Jump to content

Story and Discourse: Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Proposing article for deletion per WP:PROD. (TW)
Vefritz (talk | contribs)
13 edits
This entry was written in order to show the juxtaposition story and discourse, which are key elements for the analysis of narrative texts especially in the field of literary texts. Even though separated enries on story or discourse exist, one cannot talk about one term without including the other. Especially students may benefit from such an wikipedia entry.
Line 1: Line 1:

{{Proposed deletion/dated
|concern = An essay, not an encyclopedia article. No reasonable redirect target.
|timestamp = 20180321221222
|help =
}}
In [[narratology]], the terms ‘story’ (or ‘story level’) and ‘discourse’ (or ‘discourse level’) refer to constituent levels of narratives as analytical “abstractions or constructs”,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rimmon-Kenan|first1=Shlomith|title=Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics|date=1983|publisher=Routledge|location=London and New York}}</ref> which do not occur in reality. First applied to fiction (such as novels and short stories), they can arguably also be applied to all narratives across media, such as film, drama, pictorial narratives, or video games. ‘Story’ comprises the ‘building blocks’ of a storyworld (they can be identified by answering the question ‘what is the case in this world?’), while ‘discourse’ comprises all phenomena and devices used for the transmission of the story(world); discursive elements can be identified by answering the question ‘how is the storyworld transmitted?’.
In [[narratology]], the terms ‘story’ (or ‘story level’) and ‘discourse’ (or ‘discourse level’) refer to constituent levels of narratives as analytical “abstractions or constructs”,<ref>{{cite book|last1=Rimmon-Kenan|first1=Shlomith|title=Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics|date=1983|publisher=Routledge|location=London and New York}}</ref> which do not occur in reality. First applied to fiction (such as novels and short stories), they can arguably also be applied to all narratives across media, such as film, drama, pictorial narratives, or video games. ‘Story’ comprises the ‘building blocks’ of a storyworld (they can be identified by answering the question ‘what is the case in this world?’), while ‘discourse’ comprises all phenomena and devices used for the transmission of the story(world); discursive elements can be identified by answering the question ‘how is the storyworld transmitted?’.
The terms ‘story’ and ‘discourse’ were introduced by [[Tzvetan Todorov]]<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Todorov|first1=Tzvetan|title=Les categories du récit littérarie|journal=Communications|volume=8|page=125-151}}</ref> and subsequently popularised in English narratology by [[Seymour Chatman]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Chatman|first1=Seymour|title=Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film.|date=1980|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca and London}}</ref>. Originally, narratology, in the field under discussion, was influenced by French theorist Gérard Genette, who, however, uses a ternary distinction: histoire (story), récit (the narrative text as such) and narration (the narrative act producing the story); récit and narration may be said to both refer to elements of the discourse level, and as a consequence the dichotomy ‘story vs. discourse’ has gained more importance than Genette’s terminology.
The terms ‘story’ and ‘discourse’ were introduced by [[Tzvetan Todorov]]<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Todorov|first1=Tzvetan|title=Les categories du récit littérarie|journal=Communications|volume=8|page=125-151}}</ref> and subsequently popularised in English narratology by [[Seymour Chatman]]<ref>{{cite book|last1=Chatman|first1=Seymour|title=Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film.|date=1980|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca and London}}</ref>. Originally, narratology, in the field under discussion, was influenced by French theorist Gérard Genette, who, however, uses a ternary distinction: histoire (story), récit (the narrative text as such) and narration (the narrative act producing the story); récit and narration may be said to both refer to elements of the discourse level, and as a consequence the dichotomy ‘story vs. discourse’ has gained more importance than Genette’s terminology.

Revision as of 06:36, 22 March 2018

In narratology, the terms ‘story’ (or ‘story level’) and ‘discourse’ (or ‘discourse level’) refer to constituent levels of narratives as analytical “abstractions or constructs”,[1] which do not occur in reality. First applied to fiction (such as novels and short stories), they can arguably also be applied to all narratives across media, such as film, drama, pictorial narratives, or video games. ‘Story’ comprises the ‘building blocks’ of a storyworld (they can be identified by answering the question ‘what is the case in this world?’), while ‘discourse’ comprises all phenomena and devices used for the transmission of the story(world); discursive elements can be identified by answering the question ‘how is the storyworld transmitted?’. The terms ‘story’ and ‘discourse’ were introduced by Tzvetan Todorov[2] and subsequently popularised in English narratology by Seymour Chatman[3]. Originally, narratology, in the field under discussion, was influenced by French theorist Gérard Genette, who, however, uses a ternary distinction: histoire (story), récit (the narrative text as such) and narration (the narrative act producing the story); récit and narration may be said to both refer to elements of the discourse level, and as a consequence the dichotomy ‘story vs. discourse’ has gained more importance than Genette’s terminology.

