Narrative Genre Research Articles

Silence, Satire and Empathy: Reading Appupen’s Topoi in His Wordless Graphic Narratives

The projection of the incongruities of contemporary times through the frame of satire is a powerful instrument in the genre of comics and graphic narratives and in Indian graphic literature as well. Mendiburo-Seguel and Heintz (2020) explain eight Comic Style Markers (CSM) in Latin-American cultures, and satire, a “darker style”, is one of them. The paper aims to conceptualise how Appupen’s wordless graphic narratives Moonward: Stories from Halahala (2009), Legends of Halahala (2013), Aspyrus: A Dream of Halahala (2014) and The Snake and the Lotus: A Halahala Adventure (2018) register black satire against society, politics, religion, industrialization, consumerism, advertisement and so on and how they prove to play the role of “corrective humour” (Ruch and Heintz, 2016). This paper attempts to explore how the “author-artist’s” (Aldama, 2010) fantastical and dystopic graphic narratives, excoriate social and political issues to create a unique aesthetic of thoughtful critical writing in graphic mode, thereby collectively contributing to the interdisciplinary studies of fantasy and dystopia and helping to proliferate the genre of Indian Comics and graphic narratives as well. Moreover, as “satire had a moral goodness that was lacking in sarcasm and cynicism” (Ruch, Heintz, Platt, Wagner, and Proyer, 2018), this essay argues what kind of empathic feeling, perspective sharing and cognitive overlap Appupen cultivates in these four narratives and develops their moral, aesthetic and humane tenacity. The article discusses Appupen’s satire as a vehicle by which he prudently moulds empathy with the reader to convey the intrinsic values of the texts.

Narrative Concepts in the Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature, ed. Liisa Steinby and Aino Mäkikalli.

<i>Narrative Concepts in the Study of Eighteenth-Century Literature</i>, ed. Liisa Steinby and Aino Mäkikalli.

Open about organizational failure: A communication perspective on postmortem impression management

Being open about failure as an entrepreneur is an increasingly common practice in and beyond startup communities, for example by proactively and strategically crafting public statements to frame subsequent failure conversations. Combining an impression management perspective with an analysis of communicative genres of failure narratives, we empirically investigate postmortem statements of failed entrepreneurs. Shifting the discourse from the (content of the) failure narratives towards considering its broader communicative context, we show how genres emerge from patterns of failure narratives and impression management strategies. Our analysis suggests that subgenres of postmortem statements represent different forms of openness about failure, and some subgenres in particular contribute to establishing an ‘organizational afterlife’ as a potentially long-lasting impression management strategy.

THE LANGUAGE OF ORAL FOLK ART AS A SOURCE OF FORMATION OF THE AVAR LITERARY LANGUAGE

Oral and poetic creativity played a huge role in the development of the Avar language, in particular, in the for-mation, formation and development of written and literary norms. It was folklore that had a beneficial influence on the formation and development of the narrative genres of Avar fiction. Already at the dawn of its develop-ment, Avar fiction used all the expressive means of colloquial speech developed in folklore. The hammered syllable of the oral and poetic creativity of the Avars, its rich vocabulary, complex syntactic constructions were the basis for the formation of written literary norms.

A sailor’s kin: Faith, sexuality, and antislavery, 1840–1856

ABSTRACT An 1856 Black-authored autobiography, The Life of John Thompson, made significant advances in the genre of the American slave narrative. A runaway slave, whaler, folk theologian, and, ultimately, abolitionist author, Thompson expressed sympathy for a queer man trapped in slavery and sold away from the family and friends, almost certainly for purposes of sexual abuse by white men. Moreover, Thompson narrated a religious journey beginning with traditional Christianity and ending in a Christian-inflected form of free thought. These were both new in the slave narrative. However, Thompson expressed animus against Islam as well as against aristocrats, both of whom he understood as enforcing oppression. These were not new in American thought and they kept his text securely in American traditions. Insights from queer theory, kinship studies, oceanic studies, and the history of religion are used to illuminate Thompson’s work.

Potential contribution of SFL to task-based research: An examination of planning effects using genre-based theme analysis

The present study aims to investigate, within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the influence of pre-task planning on textual cohesion and generic coherence, as well as the potential contribution of SFL to task-based research with a focus on oral tasks. Fifty-six Chinese EFL learners retold the Modern Times episode under either 10-min strategic planning or no planning condition. Their oral production was collected and analyzed in terms of the narrative genre, types of themes, theme markedness, and thematic progression patterns. Whereas an SFL-based qualitative analysis seemed to suggest the use of more diverse lexico-grammatical resources for meaning-making and a more logical pattern of theme-rheme development among the planned learners, such results were not supported by the quantitative data, which displayed a more complex picture. It is also suggested that the functional, meaning-oriented perspective, by providing in-depth, qualitative description of speakers’ deployment of discourse-semantic and lexico-grammatical resources, could complement and extend the structural and formal assessment of L2 task performance and development. Overall, this research provides novel evidence concerning the relationship between planning time and discourse management, as well as valuable insights into the potential contribution of SFL to task-based research.

