Narrative Features Research Articles

Study on "Ekphrasis" in the Trans-Artistic Narration of the Qiantang River Tidal Bore

The history of Chinese poetry and painting research has deep roots, and the concept of "poetry and painting sharing the same origin" has been present since ancient times. In Western literary studies, the term "ekphrasis" meaning "expressing through words", has been introduced. By examining the research on ekphrasis in cross-art narration, it is found that ekphrasis serves as a typical form of cross-art narration, using language as a medium of expression while respecting the narrative characteristics of literary art. It simultaneously pursues visual effects and spatial qualities, embodying an aesthetic "Andersstreben". This makes it a distinctive form of cross-artistic narration. This paper, through the study of the culture and arts of the Tidal Bore of the Qiantang River, reveals the characteristics of cross-art narration in this region. By establishing a self-built corpus of ancient poems related to the Qiantang River Tidal Bore, the paper aims to investigate the phenomenon of ekphrasis in the poetry concerning the Qiantang River Tidal Bore, trying to find a breakthrough for in-depth humanistic research into the cross-art narration of the Qiantang River Tidal Bore. The goal is to display the multidimensional charm of the Qiantang River Tidal Bore culture and provide a new perspective for international communication and dissemination of the Qiantang River Tidal Bore and its culture, thereby assisting in its UNESCO World Heritage application.

Narrative features of A. P. Chekhov's play "The Seagull"

Narrative features of A. P. Chekhov's play "The Seagull"

탈식민주의 서사에서 트랜스아이덴티티 스토리텔링으로의 전환

In order to promote a constructive future of postcolonialism theory and criticism, this paper diagnoses the narrative method of postcolonialism and seeks changes. First, we read Albert Camus' “The Stranger” and Carmel Daoud's “Meursault, Contre-Enquete” together to discuss the difference. and Explore the nature of the decolonist narrative and the style of reproducing the identity of the decolonist. As a result of the analysis, various narrative differences such as character-centered and event-centered, dynamic and static, realism and fiction are found in “The Stranger” and “Meursault, Contre-Enquete”, respectively. Above all, “The Stranger” presents self-production or self-creating narratives in an independent way of thinking. However, “Meursault, Contre-Enquete” constitutes a narrative method that lacks subjectivity, buried in criticism and subversion of colonial narratives. This narrative style of decolonial aesthetics can act as a limit to expressing the identity of the decolonial subject or persuading readers. Therefore, we seek a change in the decolonist narrative method in the direction of joining the narrative characteristics of the two novels, and this paper presents a new narrative model called Trans-Identity Storytelling as an alternative.

Quality of Narratives in Assessment: Piloting a List of Evidence-Based Quality Indicators.

Appraising the quality of narratives used in assessment is challenging for educators and administrators. Although some quality indicators for writing narratives exist in the literature, they remain context specific and not always sufficiently operational to be easily used. Creating a tool that gathers applicable quality indicators and ensuring its standardized use would equip assessors to appraise the quality of narratives. We used DeVellis' framework to develop a checklist of evidence-informed indicators for quality narratives. Two team members independently piloted the checklist using four series of narratives coming from three different sources. After each series, team members documented their agreement and achieved a consensus. We calculated frequencies of occurrence for each quality indicator as well as the interrater agreement to assess the standardized application of the checklist. We identified seven quality indicators and applied them on narratives. Frequencies of quality indicators ranged from 0% to 100%. Interrater agreement ranged from 88.7% to 100% for the four series. Although we were able to achieve a standardized application of a list of quality indicators for narratives used in health sciences education, it does not exclude the fact that users would need training to be able to write good quality narratives. We also noted that some quality indicators were less frequent than others and we suggested a few reflections on this.

