Narrative Strategies In The Text Structure Research History

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of narrative strategies reflected in the works of domestic and foreign researchers, who indicate their diversity and specificity, and also emphasize the presence of a dialogue between the narrator and the listener (reader). The sequence of episodes is key to the narrator’s point of view, which is the core of the utterance, narrative being treated as a judgment framed as a kind of utterance based on the organization of the communicative component. The article explores the term “narrative strategies” in modern Philology, clarifies its terminological foundations, considers the narrative modality, plot intrigue and narrative picture of the world. Narrative strategies, based on the analysis of the utterance process itself, which is based not only on the event itself as such, but also on the event of the story itself, contribute to understanding the logical chain of the narrative and the text structure itself. In the process of analyzing the problem situation, the narrative of the main characters from the humorous novel of the German writer Dora Heldt “Vacation with Dad” is considered. It is done applying the structures proposed by Labov and Waletzky, namely: theses, orientation, resolution, coda. The organization of the utterance has a certain form that predetermines the sequence of the narrative: the order of conclusions, the sequence of implications and reasoning, the order of description, which is characterized by the derivation of generalizing schemes that determine the order of the story; indicates various types of utterance dependencies.

Keywords: Narratology, narrative strategies, narrative modality, narrative picture of the world, plot intrigue, text formation

Introduction

Conceptual debates over narration theory primarily address the issue of the meaning of narration, not only in literary works, but in many cultural contexts. This observation led to a serious study of the phenomena of narration in Philosophy, Psychology, Historiography and Jurisprudence, being reflected as well in the field of Linguistics, Cultural Studies and Sociology. This has given impetus to interactions between disciplines and research regarding the possibilities, structures and functions of narration theory that may be used in an interdisciplinary way.

1.1 Narration as a strategy for generating a text presupposes the obligatory presence of a certain instance located, on the one hand, between the author and the depicted reality, and on the other, between the reader and the depicted reality. Nowadays, Narratology refers to an interdisciplinary field of scientific research, dealing with the general structures of all kinds of narratives, that is, narrative works of any genre and any functionality.

1.2 Conventionally the term strategy is used to characterize the most fundamental attitudes of activity that are subject to the choice of the actor; but after his strategic choice, they direct his creative behavior as a kind of prescription and largely determine the final result.

Problem Statement

The main objectives of the research are:

• to systematize the methods of analyzing the narrative text presented in foreign and domestic narratology (Bakhtin, 1975; Bergelson, 2017; Foucault, 1996; Iovva, 2018; Khodorenko, 2014; Labov & Waletzky, 1997; Leshchenko, 2019; Sklyar & Tambovtseva, 2018; Tyupa, 2001, 2018; Zhilicheva, 2015);
• to identify the scope of the term “narrative strategy” in modern philology; to formulate the definition of a narrative strategy and identify its types through the conducted research;
• on the basis of a comparison of the features of individual excerpts from the work of Dora Heldt “Vacation with Dad” to characterize the basic components of the narrative strategy (narrative modality, plot intrigue, narrative picture of the world).

Research Questions

We propose to consider various structures of narrative strategies, in which, firstly, action events compress their essence, allowing in their prospectiveness to conjecture and restore an integral discursive space from a certain position or point of view; secondly, they represent a declaration of action and, inferentially, call for taking a certain position, which is carried out by the subject in a given statement, indicating that the narrative can achieve its goal only if it finds the addressee who will accept this point of view.

Purpose of the Study

Having worked out the theoretical basis of narrative typological concepts in the linguistic aspect, it is necessary to highlight the main components of the technique of organizing narrative in the text.

4.1 The article discusses the main provisions of the narrative direction, namely, the theoretical material on narrative strategies is compiled, studies of foreign and domestic researchers of different time periods are considered and compared.

4.2 In order to identify the set of narrative procedures that are adhered to, or the narrative means used to achieve a specific goal in the representation of a narrative, an attempt was made to analyze an excerpt from the novel by the modern German writer Dora Heldt “Vacation with Dad”.

Research Methods

The study relied on the following basic methods:

5.1 the selection of materials for the theoretical part of the research was carried out through methods of analysis and synthesis, through which it became possible to study the object of research, the discursive aspects of the topic under discussion, to analyze various points of view and form a theoretical concept of the problem under study. The analogy method made it possible to identify the same or similar signs in the subjects under study.

5.2 selection of examples for analysis and illustration of theoretical provisions became possible due to the use of the method of continuous sampling; the descriptive method made it possible to generalize the existing points of view of researchers, to interpret and reveal the characteristic features of the parameters of the text, which are a way of realizing the author's intention, through which the reader is able to read the content contained in it and adequately perceive it; the method of contextual analysis was used to study the functional specifics of words and their meanings.