Playing with Genre and Queer Narrative in the Novels of Malinda Lo

<p dir="ltr">Malinda Lo has been an invaluable voice in the emerging field of queer YA fiction, both for her accessible statistics on the representation of LGBTQIA+ identities in traditional publishing, and for the content of her novels. Her fictional works place sapphic protagonists into genre narratives – sci-fi, fairy tale, thriller – that are traditionally presumed to be the realm of straight heroes. But the queer rebellion in Lo’s writing goes beyond simply casting queer characters into genres and roles that have historically been considered heteronarrative: Lo’s work is an example of what I define here as ‘queer narrative play’, a process of deliberately and visibly troubling, tweaking, and upturning readers’ expectations of the roles and functions of queer characters within recognisable genre frameworks, deftly challenging the historical binary that has existed between ‘mainstream’ genre fiction and ‘marginal’ queer coming-of-age stories. <p dir="ltr"><span>Following from Tzvetan Todorov’s suggestion that “genres function as ‘horizons of expectation’”, this paper will explore how Lo’s body of work playfully challenges the traditional representation of LGBTQIA+ characters in a variety of methods; from creating speculative worlds that remove the need for narratives such as the coming-out story, to drawing readers’ attention to tragic queer tropes in order to make later subversions of them visible. Queer narrative play is an example of the ways in which contemporary YA writers may enact a rebellious conversation between author and reader, creating playful and progressive new works by reshaping the pre-existing materials of literary expectations, and Lo’s work makes for a stellar example of the craft. </span> <div><span><br /></span></div>

Canadian Political Storytelling: Back to a Future?

This paper examines English language or bilingual screen narratives (film and television series) dealing with the public sphere produced in Canada since 1960. Forty-nine texts were analysed including docudramas such as biopics about political leaders, documentaries, films on women in politics, and films on First Nations politics. Applying Borins and Herst’s four-quadrant model of political fables, most instantiate the heroic fable except films on women and First Nations. Conditions of production, including the influence of US films and television series, as well as the limitations of public-sector funding through the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and National Film Board (NFB) are also discussed. This paper illustrates how the evolving transnational entertainment economy constrains cultural producers working within traditional creative and industrial modes of production while simultaneously offering opportunities to invent (or reinvent) alternatives. The paper concludes that enhanced arm’s-length funding for documentaries represents the best way to ensure a vibrant future for this genre of narrative in Canada.

A Sixteenth-Century Swedish Chronicler and his King on Folktales and Ballads

Abstract The first Scandinavian mentions of magic folk tales and ballads are by two clergymen-cum-historians, Olavus Petri (the Swedish reformer, 1493–1552), in a generic discussion in the lengthy Introduction to his unpublished Swedish Chronicle), and Anders Foss (1543–1607, Danish-born bishop of Bergen in Norway), who cites ATU 327B &amp; 853 in a discussion of the reliability of Saxo’s late twelfth-century Gesta Danorum). Both discuss the value of traditional oral tales (and ballads) as historical sources: Anders Foss rejects them, whereas Olavus Petri emphasizes their value as expressions of demotic attitudes towards the rich and mighty. This was heavily censured by King Gustaf I Vasa, who forbade the publication of Olavus’ Chronicle. Note on terminology: Olavus Petri’s preface, a large part of which is here translated for the first time, seems to be the first evidence of the Swedish word “sagor” (plural of “saga”) being used to denote a specific narrative genre (= wonder tales?). Similarly, Anders Foss’s “euentyrer” (archaic plural form of “eventyr” = Märchen, sg. &amp; pl.) is probably the first example of the word being used in this sense in Danish (other than in the still current meaning “adventure” or “quest”).