Story

‘Story’ refers to “a series of real or fictitious events, connected by a certain logic or chronology, and involving certain actors”.[4] A simple way of checking the elements of a storyworld thus created is to answer the following w-questions: who?, where?, when?, what? and why?. Among the many theories dealing with the story level Vladimir Propp’s merits mention.[5] It is a structuralist attempt to devise a grammar of story functions based on fairy tales. In the following, however, mainly elements of Chatman’s influential theory will be explained, who differentiates between ‘events’ and 'existents'.

Events

‘Events’ are “changes in states”[6] in a logical sequence triggered by either actions or happenings. Actions are caused by an agent, namely a character of the narrative. Happenings are situation changes without a character as their cause.[7]

According to Jurij Lotman, events occur as a consequence of characters crossing borders in the storyworld. Such borders are, on the one hand, of a physical nature such as doors, windows, or the limits of landscape features. On the other hand, they are also of a normative kind and may divide, e.g., areas of evil from areas of goodness or spaces of poverty from spaces of wealth.[8]

Certain events are often more important than others. Chatman uses the term ‘kernels’ to describe major events that are crucial to a story and are necessary for the logical coherence of the plot. He further uses the term ‘satellites’ for events that can be left out of the narrative without a major loss of sense or coherence.[9]

Existens

‘Existents’ refer to the setting and to characters as givens of a storyworld. “In verbal narrative, [the setting] is abstract, requiring a reconstruction in the mind”[10], while film has the advantage of showing the spatial setting on screen in a concrete way.

As a rule, characters are representations of human beings. However, they can also be allegories of, e.g., human character features. In formalism (e.g. by Propp) and structuralism characters are regarded as mere functions providing important contributions to the plot,[11] e.g. as protagonists or antagonists.

In narrative fiction (but also in other media such as film or comics), characters can be either flat or round,[12] static or dynamic. Flat characters have often only one character trait or quality. For example, witches in fairy tales are frequently represented as flat, static characters, as their only personality trait is and remains being evil. In contrast, round characters have several different character traits and qualities, and in the course of a narrative may change over time (as does the protagonist of a Bildungsroman such as Charles Dickens’s ''Great Expectations'').

Discourse

The discourse level comprises many phenomena, for example, the formatting of the narrative situations as described by Stanzel,[13] intertextuality, imagery, and so forth. However, only selected aspects will be mentioned below in order to exemplify some possibilities of a discursive transmission of story elements. They refer to the categories ‘time’, ‘mode’, and ‘voice’ as explained by Genette[14] and Rimmon-Kenan[15] (who draws on Genette). ‘Time’ is described as the “temporal relationships between the narrative [story] and the ‘actual’ events that are being told [history]”.[16] ‘Mode’ means the “relationships determined by the distance and perspective of the narrative with respect to the history”,[17] and ‘voice’ the “relationships between the narrative and the narrating agency itself: narrative situation, level of narration, status of the narrator and of the recipient”.[18]

Time

Genette and Rimmon-Kenan distinguish between three categories of ‘time’ as discursive ways in which verbal narratives can ‘format’ ‘story time’: ‘order’ (ordre), ‘duration’ (durée) and ‘frequency’ (fréquence).[19]

Order

The most natural order (ordo naturalis) in which a story can be told is often used in folk tales[20], in which the discourse proceeds in a linear way from the beginning (ab ovo) to the end and thus imitates the chronology of the story (and the action in particular) which it supposedly relates. A story can also be told in a non-linear, anachronic way or order (ordo artificialis). While Genette generally refers to this phenomenon as anachronies, Rimmon-Kenan uses the terms ‘analepsis’ and ‘prolepsis’ for certain forms of an artificial ordering of time: ‘analepsis’ is the narration in the form of a flashback, ‘prolepsis’ foreshadows or anticipates certain events.[21]

As for the beginning of narratives, it can be ‘formatted’ in two ways:

  • in medias res: for example, the first scene in the French comedy drama film Intouchables (2011) (engl.: The Intouchables) starts in the middle of the movie, where the two main characters speed away from the police. The movie then begins from the start, catches up to the point of this scene, and then continues.

