Narrative Perspective Research Articles

Psychobiology and Treatment of Personality Disorders and Related Prominent Traits

Introduction: This theoretical narrative perspective will focus on pointing out the psychobiological factors which are involved in the genesis and treatment of personality prominent traits and disorders. Material and method: After a suitable search, mainly in PubMed and Psyc Info Journal databases, the number of selected quality publications is n= 95. The reduced sample sizes and numerous research designs that are merely exploratory or observational are its main limitations. Results and discussion: Regarding the psychopathology of personality neurodevelopment, environmental and genetic factors as well as neurotransmitter impairments are confirmed to be involved. Of interest are the endophenotypic perspective, endocannabinoid system and hypothalamus-regulated endocrine axes, among others. Neuroimmunology predicts important clinical and therapeutic innovations, but they are not a reality yet. It has been suggested that only with psychological interventions of various types is there symptomatic improvement as well as a favourable effect on stress-related epigenetic mechanisms. Psychopharmacotherapy continues to be useful, mainly off-label, with antipsychotics, anticonvulsants and opioid antagonists. Conclusions: In the absence of support from convincing qualified evidence, both users and health physicians usually prefer any type of psychological intervention to tackle complex personality clinical dysfunctions, without excluding complementary psychopharmacotherapy.

‘The problem of other minds’: disappropriation and the limits of polyphony in Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School

ABSTRACT This essay argues that Ben Lerner’s The Topeka School (2019) complicates Mikhail Bakhtin’s dichotomy between monologism and polyphony through strategies resonating with Cristina Rivera Garza’s concept of disappropriation. In contrast to Bakhtinian polyphony, Lerner’s novel posits the necessity of exposing the author’s agency behind the characters’ voices to refrain from appropriating them; it thus embraces authorial fallibility and turns it into an ethical project. Despite comprising multiple narrators, The Topeka School is metafictionally presented as authored by an older version of its teenage protagonist Adam Gordon, serving as Lerner’s alter ego. Adam’s overarching authorial presence is suggested by the narrative’s frequent rejection of individuation and mimesis in its depiction of different characters’ speeches; yet, by presenting individual voices as interwoven, the novel also emphasises the collective nature of language. I discuss how this tension between authorial control and interconnectedness is reflected in textual interferences across different narrative perspectives, in the oscillation between authorial and figural narration in the interludes dedicated to the character Darren, and in the infiltration of various intra and intertextual references into Amber’s as well as Adam’s voice. Through these disappropriative techniques, Lerner’s novel avoids solipsism while also moving beyond the dialogic strategies of previous post-postmodern metafiction.

The Hero of This Novel Is a Tree: Biocentric Narrative Strategies in Contemporary Eco-fiction

Abstract This article considers the novel's possibilities for depicting and responding to the climate crisis by analyzing Richard Powers's efforts to write a biocentric perspective in The Overstory (2018). In biocentric narratives, humans, typically the focal point of the novel, are decentered in favor of perspectives that attempt to encompass more of the living world. Efforts to evade narrative anthropocentrism, which are often encouraged by ecocritics, may not offer an effective frame through which to articulate the climate crisis. The article defends narrative anthropocentrism against the charge that it is unambiguously problematic and challenges the claim that it is potentially avoidable through the adoption of a theoretically biocentric narrative perspective. Rather, strategic awareness of narrative anthropocentrism can help novelists foster visions of strong connections to our environments and inspire reader engagement with environmental concerns. Powers's effort to move beyond anthropocentrism, which is motivated by positive intentions to impact reader interest in environmental issues, is stymied by the inevitability of the human perspectives and interests that attend the construction of any narrative. The article concludes that some instances of anthropocentrism in novels like The Overstory, in which Powers cannot altogether supplant anthropocentrism with a biocentric perspective, are more constructive and positive vis-à-vis nonhuman nature and the environment than others, such as Powers's portrayal of reverence for nonhuman nature. If reverence reveals the attachment of human values and emotions to nonhuman entities, it suggests how anthropocentrism might be harnessed for the benefit of the wider environment.

The Research of Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case in the View of Narratology

The narrative artistry on display in Agatha Christie’s Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case is both significant and outstanding. Central to this seminal work's success are its deft employment of a limited third-person narrative perspective, a narrative structure that seamlessly interleaves dialogue with clue collection, as well as several highly effective narrative techniques such as foreshadowing and misguiding. By utilizing a limited third-person perspective, Christie is able to adeptly provide the reader with enough information to remain engaged and invested, while simultaneously keeping a distance that allows for unexpected plot twists and revelations. In addition, the book’s unique narrative structure serves to further highlight the cleverness of Christie’s approach, with the novel flowing effortlessly from one clue-gathering scene to another, interspersed with revealing conversations between the characters and the ever-present Poirot. Finally, the use of narrative techniques such as foreshadowing and misguiding showcase Christie’s unparalleled skill as a writer of mystery and suspense. Through her employment of these techniques, Christie is able to further engage the reader, keeping them guessing and questioning their assumptions until the final revelation.