Dialogue or Narrative? Exploring Tensions between Interpretations of Genesis 38

We examine dialectical tensions between “dialogue” and “narrative” as these discourses supplant one another as the fundamental discourse of intelligibility, through juxtaposing two interpretations of Genesis 38 rooted in changing interpretative paradigms. Is dialogue properly understood as a narrative genre, or is narrative the content about which people are in dialogue? Is the divine–human relationship a narrative drama or is it a dialogue between a god and human beings? We work within parameters laid out by the philosophical hermeneutics of Gadamer (primarily representing dialogue) and Ricoeur (primarily representing narrative). On the one hand, a feminist approach can develop Tamar as a courageous hero in impossible circumstances, strategizing to overturn Judah’s patriarchal naïveté. On the other hand, Judah seems to be able to be read as a tragic hero, seeking to save Tamar. These readings challenge one another, where either Tamar’s or Judah’s autonomy is undermined. By putting these interpretations into dialogue, our aim is to show that neither dialogue nor narrative succeeds the other with finality, and that we can achieve a fragile integration of the two (dialogue and narrative) despite their propensity toward polarization.

Ali Smith's and Olivia Laing's Fictions of Immediacy

Ali Smith's and Olivia Laing's Fictions of Immediacy

'A Milestone in the History of Slovakia': Two Narratives about the 2015 Referendum on the Family in Slovakia

This paper examines a discursive controversy that arose in Slovakia after a conservative civic association initiated a referendum to protect 'traditional families' against the supposed encroachment of LGBTI rights. The 2015 referendum represents a tipping point in the formation of a new Slovak conservative political front. In this article, meaning-making among actors civically engaged in the referendum is brought to light by re-constructing the deep cultural structures in which they are immersed. Drawing upon the strong programme in cultural sociology, I analyse the master narratives woven through the discourse of the referendum organisers and boycotters. These narratives are re-constructed from 20 semi-structured interviews with the engaged actors and a corpus of 82 written documents, such as blogs, speeches, and declarations concerning the referendum. The analysis employs the methods of thick description and the structural analysis of narrative genres. It shows that, first, the referendum controversy presents a clash between a narrative of social decline and a narrative of social progress. The narratives serve as moral regulators by deploying emotionally loaded images of nostalgia for 'traditional families' and a utopia of unconditional progress. Second, although both narratives interpret the referendum as a milestone in the history of Slovakia, they do so in different genres with specific implications for action. Using the example of the decision by referendum opponents to withdraw from the pre-referendum debates, I demonstrate how narrative genres as implicit and deep cultural structures have the power to orient action and shape the contours of controversy.

A história, a literatura e o cinema: um poeta neoclássico enredado no redemoinho de uma metaficção historiográfica

In the novel The year of the death of Ricardo Reis, José Saramago re-elaborates the life and work of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym, whose narrative intertextuality installs and indefinitely, paradoxically, the line of separation between fiction and history, maintaining a self-awareness regarding the way everything is accomplished. Saramago builds a historiographical metafiction, whose problematization of historical knowledge turns to the need and risk of distinguishing between fiction and history as narrative genres. The creation process of this novel makes visible the ideological subtext that determines the conditions of the possibility of production and meaning in cultural practices, thus incorporating artistic, historical and theoretical discourses, rethinking the reworking of the forms and contents of the past, challenging the boundaries between life and art, while playing with the margins of genres. Saramago builds a dense historical picture of the crucial political year of 1936 in Europe, whose narrative reports the historical events through the readings of newspapers and some films that the character will watch in Lisbon’s street cinemas, occurring intertextuality with texts by other authors and the European cinematography of the 1930s. It is possible to consider, in this way, that, in the cinema, the image-time comprises fiction cinema and reality cinema, confusing their differences, and, in the same movement, the narrations make counterfeiters and narratives become simulations.

Tangled: Black Hair and Texturism in Ethnodrama

Black hair and hair texture are part of the racial battleground for social justice. Few issues exist more invisibly than the mistreatments of Black hair and hair texture, one’s hairstyle and hair follicle curl pattern(s), respectively. Limited research about Black women in the workplace cite hair discrimination but fail to unearth realities of Black, higher education professional women with natural hair. Structured in autoenthograpy, this article presents tensions associated with Black hair and hair texture that inherit societal mistreatments. Using Black Feminist Thought as a theoretical paradigm, research findings are presented in ethnodrama, while blurring narrative genres and art-based research.

Narrative Elements in Expository Texts

While the use of narrative elements in educational texts seems to be an adequate means to enhance students’ engagement and comprehension, we know little about how and to what extent these elements are used in the present-day educational practice. In this quantitative corpus-based analysis, we chart how and when narrative elements are used in current Dutch educational texts (N=999). While educational texts have traditionally been considered prime exemplars of expository texts, we show that the distinction between the expository and narrative genre is not that strict in the educational domain: prototypical narrative elements – particularized events, experiencing characters, and landscapes of consciousness – occur in 45% of the corpus’ texts. Their distribution varies between school subjects: while specific events, specific people, and their experiences are often at the heart of the to-be-learned information in history texts, narrativity is less present in the educational content of biology and geography texts. Instead publishers employ narrative-like strategies to make these texts more concrete and imaginable, such as the addition of fictitious characters and representative entities.

