Analyzing Narrative
Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives

The first general overview of narrative analysis from a sociolinguistic perspective.

Anna De Fina (Author), Alexandra Georgakopoulou (Author)

9780521715133, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 24 November 2011

240 pages
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.3 cm, 0.38 kg

'Within a wide range of diverse perspectives, this book provides a comprehensive and critical evaluation on narrative analysis.' Ilker Yengin, Language and Dialogue

The socially minded linguistic study of storytelling in everyday life has been rapidly expanding. This book provides a critical engagement with this dynamic field of narrative studies, addressing long-standing questions such as definitions of narrative and views of narrative structure but also more recent preoccupations such as narrative discourse and identities, narrative language, power and ideologies. It also offers an overview of a wide range of methodologies, analytical modes and perspectives on narrative from conversation analysis to critical discourse analysis, to linguistic anthropology and ethnography of communication. The discussion engages with studies of narrative in multiple situational and cultural settings, from informal-intimate to institutional. It also demonstrates how recent trends in narrative analysis, such as small stories research, positioning analysis and sociocultural orientations, have contributed to a new paradigm that approaches narratives not simply as texts, but rather as complex communicative practices intimately linked with the production of social life.

1. Narrative definitions, issues and approaches
2. Narrative as text and structure
3. Narrative and sociocultural variability
4. Narrative interaction
5. Narrative power, authority and ownership
6. Narrative and identities.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Communication studies [GTC], Semantics, discourse analysis, etc [CFG], Sociolinguistics [CFB]