Narrative Understanding Research Articles

I hear what you see: Effects of audio description used in a cinema on immersion and enjoyment in blind and visually impaired people

For people with disabilities being part of social life is essential for well-being. To accomplish this there are two possibilities: through interaction in person and through access to culture. One way to enjoy both possibilities is the cinema. For people with sight loss (people that are blind or visually impaired), there exists audio description which allows enjoying a film in a cinema. Project FASEA examined if this audience is as much immersed and could enjoy it as much as sighted people while watching a film with audio description, received through an app called ‘Greta’. Twenty-five people with blindness or visual impairment took part and were matched with sighted people in age, sex, education, and nationality. This was conducted in a commercial cinema under natural conditions with a comedy. We assessed immersion through the Narrative Engagement Scale (NES), the Modes of Reception Inventory (MOR), and the Audience Response Scale (ARS). Enjoyment was evaluated with the Emotions in Media Scale (EMS). People with sight loss showed lower scores in narrative understanding in NES and less thought-provoking and suspense in ARS. Also, they experienced fewer positive emotions. In all other scales, including all MOR scales, there were no differences between them and sighted people. The results confirm that audio description, provided by an application, is a useful tool for people with sight loss to immerse themselves and enjoy films as much as sighted people do and hence be part of social life.

Bariatric surgery, family, and identity: an autoethnographic investigation

ABSTRACTUsing autoethnography and configuring narrative reflections, this article interrogates my personal experiences as a man whose body has been changed by bariatric surgery. The autoethnographic account engages questions relating to family, health history, community, and identity. The narrative reflections are embodied memories that testify to a family history of obesity and diabetes that foreground the challenges faced by those who are faced with the radical option of weight-loss surgery to save their lives. The narrative reflections propose to transform our understanding of bariatric surgery and is consistent with others’ stories in communication scholarship that privileges personal experience within health care. Questions for future research include the unresolved roles of gender and biological sex in the creation of an altered narrative understanding of the obese self.

INTRODUCING LOCAL WISDOM THROUGH NARRATIVE: TEACHING ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION

It is very important to introduce and continue the local narrative and their values to the next generation. This paper is part of a larger research on narrative writing for higher education level students organized in a genre writing class. In this paper, the writers focus on exploring the students� understanding of moral values in the local narratives constructed during genre writing activities. This paper also describes the teacher�s feedback on the students� writing quality. This study involved 20 students from the English Education Department of Muria Kudus University. Guided questions were used in the interview session to explore the students� understanding of the local narratives and moral values. The review of students� papers was used to analyze the teacher�s feedback to explore the students� quality of writing. Keywords: local wisdom; narrative; character building; writing.

¿Católicas con conciencia de clase? Obreras y señoras de la Acción Católica Española en el franquismo: una historia de influencias y desavenencias en torno al género, la religión y la clase

El presente artículo analiza el proceso de toma de conciencia de las trabajadoras de la Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica Femenina (HOACF) en las primeras décadas del franquismo. Para ello, se aplica una perspectiva que pone en diálogo y tensiona las dimensiones de género, clase, y religión en el interior de la Acción Católica Española (ACE). Esta investigación explora la importancia de las identidades obreras católicas para comprender en profundidad las formas de participación social “desde abajo” desplegadas en el mencionado periodo y la actuación de las trabajadoras católicas en ellas. A través de memorias individuales femeninas, se esbozan algunas de las subjetividades que se hicieron presentes en la HOACF. Finalmente, se analizan algunas de las tensiones individuales –y colectivas– que surgieron entre obreras y señoras de Acción Católica, un aspecto que permite comprender mejor las narrativas comunes de la clase trabajadora.

