrifice” and “betrayed” sensemaking are detected and functions of these diversified grassroots disaster narratives become clear.Originality/valueOfficial and grassroots disaster narratives are not simply competing, but complementary. As a unique soft lens to interpret disasters, this paper further discussed grassroots disaster narratives’ underlying connotations and potential impacts on social resilience building. Also, this paper provides insights into the disaster narrative dynamics, especially in China’s political and cultural context.

Fighting Media Delinquency with Soviet Sound: Nikolai Ekk’s The Road to Life (1931) in Japan at a Time of Crisis

This paper uses a transmedial lens to examine Japan’s engagement with Soviet film, focusing on the 1933 adaptation of Nikolai Ekk’s The Road to Life (Putevka v zhizn’, 1931) for the Japanese pictorial medium of kamishibai. Challenging an unspoken consensus that it was The Road to Life’s status as ‘the first’ Soviet talkie that accounts for its tremendous success and continuing influence, it was in fact the film’s ‘conversion’ narrative that explains equally, if not more so, its popularity and impact. Although a product of a markedly different cultural context, The Road to Life and its depiction of reformed Soviet teenagers appealed to the Japanese state, the Japanese film industry, and to kamishibai creators alike, as each in their own way strove to distance themselves from an associative link with ‘juvenile delinquency,’ as well as from representatives of the Japanese Left who were increasingly persecuted by the state. As such, the film’s conversion narrative functions as a powerful metaphor for the political transformations that both Japan and its visual media underwent in the early 1930s.

Anthropomorphism as an art of storytelling: Exploring Aesthetics and Ethical Implications in Children’s Literature

Animals are extremely important to children’s books. Among other narrative functions, animals serve as essential metaphors for understanding the human animal. They provide emotional comfort, stimulate imagination, and offer a safe space for exploring complex themes, all of which contribute to children's emotional and cognitive development. Beyond their psychological appeal, animal characters in children's literature also offer significant educational value. This paper explores the aesthetics and ethical implications of anthropomorphism in Children’s Literature. Anthropomorphism is transmitted in kids through storytelling and then in the form of print media. It enhances the cognitive skills in children. The concept can be used in many ways to inculcate moral lessons in children. It teaches how to look at life. Kids learn to deal with their emotions. The paper analyses the stories of Panchatantra and Aesop’s Fables and the concept of Anthropomorphism and how it is used in children’s stories to understand and give a persona to the creatures who live alongside humans.

Eschatology of the Singularity: “Deus ex machina” in the Construction of Film Images of the Future

The mixed assessment by critics and theorists of the deus ex machina artistic device common in popular cinema requires a more thorough study of its dramatic and narrative functions in science fiction films. It is in the construction of film images of the future that this technique is combined with a fantastic assumption, expressing the narrator’s attitude towards artistic narration and becoming an argument in dialogue with the viewer. The study reveals, based on the analysis of empirical material, the multifunctionality of deus ex machina using the example of the development of the theme of technological singularity in cinema. The analysis of films significant for the development of the science fiction (Sci-Fi) genre and the most popular television series among science fiction fans today demonstrates the evolution of the deus ex machina technique. In addition to the trivial function of arbitrary resolution of peripeteia, it acquires various dramatic functions (accelerating or slowing down the rhythm of action, connecting parts of the plot in a large form), obtains the properties of scaling and fragmentation, synchrony and asynchrony with a fantastic assumption, adding complex narrative functions to the toolkit of expressive means, through which the narrator reveals or, on the contrary, conceals his attitude to artistic reality, involving the viewer into the game of probable meanings. The authors of the article come to the conclusion that the theme of technological singularity has been penetrating cinema since its appearance in the work of L. Lumiere and determines, depending on the narrator’s attitude to the topic, the vector of techno-skepticism or techno-optimism in the eschatological dilemma that characterizes the cosmogony of traditional religions. The article is of interest to researchers and film lovers and contributes to the study of artistic and scientific communication.