Findings

Narrative strategies are a certain action plan that allows organizing a sequence of steps to achieve a set goal and a way to influence a partner in a communicative situation through the use of a narrative, i.e. plot-narrative utterances. A person himself chooses the means to convey his experiences and impressions, the essence of which is reflected in the form of stories that give meaning to his life and relationships. From the standpoint of narratology, as an organized communicative structure, in which the author's direct contact with the reader is traced, narrative strategies are based on the study of the text.

The essence of narrative relations, according to Iovva, consists in “the movement from the reproducing consciousness to the perceiving consciousness and the further transformation of the perceiving consciousness into a renewed reproducing consciousness” (Iovva, 2018, p. 127). Between the event and the consciousness of Tyupa notes the presence of a kind of “communicative act of verbalization” prism that affects the communicative environment (Tyupa, 2001, p. 12). The researcher determines the following parameters of the narrative strategy: the picture of the world, the typical form of the hero and the type of the word (the typical form of contact between the subject and the addressee of the narration) (Tyupa, 2018). The twofold eventfulness of narrative is an important component when considering narrative strategies as ways of text formation. So, Bakhtin notes the presence of two events – “the event that is described in the work, and the event of the story itself” (Bakhtin, 1975, p. 403). At the same time, as noted by Leshchenko, the act of narration itself is defined as an activity based on the conceptualization of the hierarchical structure of the narrated story (Leshchenko, 2019). Nefedova notes that linguistic units are projected onto certain layers of knowledge, in which knowledge about the concepts of human life, events and their sequence, classes of situations, objects and their signs, etc. The structures of the meanings of these units implement the structures of knowledge transfer by the method of network representation, i.e., through certain semantic networks (Nefedova, 2013). According to Khodorenko, features of the narrative are as follows: eventfulness, expressed in verb forms; completeness, temporality (historicity); chronological sequence of history, cause-and-effect relationship of events; implementation of the function of establishing a cause-and-effect relationship, communicative “bridge”, “result” of the above (Khodorenko, 2014, p. 131).

A detailed description of events, the use of certain terminology, etc. contributes to a reliable depiction of reality. We learn about the events that have taken place from the narrator, who sets out what is happening as he himself enters the course of the matter. Consequently, the point of view or focus of a particular person is fixed in the narrative, while the reader sees, hears and feels thanks to the narrator, who remains unknown to the reader.

Zhilicheva notes that the term “narrative strategy” was first proposed by Suvage (1965) about the novel. During the analysis of different types of narratives, Booth (1983) noted the ways of narrative strategy. Ricoeur (2000) turned to the methods of integrating dynamism in narrative, discussing the ways of the story “to express one’s object” through narrative strategies. Currently, modern scholars often use this term in relation to specific texts indicating their originality. Referring to the reader’s narrative projection, Williams (1998) uses the term “strategy”, while Yang (2005) refers to the ways of presentation of the narrator (personalization or concealment) and suggests calling them a strategy (Zhilicheva, 2015, pp. 68-69).

The term strategy in its usual application is used for the attitudes of the activity, which are guided by the agent when choosing a certain strategic plan and, according to Tyupa, strategies contribute to “creative behavior”, acting “as a kind of prescription”, which largely contributes to the determination of the final result (Tyupa, 2001, p. 8). Studying discursive patterns, Foucault assumes that utterances do not have “the same distinctive features for the subject of the utterance”; they do not presuppose a relationship between what the subject is trying to speak about and the subject himself. Consequently, the status of utterances may be defined as a certain way in which they are “institutionalized”, applied and combined with each other, becoming objects of appropriation, instruments of interest or desire, elements of strategy (Foucault, 1996, p. 116).

The researcher also notes the organization of the utterance, which has a certain form of sequence, namely: the order of conclusions, the sequence of implications and reasoning, the order of description, which is characterized by the derivation of generalizing schemes that determine the order of the story; indicates various types of utterance dependencies (they are not always identical with each other and do not have a final definition in the established sequence of utterances), rhetorical schemes that allow combining groups of utterances (compatibility of descriptions, conclusions, definitions) (Foucault, 1996).