Analysis of the Characterization of the Old Man in “The Law of Life” from the Narrative Perspective

Analysis of the Characterization of the Old Man in “The Law of Life” from the Narrative Perspective

Sexual and reproductive health while living with rheumatoid arthritis: The impact of the disease stage on patient perspectives.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the most prevalent rheumatic diseases that harms all aspects of patients' lives, including sexual and reproductive health (SRH), often neglected in patients' care. The study aimed to explore the sexual and reproductive experiences of Mexican outpatients with RA from a narrative perspective. From July 2020 to October 2021, 30 adult patients with RA from the Department of Immunology and Rheumatology outpatient clinic of a national referral center for rheumatic diseases had in-depth interviews audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed using a thematic analysis approach. Results are presented in a descriptive and interpretative manner and integrated into a theoretical model for the topic understanding. Five intertwined major themes emerged: I) RA onset: Absence of SRH contents, II) Healthcare for RA: Emerging SRH contents, III) RA's impact: Proliferation of SRH contents, IV) Coping with the process of living with RA: SRH-related strategies, and V) The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients' experiences: Increased SRH burden. SRH contents emerged through these major themes (but at RA onset), mostly when inquired and mainly when narrating the RA impact and coping. Patients identified that RA affected their couple dynamics, sexual function, and reproductive project. The SRH care was considered relevant but limited and focused on reproductive contents. It worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. We proposed a theoretical model where patients' SRH experiences are embedded across their RA biography and integrated with the RA impact and the copy with the disease process. These intertwined experiences were also evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, which challenged participants' biopsychosocial resources. The sexual and reproductive experiences narrated by the RA outpatients concerning their disease-related biography showed that even when the SRH appeared as not prioritized at the disease onset, it was widely expressed during the process of living and coping with the disease and was additionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cultural Identity and Realistic Reflection: Commonalities and Differences in Chinese and Korean Disaster Movies

Disaster movies, as a classic film genre, aim to present the essence of disasters and the brilliance of humanity through stunning audio-visual effects and a tragic aesthetic core. The commonality between Chinese and Korean disaster movies lies in their focus on "little people" within disasters, emphasizing "soft expression" of emotions and adopting parallel narratives and causal loops in their storytelling strategies. However, due to differences in the film industry systems and ideologies of the two countries, Chinese and Korean disaster movies diverge in thematic expression. Chinese disaster films often feature a strong national main theme and sentiments of patriotism and family, whereas Korean disaster films focus more on exposing human nature and reflecting on society. This paper will explore the commonalities and differences between Chinese and Korean disaster movies in terms of character development, narrative perspective, emotional presentation, and social values.

Narrative Perspective and its Spatial Effects in To the Lighthouse

Narrative Perspective and its Spatial Effects in To the Lighthouse

Competition and Achievement: A Narrative Analysis of the Role of Zamuhe in Genghis Khan's Films

Temujin is the undoubted protagonist in Genghis Khan's film, and although the supporting role of Zamuhe is a secondary role, from the perspective of Mongolian culture and narrative, Temujin and Zamuhe are two wings of a single body, and Zamuhe has always been a strong competitor to Temujin, a replica or a reflection of the story of Temujin, and an intimate part of his life, which is an important part of the story of Temujin. Therefore, Zamuhe in the story of Genghis Khan can be viewed in the light of the second protagonist.

Feminism in Lu Xun’s “Regret for the Past”

Lu Xun, one of the representatives of feminism movements in China at the first stage, clearly empathized with Chinese females’ fate and called on Chinese women to awaken their feminist consciousness, playing an important role in the development of feminism movements in China. However, women were not treated equally to men in his description. Zijun, in Lu Xun’s work Regret for the Past, is a woman dependent on male domination and lacks independent consciousness. This paper explores the progress of feminism in Lu Xun’s works and the limitations of his description of independent females based on an analysis of the text Regret for the Past. Lu Xun strongly called on women to empower themselves, free their personalities, and awaken their feminist consciousness to become independent individuals. However, the paper argues that Lu Xun’s examination of feminism also had some limitations due to its male thoughts and narrative perspective.

ONE QUALITY concept: a narrative perspective to unravel nutritional challenges, controversies, and the imperative need of transforming our food systems.