CSR narrative under Islamic banking paradigm

Purpose This paper aims to understand corporate social responsibility (CSR) narrative under the Islamic banking paradigm by three aspects, narrative review of the literature, review of the definitions of CSR and review of factors that cause divergence from conventional percepts. Design/methodology/approach This is a theoretical paper based on literature and aims to understand the CSR narrative under the paradigm of Islamic banking. Findings Religion brings new dimensions of ethics and expands the scope of morality in business. Islamic banking is a new wave of corporation whose social goals are as much important as making profit. There are diverse narrations and definitions prevailing in the literature of CSR under the Islamic paradigm which also encounters the aspects of divergence from conventional percepts. The academic debate of CSR-Islamic banking brings on surface a plausible CSR paradigm, that is to guide the role of Islamic banking in society under the Islamic provisions, ethics and axioms. This paper also paves the way for future direction, particularly in terms of a holistic understanding of CSR narrative under the Islamic banking paradigm. Research limitations/implications This is a theoretical paper; it primarily discusses the theoretical aspects of CSR narrative under the paradigm of Islamic banking, while it does not give insight into the empirical narrative or disclosure of CSR in Islamic banking. Practical implications The theoretical review of literature brings plausible understanding, that Islamic banking is a new wave of corporate and has standings on divine guidance. The structure of the institution in its foundation insists on real economic activity. The legitimacy of Islamic banking has roots in ethical compliance and in inculcating the broader interests of stakeholders. There are several social responsibilities, which are expected from the practitioners of Islamic banking. The practitioners as well must understand that the CSR of Islamic banking is far beyond the conventional percepts of CSR. Originality/value There are several normative and theoretical studies in the domain of CSR-Islamic banking. It is hard to find a comprehensive narrative review of such literature. This review is unique, which brings a holistic understanding of CSR narrative under the Islamic banking paradigm.

Truth, Fiction and Narrative Understanding

This paper defends the cognitive value of literary fiction by showing how Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative understanding emphasizes the productive and creative elements of fictional discourse and defends its referential capacity insofar as fiction reshapes reality according to some universal aspect. Central to this analysis is Ricoeur’s retrieval of Aristotelian mimesis and mythos and their convergence in the notion of emplotment. This paper also supplements and specifies further Ricoeur’s account by retrieving an Aristotelian concept disregarded by Riceour, namely, synesis (understanding). Although Ricoeur connects narrative understanding to the intelligibility of praxis and in turn phronêsis, as opposed to theoretical knowledge (theōria or epistēmē), he overlooks Aristotle’s discussion of synesis. This paper then clarifies how the fictional truth of narrative understanding remains related to, and yet distinct from, both theoretical discourse (science) and praxis (politics).

A Qualitative Analysis of New Norms on Transition Days in Blended Families

The current qualitative research study enhances the understanding of new norms on transition days for researchers and clinicians who focus on marriage and family issues among stepfamilies or blended families. Thirteen family members (biological parents, stepparents) who were in various stages of stepfamily formation were assessed. The current study explicated a main theme: New Norms. After further analysis, two subthemes emerged that families must navigate on transition day: Cohesive New Family and New Children. The researchers also describe the positives and negatives of new norms. By gaining a more in-depth understanding of the challenges blended families face during transition days, immediate assistance may be provided to families. The results of the study are applicable to any individual, clinician, or researcher who desires a deeper understanding of stepfamily narratives.

Modeling narrative structure and dynamics with networks, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling.

Human communication is invariably executed in the form of a narrative, an account of connected events comprising characters, actions, and settings. A coherent and well-structured narrative is therefore essential for effective communication, confusion caused by a haphazard attempt at storytelling being a common experience. This also suggests that a scientific understanding of how a narrative is formed and delivered is key to understanding human communication and dialog. Here we show that the definition of a narrative lends itself naturally to network-based modeling and analysis, and they can be further enriched by incorporating various text analysis methods from computational linguistics. We model the temporally unfolding nature of narrative as a dynamical growing network of nodes and edges representing characters and interactions, which allows us to characterize the story progression using the network growth pattern. We also introduce the concept of an interaction map between characters based on associated sentiments and topics identified from the text that characterize their relationships explicitly. We demonstrate the methods via application to Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. Going beyond simple, aggregate occurrence-based methods for narrative representation and analysis, our proposed methods show promise in uncovering its essential nature of a highly complex, dynamic system that reflects the rich structure of human interaction and communication.