The Polyphonic Structure in Modern Arabic Novel: “With Particular Reference to Miramar, The Spartan Diwan, and Bookseller’s Notebooks as Case Studies”

This critical study aims at exploring the polyphonic structure in three Modern Arabic Novels. The first novel, Miramar, written by Mahfouz, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. It is set in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1960. The second novel, authored by the Algerian Issawi, is entitled al diwan al-party (The Spartan Diwan or Court) and is set from 1815 to 1833. The third novel, dafatir al-Waraq (Bookseller’s Notebooks), is from Jordan and is written by Barjass. The paper tries to clarify and uncover the narration method in these three modern Arabic novels that demonstrate a narrative discursive style parallel to what Bakhtin suggests as a Polyphonic Novel. The central question behind this argument is ‘what are the primary features of polyphonic narrative in these three novels?’ The attempt to answer this question clarifies the ways these features contribute to the meaning of these novels. The paper concludes that the polyphonic structure becomes an evitable feature of Modern Arabic Novel and is evident in the existence of multiple narrators, diverse cultures, stream of consciousness, the interrelationship of literary genres, and using poetic language and dialogues.

‘Missed Revolutions’: Historical Narratives During Italian Fascism (from Delio Cantimori to Camillo Pellizzi)

AbstractThis article analyses some examples of historical narratives that, long before the emergence of so‐called postmodern history, had a specific narrative character: the reconstructions of ‘missed revolutions’ taking into account a possible alternative history and tracing back the reasons for a social, political, and economic crisis to an interrupted process, one that, had it been completed, would have triggered some sort of progress. Even if this kind of historical representation cannot properly be classified as a form of alternate history, it can be placed between traditional historical accounts of the past and a more innovative pattern, which entails a more speculative argumentation, and therefore has been used to justify or suggest specific political claims. One of the most obvious examples of this literature are the narrations of the ‘unaccomplished Risorgimento’, which was a highly debated theme in the political, intellectual, and historical discussion from the period of the Italian unification until the economic and political reconstruction following the Second World War. This article will stress four possible functions of the ‘missed revolution’ narratives: first, as a way to discover some currents that have been underestimated by the official historiography or mainstream political discourse; second, to observe the role assigned to particular events in altering the destiny of a nation; third, to show how political and intellectual actors use history to justify political actions or events; and finally, to reveal how, conversely, by reconstructing ‘missed revolutions’ individual historians and, more generally, public intellectuals can take up a specific political stance while writing history.

Weaving identities and stories about the boarding school of the Copiapó mining school and the student residence of the University of Atacama

The purpose of this study is to construct a historical-discursive description of the experiences of key individuals who lived in student homes, boarding schools located in the third region of Atacama. These institutions are operated and sponsored by the University of Atacama, the region's sole state and regional university. This tour shows a retrospective look at the boarding schools that existed from 1900 and 2019 in order to understand the discourse and the configuration of subjectivity, the identity traits of individuals who lived part of their lives in student homes, boarding schools in a non-linear way. This research analyzes narrative discourse, with evidence of the prevalence and stratification, to answer two main questions: How does living in a student residence shape present identity? And how do individuals view themselves in relation to the identity traits formed during their time in the residence? To achieve this, we use the Goffmanian category of total institution and Foucauldian categories of knowledge, symbolic technology, control and domination technology – signs that are stratified-and technologies of self-care. By examining open narrative character, which allows for the creation and freedom of subjectivities, we can gain insight into the features of present identity that may be influenced by past experiences in student residences.

Engagement with narrative characters: the role of social-cognitive abilities and linguistic viewpoint

ABSTRACT This article explores the role of text and reader characteristics in character engagement experiences. In an online study, participants completed several self-report and behavioral measures of social-cognitive abilities and read two literary narratives in which the presence of linguistic viewpoint markers was varied using a highly controlled manipulation strategy. Afterward, participants reported on their character engagement experiences. A principal component analysis on participants’ responses revealed the multidimensional nature of character engagement, which included both self- and other-oriented emotional responses (e.g., empathy, personal distress) as well as more cognitive responses (e.g., identification, perspective taking). Furthermore, character engagement was found to rely on a wide range of social-cognitive abilities but not on the presence of viewpoint markers. Finally, and most importantly, we did not find convincing evidence for an interplay between social-cognitive abilities and the presence of viewpoint markers. These findings suggest that readers rely on their social-cognitive abilities to engage with the inner worlds of fictional others, more so than on the lexical cues of those inner worlds provided by the text.