Ensuring a healthy and sustainable diet for all should be a global priority, and to achieve this goal the food system requires substantial changes. Adopting a one-size-fits-all approach is not feasible, and we need to consider the cultural particularities of each geography and not try to export models that work in one place but may be unsustainable in others. Our discussion will center on two key aspects within this overarching process: (a) the combination of a rigorous evidence-based approach with existing or proposed Nutritional Guidelines and policies required to realize the "ONE HEALTH" and "ONE QUALITY" concepts. Examining the Mediterranean diet and the latest findings on saturated fats will aid us in comprehending the necessary paradigm shift required to formulate new guidelines with substantial impact in preventing the rising prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases worldwide; (b) the adequacy and scope of the data bank necessary to develop a global, science-based approach.

On Transference of Narrative Perspective in Fiction Translation—With English Translation of Biancheng as Example

Narrative perspective is an extremely important narrative technique in novels, especially in modern novels. The use of narrative perspective complements the novel’s theme and achieve certain narrative effects that are susceptible to neglect in translation. This paper utilizes the theory of narrative perspective in narratology as an analytical tool to investigate the impact of translators’ handling of narrative perspective on the stylistic reproduction in English translations of novels. Focusing primarily on Gladys Yang’s translation of Biancheng and occasionally comparing it with Ching Ti’s translation, the paper aims to demonstrate the subtle stylistic implications of narrative perspective through textual analysis and how translators’ approaches can minimize stylistic loss in translation.

Voyeurism, Desire, and Narrative Subversion in Colette’s Claudine Novels

ABSTRACT This essay positions the French author Colette’s earliest works, the Claudine novels, at an inflection point in queer feminist discourses of the early 1900s. Combining recent critical explorations of the sexological and literary roots of the lesbian figure at the fin de siècle, queer theories addressing the power and limits of the heteronormative gaze, and an examination of Colette’s development of a queered authorial persona in the course of her career, I argue that the “fluffy”, “commercialized” Claudine novels in fact make use of stylistic innovation in order to subvert contemporary expectations of the lesbian narrative. Colette’s generative denial of the male gaze in her depiction of Claudine’s affair with her woman friend, Rézi, results in the adoption of a deliberately evasive, self-obliterating narrative perspective. In this, Colette anticipates later explorations of subjective desire and authorial persona in the canonically modernist works of Virginia Woolf, Radclyffe Hall, and Natalie Barney. In their exploration of the alternative modes through which an authentic desire experienced between two women might be narrativized in the twentieth century, the Claudine novels’ use of generic subversion, shifting narrative personae, and strategically fragmented prose mark them as key works in a developing sapphic modernist canon.

DOPPELTE BRECHUNGEN: DAS ‘DURCHS‐FERNGLAS‐SCHAUEN’ IN STIFTERS FRÜHEN ERZÄHLUNGEN

ABSTRACTThis article explores the extent to which the use of the optical medium of binoculars in Der Condor and Der Hochwald reflects the experience of a paradigmatically new way of seeing. In Der Condor, the refractive power of ‘Durchs‐Fernglas‐Schauen’ is demonstrated by means of a kaleidoscopic fragmentation of the narrative perspective. The portrayal of the hot air balloon ride at the beginning of the story gives tragic evidence of the loss of the beloved as well as of the loss of an overall sense of perception due to the crossing of gazes that are technically mediated. An emancipatory aspect is expressed in that it is a female figure who becomes aware of the ‘transzendentale Obdachlosigkeit’ of modern man. The catastrophe perceived technically from a distance in Der Hochwald raises the question of the fundamental possibilities of representation. The experience of seeing, re‐created here from a narratorical point of view, is a dynamic process of de‐ and restructuring storytelling itself, anticipating moments of non‐representational strategies in the literary modernism of the twentieth century.

'여우비’ 유래담의 전승양상과 의미변화 고찰: ‘여우가 시집간다’, ‘호랑이 장가간다’와의 연계성을 중심으로

‘Foxrain’ is “rain that comes for a while and stops, on a day when there is sunshine” and is an expression similar to idioms such as ‘fox is getting married’ and ‘tiger is getting married’. Until now, the public had little interest in ‘foxrain’. However, in recent years, on days when it rains, ‘foxrain’ has become more common due to global climate change. The public has become more interested and raised questions about its origins. Why does the word ‘foxrain’, which is a combination of “animal name” and ‘rain’, explain the paradoxical situation where it rains even though the day is sunny? Words for animals form the oldest vocabulary of all the world's languages and reflect the ideas and values o​​f unique ethnic groups and their cultures. Also, the combination of ‘animal name’ and ‘verb + adjective’, which are special components of idiomatic phrases, can be debated from a narrative perspective.
 This research looked for traces of the origin story through a questionnaire survey and investigated the public's perception of ‘foxrain’. As a result, we were able to discover new idioms and the preference for idioms by age group. From the past until now, foxes have shown potential as a prototype for stories. In the past, it was simply a expression to describe the weather, but now it has been expanded to include an emotional concept through the linking of contexts. Especially new new media is currently reproducing its story of origin and regaining its status as a cultural prototype. Tracking such idiom changes would also be a meaningful task in the oral literary field.
 This study explores the meaning of idiomatic expressions through the story of the origin of ‘foxrain’, used in literature and media in response to the demands of the times. It considers the relationships between similar idiomatic expressions and their origins. We will also look at the meaning changes that accompany changes in media.