The Narrative Function of “Soundscape” in Eileen Chang’s Novels in the Auditory Narrative Perspective——Taking Red Rose and White Rose as an Example

Auditory narrative is the expression and writing related auditory perception in narrative works. Eileen Chang’s Novels embody rich sensory narratives and take the auditory soundscape as a typical narrative. Scholar Fu Xiuyan believes that auscultating the soundscape with auditory narrative theory can “re-listen” to the classics and achieve the purpose of admonishing the “deafness” of literary research. Based on the theory of “auditory narrative” proposed by Fu Xiuyan, this paper selects the soundscape in Eileen Chang’s typical novel Red Rose and White Rose to analyze, and further explores the relationship between Soundscape Construction and Character Creation, Soundscape Cutting and Story Building, as well as Soundscape Contrast and Aesthetic Embodiment, in order to further supplement and enrich the new issues in the new field of Eileen Chang studies.

In Search of Treasure in Šalek: Creating Local Identity through Narrative Ostension

People transform concrete real-life events into narratives, but the reverse is also true; folklore and narratives in general can also provoke a creative or active response in people and significantly shape their worldview and way of life. The cases in which this happens (through processes of narrative ostension) are also of interest to folklorists, as they provide crucial contextual information about how (folk) narratives function, spread and acquire meaning. Stories about hidden or buried treasure are among the most important narratives that provoke such ostensive (re)actions. People who live with them sometimes venture out into the symbolically significant but very real elements of local space (e.g. castles) and actively search for the treasure mentioned in a legend. Such is the case of Šalek Castle (in Velenje), where local folklore about buried treasure has prompted several generations of locals to head up to the castle and start digging.

Visual Depictions and Narrative Functions of Achilles’ Death in Homer’s The Iliad

Visual Depictions and Narrative Functions of Achilles’ Death in Homer’s The Iliad

Narrative to icon: the inscriptive origins of Christ Ecce Homo

This article examines the shifting iconographical meaning and purpose of the Latin phrase ecce homo in visual art in the later Middle Ages. As told in John 19: 4–5, ecce homo was the terse two-line sentence exclaimed by Pontius Pilate as he presented Christ to the people of Jerusalem: “Behold, [the] man!” Beginning in the early fifteenth century, it became common for artists in Northern and Central Europe to integrate the phrase ecce homo directly into depictions of this presentation scene, first in narrative-images and eventually in stand-alone devotional icons. Initially, these brief inscriptions served to visualize Pilate’s climactic two-word speech. In the latter half of the century, however, ecce homo became unmoored from its original scheme. What once had a precise narrative function had, by 1500, expanded to become a message directed at the viewer, an epithet for the specific aspect of Christ represented in the narrative, and a title for the narrative itself. This unmooring happened in conjunction with a shift in the function of the figure of Christ within these images and the adaptation of this type of figure into an en buste portrait. Research presented in this article, the first to address these inscriptions in any way, affords new insight into long-standing questions about the typological relationship linking narrative-images and icons. The article challenges the “genetic” model of typological development established by Erwin Panofsky and Sixten Ringbom, both of whom used the iconography of the Ecce Homo as a case study for how to explain the pictorial forms of devotional images in late medieval and early modern art.

Heroic Quests, Magical Helpers and Obstacles: An Exploration of Archetypal Patterns and Traditional Narrative in Modern Day Fairy Tales.

The book by Vladimir Propp, titled ‘Morphology of Folktale,’ discusses thirty-one narrative functions claimed to be present in every fairy tale. Propp’s seminal work on Russian folktales provides a comprehensive framework to analyze and unveil the underlying narrative structural patterns and functions which shape and connect present-day fairy tales with traditional folklore. The present research employs Propp’s Narrative Theory (1968) as lens to explore the narrative structures of ‘Frozen’ (2013) and ‘Brave’ (2012), two renowned Disney animated movies. The study focuses on the plot of both movies to investigate the narrative functions present in their original form and the ways in which they are modified and adapted. The findings conclude that majority of functions remain same as they were propagated by Propp; however, the changes observed in the functions were based on role-switch, strained and weekend family relations, and questioning traditional expectations of marriage. This article, through identifying recurring functions performed by dramatis personae, reveals the fundamental narrative components. These contribute to the developing of each plot, that is, protagonists’ quests, journeys, interactions and transformations in both films. To serve the purpose, the researcher has made use of qualitative approach. Secondly, a table of thirty-one narrative functions is constructed and filled up for both the movies which were watched 2-3 times. Similar to Propp, the analyst has adopted a syntagmatic approach to observe the degree to which these functions are still there in contemporary fairy tale movies. Lastly, this study would be beneficial for all those who want to conduct study in the fields of Fairy Tales, Structuralism and Narratology.

