Research skills: Narratology and Discursive Analytical Strategies
Module 0: Introduction to Narratology and Discourse Analysis
Video: Introduction
Two methodologies
- Discourse analysis
o Linguistics à the study of language.
o “Discourse analysis is the study of language in use. It is the study of the
meanings we give language and the actions we carry out when we use
language in specific contexts.” (Gee & Handford 1)
- Narratology
o Literary studies
o “Narratology as a field of study is the ensemble of theories of narratives,
narrative texts, images, spectacles, events - of cultural artefacts that tell a
story.” (Bal 3)
Text
- A text is: any “aggregate of semiotic elements that can function as a tool for people
to take social action” (Jones et al 5) à not only a written text!
o verbal texts (written, spoken), but also: videos, photographs, drawings,
paintings, street signs, websites, software interfaces, video games, ...
- When is something a text?
o (soft) requirement: ‘texture’ à to distinguish text from random information
that comes our way. Text can be interpret as a meaningful unit.
“Texture is a property of connectedness that is created through cohesion,
that is, the way different parts of the text are held together using the
syntactic and semantic resources of whatever semiotic system is being used,
and coherence, the way different parts of the text are ordered sequentially so
that it can be recognized by readers as logical and meaningful (Jones et al 5)
o hard requirement: usage
people (can) use the text to create meaning, to act upon the world
Context
Meaning as situated
- In a sentence
o Meaning can be situated in a sentence. It depends on the sentence what the
meaning is.
o E.g. “coffee” can refer to a brown liquid (“The coffee spilled, go get a mop”),
grains of a certain sort (“The coffee spilled, go get a broom”), containers
(“The coffee spilled, stack it again”), a certain flavor, a skin color, etc.
metaphorically (“You give me a coffee high”)
- In a social context, in a culture
o Meaning situated in a cultural context, words can “do” certain things à
performative speech act
o E.g. words that do things: “I pronounce you man and wife”, “a marriage
between two women”
The “frame problem” (cf. Gee 2010)
,What context do we include in our research and what do we leave out of it?
- “context” is indefinitely large
what contextual information is relevant?
what contextual information can we ignore?
where do we base these decisions on?
when in an interpretation “right”?
- As a problem à not clear when to stop.
o our interpretations are vulnerable to change when we adjust the selection of
contextual information
o How valid are these interpretations?
- As a tool à instead of looking at a problem, use it.
o we can use it to study what information and values are being left unsaid in a
text
o we can adjust our interpretations by widening our context (e.g. principle of
falsification)
o the more different kind of context to have, makes it easier to decide if it is
correct.
Summary
- Discourse analysis looks at language in use
- Narratology looks at storytelling
- Texts are sets of coherent semiotic elements that people use to create meaning
- The meaning of a text is shaped by its context
- Challenge in research practices: how do I define the relevant contextual information
for a valid interpretation of my text?
Video: Detective stories
The detective as reader
- Detective stories are an interesting genre as it has a lot to say about what reading is
and how we can encounter our world as a text.
- “Detective fiction, particularly of the classical formula, seems to be unique among
narrative genres in that it thematizes narrativity itself as a problem, a procedure, and
an achievement.” (Hühn 451)
- Detective stories are based on the problem (and the joy) of reading
- A detective story tells two stories:
o The story of the crime
§ happened in the past
§ consists of action, a happening
§ murderer as author of the crime à he “creates” the story
o The story of the investigation
§ happens in the present à the part we follow in the book
§ concerned with knowledge
§ detective as reader of the crime
Reading a detective story
- Reading starts when the murder happens à the murder functions as an
“uninterpretable sign”
, o a violent disruption of social coherence → it must be resolved!
- Solving the murder = ascribing meaning to the murder
o finding coherence between the violence and the larger social system
- How is the coherence restored? à Through interpreting clues
o murder leaves ‘imprints’ on the world
o e.g. footprints, cigarette butts, the body
→ Reading the world as a text
Reading the world as a text
- Reading as a process of “deautomatizing signification”
o Due to the violent disruption we start to look around in the world for things
that we can derive a new meaning from
o We become aware of the rich potentiality of unsuspected meanings
“All phenomena may lose their usual, automatically ascribed meanings and
signify something else: a curried dish for supper might be a cover for a poison,
a dark suit could signify a waiter or a gentleman, a person observed at a door
might just have come out or be about to enter or may merely pretend to do
one or the other.” (Hühn 455)
- Typical strategy à trying our different contextual frames
o the detective tries out different hypotheses about what might have happened
o see different potential meaning in our everyday life
o i.e. tries out various types of contextual information to find meaningful
coherence in heterogeneous and contradictory conglomerate of facts
o meaning interpretation depends on the identification of the correct context
Finding the “truth”
- solving the murder à solving the inconsistency in the text
- detective stories result in the reconstruction of the “true narrative” of the crime
o this truth does not depend on legal proof, but rather on narrative coherence
- the detective (reader) wins from the murderer (author) the authority over the text
o detective stories as celebrations of the reader, in which the author
(murderer) is caught by the reader (detective)
“The lonely and (socially) marginalized intellectual is shown to possess the power
to defuse the threats of disrupting social forces by simply reading, that is,
interpreting and explaining, them.” (Hühn 464)
Summary
How is the reader like a detective?
- The detective story invites us to read the world as a text
o a coherent, cohesive system that presents us with meaning making
opportunities
- The detective story starts when the detective stumbles upon a textual inconsistency
o This tasks the detective to re-establish coherent meaning (i.e. whodunnit?
and how? and why?)
o This is done by locating the correct contextual information (i.e. interpreting
clues)