Accordingly, the choice of strategy by Foucault and Bakhtin is not predetermined by the outlook or preference of the speaker, it is performed depending on the position occupied by the subject in relation to the affected area of objects, as well as in relation to the figure or circle of addressees (Tyupa, 2001). Modern narratology adheres to non-identity of the implicit figure of the author, referring him to the cognitive subject of narration and the explicit figure of the narrator, which is the verbal-communicative subject of narration. The speech behavior of the narrator can be projected onto the intra-textual figure of the reading or listening narrator, and the process of narration itself is a communicative event which connects the author and the addressee of the narrative discourse, i.e. implicit instances come to the fore.

6.1 Tyupa proposes the following narrative structure, which is a configuration of mutually conditioning three selective aspects:

1) one or another narrative picture of the world (the author’s referential competence);

2) narrative modality (creative competence of the narrator, storyteller, chronicler);

3) narrative intrigue (receptive competence of the addressee) (Tyupa, 2001).

According to the presented narrative structure, the position of the narrator in relation to story is traced through modality, while the depicted picture of the world acts as a type of worldview, narrative intrigue is understood as a type of eventfulness, aimed at the addressee’s receptive intention. The key link in any narrative strategy is the narrator’s (storyteller’s, chronicler’s), in whose consciousness the eventual component which affects the meaningfulness of what is happening is actualized. The narrative modality of the narrator’s (author’s) speech behavior determines his strategic positioning.

6.2 According to Iovva, narrative strategies are a number of communicative strategies that are “strategies for relaying event experience” and in the field of verbalized narration act as narrative versions of general rhetorical strategies. Consequently, there are certain narrative techniques used to describe the events taking place in order to achieve the set goal. Communicative strategies, in contrast to communicative events, have a direct connection with a communicative subject occupying a meta-subject position in the communicative space (Iovva, 2018, p. 124).

The researcher identifies the following types of narrative strategies:

narrative strategy – the interest of the audience directly depends on the dynamism of the author’s utterance; the narrative situation is distinguished by a strong contact between the author and the audience. The narrative situation is based on the speech characteristics of the utterance, the sound picture of the narration, the architectonics of the narration, the composition of the narrative, the detailing; 2) intentional strategy – indicates the inseparability of events from narrative consciousness; in the consciousness of the main character, the meaningfulness of what happened is actualized; 3) communication strategy – an agreement with the audience through a specific code; the addressee acts on the addressee through a speech action scheme that allows the speaker to achieve the goal; 4) conventional strategy – ensuring communication between different segments of the communicative environment; 5) contextual strategy – the perception of the narrated within a broad sociocultural context; 6) interpretation strategy – related to the intellectual capabilities of the audience; contribute to an independent understanding of what is happening in the world; 7) allegorical strategy – a special form of organizing an utterance, bordering on imitation, expanding the perception of the speech capabilities of a word, encouraging the perceiving information to independently identify the spoken word and the subject of the utterance itself; 8) precedent strategy – a certain ideal situation that took place in reality; in the process of communication, the reference to the original source can be resumed by mentioning precedent names, situations and statements; 9) cognitive strategy – the mental representation of the message by the author, the representations of the author and the reader may fail to coincide; 10) constructivist strategy – of the author is based on visual, linguistic ideas about the world and that of the reader is based on linguistic data and imagination (Iovva, 2018).

Narrative serves as a kind of form for understanding what is happening and organizing a certain order, i.e. acts as a kind of constant, which is directly related to the development of the surrounding reality. The content of the text arrangement lies in the narrative structure, with the help of which, directly through the mediation of the narrator, the thoughts of the characters and the author are transmitted. The types of communication strategies depend on the material under study, for example, Sklyar and Tambovtseva distinguish communicative, eventful and temporary strategies inherent in autobiographical prose (Sklyar & Tambovtseva, 2018).

There are different methods of analyzing the narrative, for example, the narrative analysis presented in the works of Labov and Waletzky (1997), who offer the following structure: theses (summary of the essence), orientation (time, place, situation, participants), resolution (what happened in the end), coda (return to the present, to real time, completion of the narrative, the result) (Labov & Waletzky, 1997). One of the recent developers of narrative analysis is Bergelson, who singled out such parameters of the typology of stories as: 1) the narrator; 2) contents (about what and what type of information); 3) addressee (degree of audience involvement); 4) the circumstances of the story (where, when, why and how); 5) the structure of the narrative and the problem of coherence (Bergelson, 2017).

Let us consider an excerpt from the first chapter of the novel “Vacation with Dad” by German writer Dora Heldt (2008), which entered the national top bestsellers and was translated into Russian by Agafonova. A humorous novel tells about the problem of the generation gap. See an excerpt from a novel below (the total volume of the text is 2,880 characters with spaces).