The Pragmatics of Gaze Patterns in a Local Family Sign Language from Guatemala

In this study, we document the coordination of eye gaze and manual signing in a local sign language from Nebaj, Guatemala. We analyze gaze patterns in two conversations in which signers described the book Frog Where Are You to an interlocutor. The signers include a deaf child who narrated the book to a hearing interlocutor and her grandfather, who is also deaf, as he described the same book to his hearing grandson during a separate conversation. We code the two narratives for gaze target and sign type, analyzing the relationship between eye gaze and sign type as well as describing patterns in the sequencing of eye gaze targets. Both signers show a strong correlation between sign type and the direction of their eye gaze. As in previous literature, signers looked to a specialized medial space while producing signs that enact the action of characters in discourse in contrast to eye gaze patterns for non-enacting signs. Our analysis highlights both pragmatic–interactional and discursive–narrative functions of gaze. The pragmatic–interactional use of gaze primarily relates to the management of visual attention and turn-taking, while the discursive–narrative use of gaze marks the distinction between narrator and character perspective within stretches of narration.

Media Coverage of Sexual Violence Cases in the Russia-Ukraine War

The purpose of this research is to examine how international news sources have narrated the sexual violence issues during the recent Russia-Ukrainian conflict. This research used the Narrative Policy Framework to analyze not only the function of news narratives but also the elements (such as characters) portrayed in rape cases (criminals, heroes, and victims). Furthermore, NVivo Pro was used to process the research data qualitatively. According to the findings, international news sources like The Guardian, CNN, and Al Jazeera have largely reported on the claim that sexual violence, especially rape, has been used as a 'weapon' by the Russian military in its attacks on Ukraine. Ukrainian women, men, children, girls, and boys make up the vast majority of the victims here. Meanwhile, the Russian government and army are presented as villains in the narrative. Different narratives emerge when the three media outlets discuss actors in terms of heroic roles, as shown by this research. There are signs that the media has its objectives, particularly in the context of the Ukraine-Russia war, based on the disparities between the narratives given to the hero characters by the media.

Narrative as active inference: an integrative account of cognitive and social functions in adaptation.

While the ubiquity and importance of narratives for human adaptation is widely recognized, there is no integrative framework for understanding the roles of narrative in human adaptation. Research has identified several cognitive and social functions of narratives that are conducive to well-being and adaptation as well as to coordinated social practices and enculturation. In this paper, we characterize the cognitive and social functions of narratives in terms of active inference, to support the claim that one of the main adaptive functions of narrative is to generate more useful (i.e., accurate, parsimonious) predictions for the individual, as well as to coordinate group action (over multiple timescales) through shared predictions about collective behavior. Active inference is a theory that depicts the fundamental tendency of living organisms to adapt by proactively inferring the causes of their sensations (including their own actions). We review narrative research on identity, event segmentation, episodic memory, future projections, storytelling practices, enculturation, and master narratives. We show how this research dovetails with the active inference framework and propose an account of the cognitive and social functions of narrative that emphasizes that narratives are for the future-even when they are focused on recollecting or recounting the past. Understanding narratives as cognitive and cultural tools for mutual prediction in social contexts can guide research on narrative in adaptive behavior and psychopathology, based on a parsimonious mechanistic model of some of the basic adaptive functions of narrative.