The Undernarrated and the Overnarrated

ABSTRACTNarratologists have not paid much systematic attention to the undernarrated and the overnarrated, which have several different acceptations. In particular, undernarrated can mean “not narrated in sufficient detail” and overnarrated can mean “narrated in an overly detailed manner.” The article focuses on the latter acceptations because they are quite pertinent for narratological analysis. Using examples from Marcel Proust, Annie Ernaux, and Kamel Daoud, it explores the ways in which undernarration and overnarration can be signaled, their affinities with other narrative features (e.g., speed or focalization), their possible function, and their link with the very nature of narrative.

The Narration of the Relationship between Developments of Memes Culture and the Internet and Analysis of Memes Advantages in Diffuse

With the rise of the Internet and the establishment of online social platforms, there are more and more online information exchanges among netizens. As a product of the rise of the Internet, Memes culture has made an indelible contribution to virtual communication. This paper focuses on the development of memes culture and comprehensively describes the development of memes by studying and comparing domestic and overseas kinds of literature. In this article, the development of memes is summarized in three stages, with a summary of three eras of web development. It is divided into the first generation of memes whose main elements are characters, the second generation of memes represented by emojis that imitate faces and expressions, and the third generation of memes with narrative features. The emergence and development of the first, second, and third generations of memes do not correspond to the emergence and development of Web1.0, Web2.0 and Web3.0, but they are inseparable. At the same time, the article analyzes the reasons for the popularity of memes from five aspects: fast communication, narrative, low creation threshold, entertainment and identity. This paper also points out two problems in the development of Memes culture, namely, the weakening and degradation of language expression ability caused by the excessive use of memes, and the proliferation of vulgar online culture caused by the prevalence of memes

Doris Lessing’s Ethical Narrative in The Diary of a Good Neighbor

ABSTRACT With the “Ethical Turn” from the end of the last century, ethical narratology has become an inspiring guide in narrative studies. This essay examines how Doris Lessing carries out her ethical exploration on elderly care through the narrative forms in The Diary of a Good Neighbor. With a double-seeing narrative, Lessing shows her sympathy toward the elderly group and reveals the pervasive ageism among the middle-aged and the young generations. By adopting a listening narrative which records various dialogs, oral narratives, and daily accounts of the elders, Lessing calls on respect for the aged individuals and expresses her desire to break the inter-generation isolation in modern society. The diary style of the novel provides space for a reflective narrative, and the recurrent questioning-pondering-answering mode from the character narrator in the diary corresponds with Lessing’s exploration of new inter-generation ethics in the post-modern era.

Cyber Discipline: How Roguelite Games Engage Players - A Perspective from Foucaults Discipline and Punish

As an emerging game genre, Roguelite games rapidly gain a foothold in the market. This paper analyzes the relationship between the game and the player, using Foucaults theory to analyze the Roguelite game masterpiece Hades. In the process of playing the game, the game constitutes a discipline for the player. The characteristics of Roguelite games, such as permanent death and randomness, attract the player to play the game repeatedly to defeat the enemy and avoid defeat. At the same time, the narrative characteristics of Roguelite games show fragmentation and layer advancement, attracting the player to play the game continuously to obtain more information. Overall, Roguelite games discipline players to invest more time in the game, contributing to the genres success.

Higher levels of narrativity lead to similar patterns of posterior EEG activity across individuals.