The narrative is the central figure of the narration, which is expressed by the pronoun “I” and verbs in the form of the first person, singular, the narration is presented in the form of the past, present and future tenses. At the beginning of the passage the problem is described, then the reader is offered the information about the events in the main character’s personal life, as well as the information about her life at the moment. In order to familiarize the reader with the characters of the story, lexemes of family members identification are used: „ …“, „“, „“, „ …“, „ …“ (Heldt, 2008, pp. 7-8)

Narrative participants: daughter Christina (45) and her mother.

Location: the mention of the city of Hamburg indicates that the action takes place in Germany, as well as the island of Norderney suggests that in the future the action will take place in Lower Saxony: ““ (p. 8).

Time: presumably the action takes place in summer, the time of day is night (indicated in the title of the first chapter of the novel: “” (p. 7)

Narrative topic: Father needs being taken care of for two weeks: „“ (p. 7).

Problem: 1) Christina’ s mother is going to be hospitalized: „“ (p. 8); 2) for a number of reasons father cannot stay at home alone: „…“ (p. 8); 3) totalitarian attitude of the mother in the family, in which she always made decisions for all its members: „“;

4) daughter’s unwillingness to stay with the father and he attempts to reject this idea: „Mama, was heißt hier andere Kinder? Ich bin 45!“, „Mama, warte mal. Ich fahre doch nach Norderney, um Marleen zu helfen, ihre Pension und die Kneipe zu renovieren, ich kann mich da nicht auch noch um Papa …“, „Mama, ich halte das für keine gute Idee, ich…“, „Mama, ich bin …“ (pp. 7-8).

In the proposed examples, one can notice the frequent use of the comma-separated noun “mother” in the nominative case, which is characteristic of the daughter’s speech when addressing her mother. In this case, the direct address is not a member of the sentence, it is not included in the grammatical basis of the sentence. The sentence “” is one-part sentence with a predicate verb in the second person.

Also of particular interest are the particles expressing shades of meaning, such as, and, which are characterized by the following features: They:

1) are synsemantic; 2) are not members of the sentence; 3) do not occupy a position at the beginning of a sentence; 4) are usually unstressed; 5) unlike modal words, cannot be rephrased (Hentschel & Vogel, 2010, p. 241). Particles expressing shades of meaning do not function within the literal level of the sentence in which they are used, but rather comment on it as a general statement from the meta-level. In this case, this function is represented by the modality of opinion – such content of consciousness that is impossible to prove and which raises doubts, being subjectively valuable at the same time.

In the sentences above given as examples, the speaker’s uncertainty is also observed, which caused incompleteness of the statement and a hitch in speech when moving from one thought to another, and which is graphically shown by means of ellipsis.

Resolution: As a result, Christina’s mother manages to settle the situation in her favor, forcing her daughter to agree to her order rather than a request: „“, „…“ (p. 9).

Coda: Allows the reader to form a definite opinion about the current situation through conventional symbols or certain signals for transmitting, processing and storing information, and also to understand whether this topic will be interesting and relevant for discussion with other people. The main character understands that this situation will be difficult for those around her and for herself in particular.

Thus, communicative structures consist of the author’s communication of the speech of the narrator and the reader; event strategies are characterized by the representation of the narrative through the external or internal movement of the character, his actions, and a spiritual act. Temporal relations are the main elements of narrative texts and they show the movement of the narrator between temporal dimensions, temporal locations, as well as the perception of time itself by the characters.

Conclusion

Basic components of a narrative strategy are the narrative modality, plot intrigue and narrative picture of the world. Objective modality is realized in the meanings of reality or unreality, while the situational modality is its peripheral layer and clarifies these meanings regarding the possibility, necessity, reality and desirability of one or another action. Both modalities inform the listener or the reader about what is happening from the point of view of the person communicating certain information, the point of view of the speaker (that is, the subjective modality) being either explicit (with introductory words, phrases, modal words, particles expressing shades of meaning) or implicit.

Intrigue is an intentionally directed constructive interest of narration which consists in the tension of the event series, arousing certain receptive expectations and assuming the satisfaction of the expectations generated by the dynamism of the narrative. The narrator’s point of view can be traced in the sequence of the presentation of events, however, it is not limited to focusing the narrative either on details or the position given to the addressee of the narrative. The intrigue in the narrative text forms a kind of meaning-related system in which one can trace: increase or decrease, periodic alternation, repetitions, contrasts, some episodes occurring in the marked position of the initial, final or central point.

The narrative picture of the world is a platform where the consciousness of the reader and the narrator meet and their understanding of the event, as well as of the life and world of a person unfolds, i.e. it is represented by a certain set of rules of existence for objects that turn out to be named and designated.

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