On the Origins of the Witness-Protagonist

Abstract This essay focuses on the “witness-protagonist”: a recessive but still identifiably major character who observes the developments of the main plot from a position on its margins. Such characters are familiar from modernist novels, but this essay turns back to a formative stage in their history to recover their forgotten political significance. Working across four central cases (Samuel Richardson’s “man of feeling” Sir Charles Grandison, Charlotte Smith’s self-effacing protagonist Lionel Desmond, Walter Scott’s “mediocre heroes,” and Jane Austen’s “creepmouse” heroine Fanny Price), the essay describes witness-protagonists as characters with an uncertain relation to the novel as a whole. Straddling the functions of narrator and character, witness and agent, they pose at once a formal problem (of where to place the character in relation to the story) and a political one (of who can participate in the life of the collective) that had particular salience in the era of emergent mass politics.

“Living the stories of your great-grandmother”: Making sense of Russia’s war in Ukraine through Polish intergenerational family storytelling

ABSTRACT After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Polish people were tasked with making sense of war in close proximity while supporting millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing to Poland. In times of distress, such as war and refugee crises, intergenerational storytelling helps people make sense of their experience. Interviews with 28 Polish adults during the first five months of the war revealed that intergenerational family storytelling prompted them to: cope with war, connect with Ukraine, and help others. These narrative functions were informed by various levels of culture, as proposed by ecological systems theorizing. Findings expand communication narrative sense-making theory by accounting for sociohistorical influences in intergenerational family storytelling and highlighting how family storytelling can motivate action during crisis.

Female bodies and dynastic legitimacy in the Nereid Monument at Xanthos

Abstract This article reassesses the so-called Nereid Monument (ca 380 BCE) at Xanthos in Lycia by focusing on the narrative and symbolic role of female figures within its sculptural programme. Constructed as the tomb for the Lycian dynast Erbbina, the monument has been noted for its over-human-size sculpture of Nereids, its historicising city-siege reliefs, as well as its spectacular fusion of visual and architectural styles, motifs and themes from various contexts throughout the Aegean and Anatolia. Building on this scholarship, I turn specifically to the monument’s innovative representations of non-mythological women in prominent areas of its visual programme: Erbbina’s dynastic consort and a distressed woman who is caught in the throes of military violence. By focusing on the role of female bodies in Erbbina’s funerary qua triumphal monument, I argue for the important narrative function of female bodies in articulating dynastic legitimacy and continuity. Finally, this article comments on the importance of femininity in addition to masculinity in dynastic expressions in the fourth century, thus anticipating major art-historical changes in the art of power at the beginning of the Hellenistic period.

Reading 2 Sam. 18:1–19:9 through the Korean Context “United yet Divided”

Abstract In this paper, I suggest that the narrative of 2 Sam. 18:1–19:9 is read in the Korean context of being “united yet divided” through which K.P. Hong illuminates the duality between the ideal and the real in Judah’s relationship with Israel. The opposition between David and Joab represents the dual circumstance of a community seeking union and simultaneously confronting division. Such duality is also observed in the distinction drawn between Ahimaaz and the Cushite. The violence in the narrative functions significantly to otherize Absalom and establish who We are. Also, the violence is intimately associated with Deut. 21:22–23 and the divine will. Therefore, a reading of this narrative through the Korean context can offer a means of resolving the difficulties of 2 Sam. 18:1–19:9 and generate the possibility of a new interpretation of the text in its present form.

Study on the Spatial Narrative of Li Changdong's Green Film "Trilogy"