Or

  • in ultimas res: frequently occurs in (parts of) murder mysteries, as in the TV series Columbo. Here, within the narration of the crime, the murder is shown at the beginning and it is only subsequently (through flashbacks) that the audience sees what events have led to the murder.

Duration

At first glance, the term ‘duration’ may describe the time it takes for a reader to scan a novel from the first to the final page. At a closer look, one, however, comes to realize that “a narrative text cannot really be said to possess a definite duration”[22]. What one can identify, however, is a ‘narrative speed‘, a relationship between the story and discourse, which describes which of these levels have a longer duration than the other.”[23] For example, a story may spread over several years, which, of course, cannot be paralleled by the discursive reading time; as a consequence, the story must be summarized. In other cases, story and discourse time may have a close similarity with each other, which frequently happens in dialogues. In yet other cases the discourse may focus, e.g., on a description, in which case the story comes to a halt. There are more possibilities of the relationships between discourse and story time, as the following overview shows:

Overview: discourse time in comparison to story time:

  • ellipsis: discourse time = 0, story time = 1
  • scene: discourse time = story time
  • summary: discourse time < story time
  • stretch: discourse time > story time
  • pause: discourse time = 1; story time = 0[24]

References

  1. ^ Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London and New York: Routledge.
  2. ^ Todorov, Tzvetan. "Les categories du récit littérarie". Communications. 8: 125-151.
  3. ^ Chatman, Seymour (1980). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
  4. ^ Hawthorne, Jeremy (1994). A Concise Glossary of Contemporary Literary Theory. London, New York, Sydney, Auckland: Auden. p. 198.
  5. ^ Propp, Vladimir (1969). Morphology of the Folktale. Transl. Laurence Scott. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  6. ^ Chatman, Seymour B (1980). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. 44.
  7. ^ Chatman, Seymour B. (1980). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. 44.
  8. ^ Lotman, Jurij (1970). The Structure of the Artistic Text. Transl. Gail Lenhoff and Ronald Vroon. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
  9. ^ Chatman, Seymour B. (1980). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. 53-54.
  10. ^ Chatman, Seymour (1980). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. 97.
  11. ^ Chatman, Seymour B. (1980). Story and Discourse. Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. p. 111.
  12. ^ Forster, Edward Morgan (1927). Aspects of the Novel. London: Arnold.
  13. ^ Stanzel, Franz K (1979). Theorie des Erzählens. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
  14. ^ Genette, Gerard (1980). Narrative Discourse. Translated Jane E. Lewin (orig. Discours du récit). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
  15. ^ Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London and New York: Routledge. p. 43-58.
  16. ^ Genette, Gerard (1971). "Time and Narrative in A la recherche du temps perdu.". In J. Hillis, Miller, ed. (ed.). Aspects of Narrative. Selected Papers from the English Institute. Columbia University Press. p. 93. {{cite book}}: |editor1-first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  17. ^ Genette, Gerard (1971). "Time and Narrative in A la recherche du temps perdu.". In J. Hillis, Miller, ed. (ed.). Aspects of Narrative. Selected Papers from the English Institute. Columbia University Press. p. 93. {{cite book}}: |editor1-first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  18. ^ Genette, Gerard (1971). "Time and Narrative in A la recherche du temps perdu.". In J. Hillis, Miller, ed. (ed.). Aspects of Narrative. Selected Papers from the English Institute. Columbia University Press. p. 93-94. {{cite book}}: |editor1-first= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  19. ^ Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London and New York: Routledge. p. 43-58.
  20. ^ Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London and New York: Routledge. p. 94.
  21. ^ Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith (1983). Narrative Fiction. Contemporary Poetics. London and New York: Routledge. p. 47.
  22. ^ Genette, Gerard (1980). Narrative Discourse. Translated Jane E. Lewin (orig. Discours du récit). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 99.
  23. ^ Genette, Gerard (1980). Narrative Discourse. Translated Jane E. Lewin (orig. Discours du récit). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 9´3.
  24. ^ Genette, Gerard (1980). Narrative Discourse. Translated Jane E. Lewin (orig. Discours du récit). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. p. 99.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Story_and_Discourse&oldid=831793868"