Beowulf ’s Poetics of Absorption: Narrative Syntax and the Illusion of Stability in the Fight with Grendel’s Mother

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Evelyn Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Syntax

Grammatik der Narration

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 457-494
Author(s):  
Sonja Zeman
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Second Step ◽  
Narrative Fiction ◽  
The Status ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Narrative Syntax

AbstractIs there a ‚narrative syntax‘, i. e. a special grammar restricted to narrative fiction? Starting from this question which has been investigated since early structuralism, the paper focusses on grammatical characteristics of narrative discourse mode and their implications for a linguistic theory of narration. Its goal is two-fold: In a first step, the traditional accounts by Benveniste, Hamburger, Kuroda and recent typological studies are brought together in order to support the claim that the distinction between narrative and non-narrative discourse mode is a fundamental one that has consequences for the use of grammar. In a second step, I discuss three central questions within the intersection between narrative micro- and macro-structures, namely (i) the definition of narrativity, (ii) the status of the narrator, and (iii) the relation between narration and fictionality. In sum, the article argues that investigations on the ‘grammar of narration’ do not just offer insights into a specific text configuration next to others, but are deeply linked to fundamental theoretical questions concerning the architecture of language – and that the comparison between linguistic and narratological categories offers a potential for addressing them.

scholarly journals Narratives, connections and social change

2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Corinne Squire
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Social Connections ◽  
Stylistic Elements ◽  
Rhetorical Tropes ◽  
Narrative Syntax

In this article, I suggest that narratives’ importance for social change may be understood by examining specific elements of narrative syntax — key rhetorical tropes within stories, and story genres. I argue that these stylistic elements generate social connections that themselves support and stimulate social change. I use Young’s (2006) theorisation of responsibility and global justice in terms of connection, to suggest how narratives may support or generate progressive social change. I then examine narrative tropes and genres of similarisation and familiarisation at work in narratives produced around the HIV pandemic, and the limits of those tropes and genres for supporting and catalysing social change.

Towards a Journey Narrative Syntax

2018 ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Christopher Holliday
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Narrative Form ◽  
First Line ◽  
Hollywood Cinema ◽  
Short Films ◽  
Animated Films ◽  
Film Series ◽  
Virtual Experiences ◽  
Narrative Syntax

This chapter moves forward by unpacking the generic identity of computer-animated films and examines the journey narrative structure as their prevailing syntax and first line of action. In this chapter, two forms of narrative are established that are widely operational within the genre. The first of these are the “flushed away” narratives that rely upon on abrupt geographical disjuncture, and which often requires the protagonist to negotiate and quickly adapt to a foreign milieu. The second journey narrative form advanced in this chapter is the “over the hedge” narrative, which are voyages signalled as altogether more prepared or expected. This chapter explores in detail how computer-animated films deploy these two forms of journey narrative structure to interrogate ideas of mobility, location, destination and tourism through the virtual experiences they offer of travelled space. Chapter Two concludes by positioning the journey narrative within the context of film franchising and the “sequelled” narrative. Computer-animated films rarely exists in isolation, but are supported by a range of sequels, spin-offs and short films. This chapter identifies how narrative structure can be productively entwined with the wider role of film series and cycles that continues to define the franchise mentality of post-millennial Hollywood cinema.

The Transformation of Narrative Syntax into Institutional Memory

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Linde
Keyword(s):  
Syntactic Structure ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
Service Agency ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Social Service Agency ◽  
Current Group ◽  
The Past ◽  
Institutional Memory ◽  
Narrative Syntax

Narrative has been analyzed as a way of recounting the memory of the past and negotiating current group membership. But in an institutional context, it crucially functions to project the future, in constructing a record which can serve as an institutional memory available in case of possible challenges. Using as data an extended oral narrative from a social service agency about an incident of violence by a client, this study shows that the strongest structural constraints on the discourse and syntactic structure of the narrative are the requirements for a bureaucratically adequate written record. This analysis serves as a case study of how the larger social structure of legal requirements for adequate records serves to shape the structure of oral narrative, as well as a demonstration of the work oral narrative does in producing and reproducing institutional memory. (Discourse, Narrative, Memory, Bureaucratic Language, Language of Violence)

CANONICAL NARRATIVE SCHEMA: A KEY TO UNDERSTANDING THE VICTORY DISCOURSE IN JUDITH: A GREIMASSIAN CONTRIBUTION

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 638-656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risimati Hobyane
Keyword(s):  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Second Temple ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Narrative Texts ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Narrative Syntax ◽  
Critical Aspects ◽  
Jewish Religion

A historical critical approach to narratives has contributed significantly to the analysis of ancient narratives. However, this approach has somehow unfairly ignored some other critical aspects of many ancient narratives. Judith is no exception to this claim. While appreciating the contribution of historical critical approaches to Judith (i.e., the questions on authorship, historical and geographical inconsistencies etc.), the aim of this article is to go beyond the historicity of Judith, and reveal some narrative techniques employed by the author in creating a woman protagonist who is destined to achieve the unthinkable in the minds of the men of her contemporary world. This article explores these narrative techniques by employing the narrative analysis, narrative syntax in particular, of the Greimassian approach to narrative texts. Subsequently, this article contributes to research of Judith by revealing the path that Judith followed on her quest to save the Jewish religion from extinction during the Second Temple period. 

scholarly journals A new role for narrative in variationist sociolinguistics

2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Johnstone
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Structure And Function ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Variationist Sociolinguistics ◽  
Central Interest ◽  
Narrative Functions ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
And Function ◽  
Narrative Syntax ◽  
Shed Light

Labov and Waletzky’s (1997[1967]) path-breaking description of “narrative syntax” arose in the context of variationist sociolinguistic research, and narrative continues to be an important source of data for variationist’ work. In most of this work, however, narrative is not the object of study. Variationist sociolinguists are interested in the structure and function of sounds, words, and phrases found in narrative data, but they have not typically asked how the structure and function of narrative itself might bear on the questions about linguistic variation and language change that define their field. Here I suggest that close attention to the structure and function of narrative can, in fact, shed light on a topic of central interest to variationists, namely vernacular norm-formation. I argue that narratives about encounters with linguistic difference help create shared orientations to particular sets of nonstandard linguistic features and link them with region, class, and other sources of identity. I further suggest that narrative functions particularly well as a vehicle for language-ideological differentiation (Gal & Irvine, 1995) of this sort.

Harmony Korine‘s Gummo: The Compliment of Getting Stuck with a Fork

Film Studies ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-105
Author(s):  
J. J. Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Free Association ◽  
Cause And Effect ◽  
Good Taste ◽  
American Artists ◽  
Narrative Syntax ◽  
The Way

Dismissed by most critics, including even those sympathetic to alternative cinema, Harmony Korine‘s Gummo (1997) presents a tabloid look at the dark underside of adolescence. It aims to provoke its audience by pushing the boundaries of acceptable good taste. In Gummo, Korine employs a more experimental collage technique in which scenes are linked, not by the cause and effect of conventional plot, but by the elusive logic of free association. This essay contextualizes Korines work within skateboard culture and the recent Modern Gothic trend toward creepy, angst ridden, and death-obsessed work by younger contemporary American artists. It argues that Gummo‘s real achievement rests on its unusual narrative syntax – the way Korine is able to weave together the films disparate scenes and events to create a viscerally assaulting, Modern Gothic portrait of the notion of “difference” in its various manifestations.

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