An Ecocritical Reading of Water Symbolism in a Selection of Two Female Native American Poets

This paper offers an ecocritical and narrative reading of a selection of poems from both Harjo and Hogan. It explores native American legacy and their sense of hope and revival expressed in their poetry. The selection of poems discussed in this paper expands our understanding of narrative, with its plot, time and perspective as basic constituents and how it gives way to multi-focality, timelessness and blurring of main and marginal in the plot covering both anthropocentric and biocentric perspectives without overlooking issues of representation, human cognition and multiple levels of agency. Adopting ecocritical and narrative approaches relocates nature and spirituality, with focus on water symbols, in the centre of artistic expression not overlooking stylistic and textual properties at the representation of human consciousness. Forms of artistic expression offer to expand the oral-tradition and legacy of Native Americans yet in “English” and poetic form.

Olimpiada de lengua para sordos una experiencia lingüística y educativa

En Venezuela, las personas sordas cuentan con el reconocimiento de la lengua de señas venezolana (LSV) que los constituye como comunidad lingüística minoritaria. Las investigaciones acerca de las producciones en LSV y la relación de las personas sordas con el español oral y escrito, se han incrementado, de donde surgió la investigación que se reporta en este artículo y cuyo objeto fue estudiar la situación de las unidades educativas del área de Educación Especial y la discapacidad auditiva, en relación con el español escrito, para organizar actividades que estimulen su uso como segunda lengua en los niños y jóvenes sordos. Para ello el método fue la investigación acción participante, se partió de un diagnóstico de la situación, que dio cuenta de las dificultades en la relación espontánea de los Sordos con el código escrito, por tanto, se planificó la Olimpiada de lengua para niños y jóvenes sordos en el estado Aragua, se ejecutó y evaluó su impacto en la comunidad. La Olimpiada tuvo como objetivo fundamental, estimular el uso de los textos escritos en español por niños y jóvenes sordos; propiciar su participación en actividades de producción y comprensión de textos escritos y en LSV a partir de distintos contextos lingüísticos. Al evaluar la ejecución de la Olimpiada se obtuvo como resultado la participación activa de los niños y jóvenes sordos en la producción de textos a partir de la narración y lectura de cuentos; la comprensión de narraciones, expresadas en forma escrita, lengua de señas y la dramatización.

A Hijab, A Dog, and Many Histories: Wonders of Intersectional Assemblage in Memphis

As part of a larger interdisciplinary arts-based research course, we engaged in walking as a material and relational inquiry in order to disrupt privileged and normalized understandings of class, race, settler colonization, and narratives of othering (Springgay & Truman, 2018). Borrowing Jasbir Puar’s (2012) frictional analysis, that brings together intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991) with Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) assemblage, each of the walks sought to “foreground the mutually co-constitutive forces of race, class, sex, gender, and nation” (Puar, 2012, p. 49). As we walked Memphis’ historic neighborhoods, we experienced varying states of wonder as intersecting identities shifted with each step in and out of centers and margins or what Min-Ha (1991) terms as “horizontal vertigos” (p. 15). In this paper, we share two of our “horizontal vertigos” that shaped our experiences walking Memphis neighborhoods and that informed our understandings of the frictional movements in the assemblage and the event-ness of identities.