The narrative strategy of micro-documentary If Treasure Can Talk under the background of new media

If Treasure Could Talk is a TV documentary by CCTV Record Channel. Each 5-minute episode tells about a traditional Chinese cultural treasure. Based on the narrative strategy of micro-documentaries under the background of new media, this paper studies the narrative strategy from four aspects: narrative perspective, narrative theme, narrative structure and narrative language.

Polyphonic narratives: The mixing of Alcoholics Anonymous and relapse prevention in stories about recovery and relapse.

Aim: This exploratory study analyses the interplay between the treatment philosophies of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and Relapse Prevention (RP) in personal stories of addiction. While the basic ideas of AA and RP are compatible in many ways, they also carry some fundamental differences. Methods: The data consisted of interviews with 12 individuals recovering from substance use problems, who had experience of both AA and RP. The analysis drew on a dialogical narrative perspective, and the concept polyphony was used to shed light on the interplay between different treatment philosophies in personal stories of relapse. Findings: Although sometimes resulting in incoherence, the treatment philosophies were combined idiosyncratically, in ways that appeared productive for the participants' self-images and recovery journeys. Conclusion: The combination of AA and RP philosophies in narratives of relapse and recovery may reflect a new treatment discourse where individualisation and responsibilisation stand in a complicated relationship with collectivism and surrendering to so-called addicting processes.

Psychobiotics and the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis: Where Do We Go from Here?

The bidirectional relationship between the gut microbiota and the nervous system is known as the microbiota-gut-brain axis (MGBA). The MGBA controls the complex interactions between the brain, the enteric nervous system, the gut-associated immune system, and the enteric neuroendocrine systems, regulating key physiological functions such as the immune response, sleep, emotions and mood, food intake, and intestinal functions. Psychobiotics are considered tools with the potential to modulate the MGBA through preventive, adjunctive, or curative approaches, but their specific mechanisms of action on many aspects of health are yet to be characterized. This narrative review and perspectives article highlights the key paradigms needing attention as the scope of potential probiotics applications in human health increases, with a growing body of evidence supporting their systemic beneficial effects. However, there are many limitations to overcome before establishing the extent to which we can incorporate probiotics in the management of neuropsychiatric disorders. Although this article uses the term probiotics in a general manner, it remains important to study probiotics at the strain level in most cases.

The influences of narrative perspective shift and scene detail on narrative semantic processing

Abstract The embodied view of semantic processing holds that readers achieve reading comprehension through mental simulation of the objects and events described in the narrative. However, it remains unclear whether and how the encoding of linguistic factors in narrative descriptions impacts narrative semantic processing. This study aims to explore this issue under the narrative context with and without perspective shift, which is an important and common linguistic factor in narratives. A sentence-picture verification paradigm combined with eye-tracking measures was used to explore the issue. The results showed that (1) the inter-role perspective shift made the participants’ to evenly allocate their first fixation to different elements in the scene following the new perspective; (2) the internal–external perspective shift increased the participants’ total fixation count when they read the sentence with the perspective shift; (3) the scene detail depicted in the picture did not influence the process of narrative semantic processing. These results suggest that perspective shift can disrupt the coherence of situation model and increase the cognitive load of readers during reading. Moreover, scene detail could not be constructed by readers in natural narrative reading.

Romance as a medium-Lin Huiyin’s relationships in transmedia intertextual discourse

ABSTRACT Lin Huiyin (1904–1955) was the first woman architect in modern China. Her romantic love stories have shaped a discourse that, for optimal engagement, both provides and requires transmedia and intertextual media theories. This research examines Lin’s romantic stories that entangled with her career and life, from the perspective of media ecology, narrative, and gender studies. I argue that although the Chinese media environment is censored, constrained, and scrutinized, given enough time and movement among multiple platforms, a medium can shape its own ecology and develop “organic” discussions on a subject that is commonly perceived as less political and more humanistic, particularly romantic love. These discussions provide a more spontaneous discourse for media users to share their opinions and expose more genuine views on gender, nation, and morality. These topics require continuing conversations rather than didactic education to change. Although change usually does not occur quickly, the airing of genuine yet problematic opinions helps the public and stakeholders observe, identify, and interact with them and create the possibility to reshape public opinions on gender roles, particularly women’s roles in romantic discourse, which always interacts with women’s individual realization as well as professional, familial, and social relationships.