The focus of cognitive and psychological approaches to narrative has not so much been on the elucidation of important aspects of narrative, but rather on using narratives as tools for the investigation of higher order cognitive processes elicited by narratives (e.g., understanding, empathy, etc.). In this study, we work toward a scalar model of narrativity, which can provide testable criteria for selecting and classifying communication forms in their level of narrativity. We investigated whether being exposed to videos with different levels of narrativity modulates shared neural responses, measured by inter-subject correlation, and engagement levels. Thirty-two participants watched video advertisements with high-level and low-level of narrativity while their neural responses were measured through electroencephalogram. Additionally, participants' engagement levels were calculated based on the composite of their self-reported attention and immersion scores. Results demonstrated that both calculated inter-subject correlation and engagement scores for high-level video ads were significantly higher than those for low-level, suggesting that narrativity levels modulate inter-subject correlation and engagement. We believe that these findings are a step toward the elucidation of the viewers' way of processing and understanding a given communication artifact as a function of the narrative qualities expressed by the level of narrativity.

Critical Metaphor Analysis of War Metaphors in Official News Reports of COVID-19 in China

This paper initially situates research on the conceptual metaphors based on Critical Metaphor Analysis with regard to their manifestation in public discourses. Specifically, it centers on the cognitive features and social effects of war metaphors used in the official coverage of COVID-19 pandemic in China. The war metaphors was first identified and analyzed by both manual metaphor identification and the aid of vocabulary analytic software AntConc. 3. 5. 9. Then the cognitive mechanism and social functions of the selected metaphors were analyzed in the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The findings show that: (1)despite of the possible negative emotions they might bring, war metaphors can arouse cognitively the public’s awareness of self-protection and stimulate properly the positive emotions of the public with the embedded Chinese narrative characteristics “a party in trouble, assistance comes from all sides”; (2) the application of war metaphors can function as positive guidance in conveying government policy and play an important role in soothing the public tension and help to stabilize. The adoption of war metaphors in the COVID-19 news reports in China official media can help to stimulate the positive emotions of the public, arouse the collectivism values, construct a unified epidemic prevention cognition system of the public, and play a crucial role in providing information, policy interpretation and humanistic guidance.

Learning as a way of achieving quality improvement in long-term care: A qualitative evaluation of The Story as a Quality Instrument

Aim/ObjectiveThis study aimed to evaluate the use of the narrative quality instrument ‘The Story as a Quality Instrument’ (or SQI) for learning as a way of achieving quality improvement. BackgroundLearning is a widespread aim in long-term care. If professionals share detailed information about their views on the quality of care, they can see it from each other’s perspective and create a new joint perspective that may generate a broader meaning in total. One useful source for learning and improvement is the narratives of older adults. These narratives enable reflection and learning, which encourages action. In care organizations, there is a drive to find methods that can be used to facilitate learning and encourage quality improvement. DesignA qualitative evaluation design. MethodsData collection was performed in 2021–2022 at six field sites of four large care organizations providing long-term care to older adults in the Netherlands. At each field site, SQI was applied: an action plan was formulated in a quality meeting and, 8–12 weeks later, the progress was evaluated in a follow-up meeting. The data collected was participants’ responses during focus groups: the verbatim transcripts of both meetings and the observation reports of the researchers. 46 participants took part in the quality meetings and 34 participants were present at the follow-up meetings. The data was analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsThe results are mechanisms that help learning, participant responses, and practical challenges and conditions. Four mechanisms became visible that encourage learning among participants for achieving quality improvements: in-depth discussions, exchange of perspectives, abstraction, and concretization. The participants listed several outcomes regarding individual learning such as change of attitude, viewing older adults more holistically and the realization that possibilities for working on quality improvement could be just a small and part of everyday work. Participants learned from each other as they came to understand each other’s perspectives. The added value lay in getting insights into the individual perceptions of clients, the concrete areas for improvement as an outcome, and getting a picture of the perspectives of diverse people and functions represented. Time was found to be the main challenge when applying SQI. ConclusionsSQI is deemed promising for practice, as it allows care professionals to learn in their workplace in a structured way from narratives of older adults in order to improve the quality of care.