Narrative Indicators of Adolescents’ Maladaptive Cognitive Schemas

Introduction. The article presents the results of a study of adolescents` personal narratives. The general aim of the study was to identify narrative indicators of adolescents’ maladaptive cognitive schemas. This aim was achieved by virtue of realization of such tasks as: to identify the specific text categories (indicators) that indicate the maladaptive schemas and to determine the predictive power of each category (indicator). In the course of theoretical analysis, there were systematized the approaches to the understanding of personal narratives and “self-texts”. There also was generalized the concept of maladaptive cognitive schemas, and were defined textual categories which can be reflected in the narratives of people who have certain maladaptive schemas.
 Methods. The methods of the empirical study were Dusseldorf Illustrated Schema Questionnaire for Children and the content-analysis of personal narratives. Statistical processing of the obtained data and determination of the predictive power of each narrative category were performed with the help of the method of recursive division trees.
 Results. As a result of the empirical study was it was found that certain categories in the personal narratives of adolescents allow us to predict the manifestation of individual maladaptive schemas. There were identified narrative indicators, able to predict fourteen of the eighteen schemas. It was determined that the knowledge of narrative indicators of maladaptive cognitive schemas can be used within the psychological counseling and therapy at the stage of gathering primary information, as well as in the context of purposeful psychological impact.
 Conclusions. There were described the topical prospects for further scientific development of the problem, which were to expand the categorical structure of content analysis, which would allow to find indicators of four schemas that remain unclear, as well as to widen the age range of respondents and to test the hypothesis about the existence of a link between the personal narratives of adults and their maladaptive schemas. There was made an assumption that modification of a personal narrative can accelerate therapeutic work aimed at eliminating the negative impact of maladaptive schemas on a person's life.

Computational Approaches to Comics Analysis.

Comics are complex documents whose reception engages cognitive processes such as scene perception, language processing, and narrative understanding. Possibly because of their complexity, they have rarely been studied in cognitive science. Modeling the stimulus ideally requires a formal description, which can be provided by feature descriptors from computer vision and computational linguistics. With a focus on document analysis, here we review work on the computational modeling of comics. We argue that the development of modern feature descriptors based on deep learning techniques has made sufficient progress to allow the investigation of complex material such as comics for reception studies, including experimentation and computational modeling of cognitive processes.

Constructing democratic participation in welfare transitions: An analysis of narrative interactions.

ObjectiveThis article provides insights into the democratic character of local enactments of welfare reforms by analysing narrative interactions about changes in care. We analyse processes of storytelling that are part of the interactions between citizens giving, receiving and organizing care and the policymakers governing welfare reforms. We also study how narrative interactions shape understandings about changing care practices and what types of narrative interactions support democracy in care.BackgroundStories about recent welfare reforms include messages about citizens’ care, citizen participation, citizens’ powers and revitalization of democracy. However, researchers have cast doubt on their emancipatory and democratic character.Research setting and methodologyWe conducted research of four initiatives and municipal policy settings in the city of Maastricht that organized social care in lifeworlds connected to arts, crafts, farming and entrepreneurship during welfare reforms. Using narrative ethnography, we analyse narrative interactions between the master narrative of welfare reforms about ‘lifeworld care’ and ‘citizen powers’, and small stories told by participants in new care practices.ResultsWe identified two types of narrative interaction: idealizing and pragmatizing. Idealizing narrative interactions were strategic for care initiatives in finding support and for policymakers in proving that a so‐called ‘participation society’ works. Pragmatizing narrative interactions gave expression to insights into the everyday practices of social care experiments and included a greater variety of stories.ConclusionsWe conclude that pragmatizing narrative interactions adjust the master narrative about welfare reforms and replace ideals of independency with ideals of active participation in webs of dependency and care.

MoralStrength: Exploiting a moral lexicon and embedding similarity for moral foundations prediction

Moral rhetoric plays a fundamental role in how we perceive and interpret the information we receive, greatly influencing our decision-making process. Especially when it comes to controversial social and political issues, our opinions and attitudes are hardly ever based on evidence alone. The Moral Foundations Dictionary (MFD) was developed to operationalize moral values in the text. In this study, we present MoralStrength, a lexicon of approximately 1,000 lemmas, obtained as an extension of the Moral Foundations Dictionary, based on WordNet synsets. Moreover, for each lemma it provides with a crowdsourced numeric assessment of Moral Valence, indicating the strength with which a lemma is expressing the specific value. We evaluated the predictive potentials of this moral lexicon, defining three utilization approaches of increased complexity, ranging from lemmas’ statistical properties to a deep learning approach of word embeddings based on semantic similarity. Logistic regression models trained on the features extracted from MoralStrength, significantly outperformed the current state-of-the-art, reaching an F1-score of 87.6% over the previous 62.4% (p-value <0.01), and an average F1-Score of 86.25% over six different datasets. Such findings pave the way for further research, allowing for an in-depth understanding of moral narratives in text for a wide range of social issues.