Space is one of the important areas of film industry research. It is not only an important medium to simply understand the relationship between film and social reality, but also an important channel to read artists' thoughts and analyze what artists want to express and how to express them. South Korean director Lee Chang-dong is known as the "poet who asks for life" and his unique spatial awareness builds a personal influence vein full of writing. The space in Lee Chang-dong's films not only records the growth of individuals and the changes of cities, but also becomes a place where various powers compete with each other, showing the painful memories of the oppression of individuals by The Times.First of all, the paper divides the film space of Li Changdong into visual narrative space and auditory supplementary narrative space. By studying different spatial characteristics and presentation ways, it brings people's thinking behind it. Secondly, starting from the narrative function of the film, this paper studies how the space successfully participates in the narrative and becomes the narrative driving force of the film, thus affecting the narrative structure of the film and participating in the character modeling in the film. Thirdly, through some artistic languages such as sound and color, an orderly space environment is created. Finally, the paper combines the realistic point of view to study the unique spatial consciousness of director Li Changdong from his own point of view to analyze the significance behind the spatial narrative.In this paper, the spatial types, narrative functions, narrative techniques and the meaning behind Li Changdong's films are studied. Through the study of spatial narrative, I want to understand the film style and main ideas of director Li Changdong, and understand personal survival mode and living soil behind it through the entry point of space.

Sensemaking Process of Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Identification of Specific Clusters of “Sense of Grip”

AbstractAutism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by persistent atypicalities in social communication and social interactions across different domains of life, often with restricted, repetitive, stereotyped patterns of behaviors, interests, and activities. A large corpus of previous research shows that parental involvement in caregiving is perceived as stressful and challenging, in many cases resulting in poorer parental quality of life. The authors present a quali-quantitative mixed method research on sensemaking process of 34 parents (16 mothers and 18 fathers) of children with ASD. The interviews were collected and analyzed according to the “Sense of Grip” (SoG) methodology. SoG indeed refers to the sensemaking processes that a person realizes to manage the relationship with diseases or disorders by organizing several degrees of flexibility, differentiation, and adaptation to the variability of experiences and contexts of life. This construct of health psychology—semiotically and clinically oriented—is based on specific narrative functions (i.e., temporal, integrative, emotional, sharing, and agentive functions). The cluster analysis procedure allowed to identify three different SoG profiles: (a) enterprising (parents who are able to construct flexible and dynamic familiar routines), (b) opposing (parents who experience the ASD disorder as a deep unacceptable crisis, hindering the rest of familiar and professional activities), and (c) condescending (parents who organize family life completely on adherence to medical prescriptions and care protocols). These profiles show interesting implications for clinical practice and support as showing specific aspects of treating, managing, and sharing children conditions within family and relational contexts of life.

Voices from the Other Side: Exploring Nonhuman Agents and Their Narrative Function in the Zhuangzi

In the history of Chinese literature, the Zhuangzi authors were the first to grant a voice to diverse forms of life, among them a snake, a tree, a dead man, a divine turtle, and even the wind. What exactly is the interest of incorporating nonhuman protagonists in brief literary fictions? Was there something at stake when trying out this pioneering narrative technique, or was it just for the sake of literary innovation and entertainment? Through a detailed analysis of a set of concise narratives, this study uncovers a consistent critique of the religious institutions (chiefly divination and sacrifice), as well as the economic practices prevalent during the Warring States period. It aims to demonstrate that the Zhuangzi's comprehensive critique of the Zhou cultural order achieves its “hearability” through a recurrent use of striking dualities, including day and night, dream and wakefulness, and humans and nonhumans. A heretofore silent and passive community of living beings raises its voice and is able to challenge the well-established discourse proclaiming human sovereignty over the natural world. These voices and the themes they raise serve, among other things, as a literary strategy intended to illuminate the universality of violence and the criminal essence of human culture (wen 文).

Autobiographical memory functions as a stable property of narrative identity

The functionalist approach claims that autobiographical memory functions could be part of narrative identity. If so, the use of memory functions in personal narratives should be as stable as other properties of narrative identity. Testing this claim, the present study elicited repeated narratives and functional self-ratings for turning point and low point memories from 145 undergraduates (68.90 % female) in a two-wave eight-month longitudinal study. Stability of memory functions in specific memories was conceptualized in terms of mean-level and rank-order stability. Results showed little mean-level stability, yet substantial rank-order stability for memory functions regardless of assessment. The later use of the same memory functions in repeated narratives was predicted by baseline of functions at T1, age of event, valence, and frequency of rehearsal. Combining these results with theories on autobiographical memory and narrative identity suggests that memory functions might be a stable property of narrative identity hitherto overlooked.