Monsters, Freaks, and Indians: Characters in Exploration Narratives

Monsters, Freaks, and Indians: Characters in Exploration Narratives

Being Young, Becoming Political: Subjectivity and Urban Space in Early Partition Novels

This article discusses the relationship between political subjectivity and urban space in three novels written in the immediate aftermath of the Partition of India: Qurratulain Hyder’s My Temples, Too, Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s The Heart Divided and Yashpal’s This Is Not That Dawn. Despite extensive thematic and structural similarities, these early Partition novels have never been considered together and through a historical lens. Each narrative features moments of reckoning when the young protagonists are faced with sudden demands to become political in a new way, for example by abandoning secular anti-colonialism for communitarianism. The diversity of their experiences and responses, from bitter resignation to open-ended struggle, reflects the difficulties of constructing unitary selves expressing deep interior convictions aligned with collective identities. These transformations of political subjectivities are situated in and shaped by the heterogeneous urban spaces of Lucknow and Lahore, which establish the conditions of possibility for coexistence and its limits.

God’s Wrath over Antioch, 525–540 CE

Ancient Antioch (modern Antakya) is well known as a city prone to disasters. However, the calamitous events that hit the city between 525 and 540 CE have attracted particular attention. Within a time span of fifteen years, Antioch suffered major destructions by two massive earthquakes, several conflagrations, and a Persian sack. These events are reported in highly dramatic accounts by John Malalas and Procopius. Based on such reports, scholars since the nineteenth century have often interpreted these disasters as the starting point for a general decline of the city beginning in the sixth century. More recent reassessments, in contrast, have highlighted continuities on a variety of levels, emphasizing that over the long term, Antioch displayed high resilience on structural and institutional levels. This article picks up on these more recent findings but strives to approach the subject from a different angle. It focuses on Malalas’s and Procopius’s influential disaster narratives and seeks to further contextualize them. It traces how modern scholarly reception of the literary sources has fostered the traditional picture of “decline,” and it analyzes the narrative strategies of the texts, considering the literary traditions from which they originate and the cultural setting of which they form a part. The article seeks to show that the late ancient reports aim not to establish a picture of decline but rather to present Antioch as a purified, freshly Christianized city emerging from the ashes. It further argues that while it is important to critically reflect upon the rhetorical character of the double narrative of heavenly destruction and recreation, exploring the question of Antioch’s urban development in the sixth century through the lens of contemporary discourse on the Christian city not only increases our sensitivity to the methodological problems connected to these texts but may also lead to a better understanding of our evidence on Antioch’s post-Roman development.

B.F. EGOROV AS MEMOIRIST

The article examines the features of memoir narration in the memoirs of Boris Egorov, distinguished by both a special interest in personal history, inscribed in the general historical course, and the need to return again in memory to previously visited significant places. A passionate love of memories is combined in the author’s biography, marked by an unquenchable thirst for wandering, with a fondness for travel. Memories become a journey through the places of personal memory and appear as a journey into the depths of personal history. As a historian of Russian culture, one who professionally deals with the past and interprets the events of the image/svg+xml past, the author of the memoirs clearly understands that these events will certainly leave a mark, if not in documents, then in the human soul, so that the past continues to live in the present and to influence it. Memories of Boris Egorov are a way not only of reproducing, but also transforming pictures of the past, highlighted in the memory of the memoirist: the uniqueness of personality and the uniqueness of private biography allow us to see and comprehend everything that happened in the life of society and individuals in a new way.

Crime and Punishment: How Historical Narratives Affect the Evaluation of Restorative and Retributive Justice

This article explores how historical narratives affect the evaluation of political decisions regarding justice during peace negotiations. Specifically, this study evaluates how different narratives of the Colombian armed conflict relate to the preference for either restorative or retributive justice. Results revealed that a historically accurate narrative that included structural elements correlated with the preference for restorative justice, whereas a schematic narrative that focused on individual greed favoured the preference for retributive justice. These results are explained in terms of the characteristics of expert historical narratives, which include structural elements, such as economic and institutional factors. The presence of these elements in the explanation of conflicts decreases the weight of individual decisions and, in this way, prevent ingroup attributional biases.