Interactive Narrative Authoring Using Cognitive Models in Narrative Planning

My research aims to allow for human authors to collaborate with a computational system to work on narrative generation. This will be done with the help of work done in the domains of narrative understanding, narrative planning and reasoning based on cognitive models. This sort of approach would greatly benefit the enrich growing set of variables of narrative planning.

RestKB: A Library of Commonsense Knowledge about Dining at a Restaurant

This paper presents a library of commonsense knowledge, RestKB, developed in modular action language ALM and containing background knowledge relevant to the understanding of restaurant narratives, including stories that describe exceptions to the normal unfolding of such scenarios. We highlight features that KR languages must possess in order to be able to express pertinent knowledge, and expand action language ALM as needed. We show that encoding the knowledge base in ALM facilitates its piecewise construction and testing, and improves the generality and quality of the captured information, in comparison to an initial ASP encoding. The knowledge base was used in a system for reasoning about stereotypical activities, evaluated on the restaurant domain.

Information Extraction Tool Text2ALM: From Narratives to Action Language System Descriptions

In this work we design a narrative understanding tool Text2ALM. This tool uses an action language ALM to perform inferences on complex interactions of events described in narratives. The methodology used to implement the Text2ALM system was originally outlined by Lierler, Inclezan, and Gelfond (2017) via a manual process of converting a narrative to an ALM model. It relies on a conglomeration of resources and techniques from two distinct fields of artificial intelligence, namely, natural language processing and knowledge representation and reasoning. The effectiveness of system Text2ALM is measured by its ability to correctly answer questions from the bAbI tasks published by Facebook Research in 2015. This tool matched or exceeded the performance of state-of-the-art machine learning methods in six of the seven tested tasks. We also illustrate that the Text2ALM approach generalizes to a broader spectrum of narratives.

Naked Before God: Kierkegaard’s Liturgical Self

Abstract The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it seeks to demonstrate how Kierkegaard’s deployment of the idea of earnestness can furnish a sort of tonal “unity” to a narrative understanding of the Kierkegaardian self, which gestures toward a solution to the problem of how a narrative self can be unified over time and over a multiplicity of projects and plans. Second, this paper aims to give further richness to the recent work of Patrick Stokes, who argues that the narrative self needs to be supplemented by what he calls a naked self. This paper then argues that because there are these two dimensions to selfhood—the narrative person and the naked self—the Kierkegaardian individual is in a fundamental way not so much a matter of identity as of contradiction or internal tension.

Weaving the story, pulling at the strings: Hindu mythology and feminist critique in two graphic novels by South Asian women

ABSTRACTThis paper examines two graphic novels by women based on Hindu mythology: Samhita Arni’s Sita’s Ramayana and Amruta Patil’s Adi Parva: The Churning of the Ocean. These texts use a range of storytelling techniques and visual elements to disrupt conventional understandings of male-centred mythological narratives. Sita’s Ramayana (Tara Books 2011) is illustrated by Moyna Chitrakar and written by Samhita Arni. The book situates Sita as an empathetic protagonist. Patil’s Adi Parva: The Churning of the Ocean (Harper Collins 2012) is based on the first book of the Mahabharata, featuring the goddess Ganga as sutradhaar or narrator. The essay examines the relationship between these affect-driven graphic novels and their mythological source material. Tracing the concept-metaphor of weaving and unravelling in and through these two texts, I argue that by moving between authentic representation and reflexive critique in this complex medium, Arni, Chitrakar and Patil are weaving the potential for feminist thought.