Marginalized Texts of a Glorified Genre

Attention towards and interest in the genre of the tale began rather belatedly in Hungarian culture. The paper provides a concise overview of the history of assigning value to this narrative genre: how it transformed from a trivial genre of idle amusement of the uneducated people into a precious cultural item that is an essential part of national heritage being safeguarded and studied from a number of perspectives. Parallel with the rise of the genre, a decline of the earliest known tales has taken place due to certain authenticity criteria retrospectively applied by newly formed disciplines as well as the standardization and naturalization of a specific mode of narration.

What is the nature of change in late elementary writing and are curriculum-based measures sensitive to that change?

Understanding students’ progress towards meeting grade-level expectations within an academic year is the goal of many education stakeholders so that they can make decisions to adjust instruction and improve students’ learning trajectories. The purpose of this study was to explore 4th and 5th grade students’ progress towards meeting expectations in writing, using a curriculum-based measurement metric. Typed writing samples in narrative, persuasive, and passaged-based informational genres were collected in a one-year longitudinal design with four time points. Multilevel change models revealed evidence of quadratic change across the school year with significant change in the narrative genre but no statistically significant change in the other genres. Type of change (fan-spread growth or mastery learning) and growth based on initial transcription, spelling, and reading abilities were also explored.

Topic modelling online depression forums: beyond narratives of self-objectification and self-blaming

Background Depression raises a double challenge: besides the negative mood and the intrusive thoughts, the relation to the self also becomes difficult. Online forums are analysed as communicative platforms enabling the interactive reconstruction of the self. Aims The discourses of online depression forums are explored. Firstly, narrative patterns are identified according to their thematic focus (e.g. dysfunctional body, challenges of intimacy) and discursive logic (e.g. information exchange, support). Secondly, narratives are analysed in order to describe various ways of grounding a depressed self. Methods ∼70.000 depression-related posts from the biggest English-speaking online forums (e.g. www.reddit.com/r/depression, www.healthunlocked.com) were analysed. Quantitative (LDA topic modelling) and qualitative (deep reading) approaches were used simultaneously to determine the optimal number of topics and their interpretation. Results 13 topics were identified and interpreted according to their content and communicative function. Based on the inter-topic distances four clusters were identified (medicalized, intimacy-oriented, critical and uninhabitable self-narratives). Conclusions The clusters of the 13 topics highlight various ways of narrating depression and the depressed self. Based on a comparison with a systematic review of mental illness recovery narratives, depression forums cover most narrative genres and emotional tones, thus create a unique opportunity for integrating the depressing experiences in the self.

Configuration and Emplotment: Converging or Opposite Paradigms for Storytelling?

Abstract Reflecting on Paul Ricoeur's discussion of historical configuration and fictional emplotment, this article proposes to actualize his model to oppose two prototypes of narrativity, which form two poles between which narrative representations extend. Instead of basing these prototypes on narrative genres such as historiography and fiction, it compares the configuration of narratives designed to inform readers about the signification of a past event with the emplotment of narratives aiming to immerse readers in a simulated past or a fictive storyworld. While contemporary narratology has been mostly concerned with the latter case, we will see that a comparison between narratives belonging to these two poles can help us better understand the functioning of narrative texts, most of them situated between these two extremes. Drawing on stories of a plane crash found in daily newspapers and magazines, the article shows that news stories usually favor the informative function, but when an event cannot be fully told, information enters a process of serialization, leading to the emergence of a “natural” plot. This leads to the conclusion that artificial emplotment is an imitation of prefiguration rather than the triumph of concordance.

De la esencia teatral de Don Quijote

This article emphasizes the relevance of drama (as a literary genre) as the driving force in Don Quixote. The characteristics of this genre are obvious, both in Don Quixote's adventures and in the formation of the main character itself. Special attention is devoted to the formation of the protagonist as an actor, and not as a madman. The approach to this analysis will be given by Gustavo Bueno's perspective on the essential, ontological features that singularize the dramatic genre and set it apart from all the other literary genres. Finally, the article points out that the mixture of the essential qualities of different literary genres shows a willingness to diverge from contemporary literary precepts, and, ultimately, advances the narrative genre and speaks to the genius of Cervantes.