Narratology

Narrative theory or narratology is an interdisciplinary method of Humanities, Cultural Studies and Social Sciences, which aims at a systematic description of the representation form of a narrative text. The international title is " narratology " ( in English ) or " narratology " ( in French ). Therefore, the term narratology has become naturalized in English. The Germanized name " Narrative " has, however, not generally enforced.

Its object is any type of narrative text, the narrative literature ( epic ) about historiography up to interviews, newspaper articles, or jokes. Subjects in which the narrative theory plays an important role, are literary studies, media studies, history and sociology.

The recent narrative theory was developed from 1915 in approach from Russian formalism and further elaborated by structuralism since the 1950s. The structuralist approach - with later additions - is relevant to today.

Important theorists of narratology are Gérard Genette, Lévi -Strauss, Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, Yury Lotman, Tzvetan Todorov and Paul Ricoeur. Partial narratology is supplemented by semiotics. Criticized, but the narrative theory has also been significantly expanded by poststructuralism.

• 6.1 classic
• 6.2 More recent introductions
• 6.3 Reference

Categories of analysis according to Genette

The structuralist narrative theory according to Genette was developed in literary texts. Their analysis categories are therefore mainly based on the epic. A narrative text can be analyzed into the following categories: time mode of the narrative voice of the narrator.

Time

The time level of a narrative can be analyzed according to Genette into three categories: order, duration and frequency.

Order

In many narrative texts, the chronological order of the events narrated (time history) is not identical to the language course of the narrative itself ( time of the narrative ). There are about cases in which the actual conclusion of the action is at the very beginning of the text ( that would be a prolepsis ) or where back dazzled again at the end to a dramatic situation ( analepsis ). Generally, one speaks in all cases of a anachrony. There are various forms of anachronies:

• Analepsis is a flashback, a time warp into the past, for Genette even any subsequent mention of a past event (also retrospection ) is intentionally hidden or something left aside, one speaks of a paralipsis ( Lateralauslassung )

• Does not intersect it with the narrated time, it is an external prolepsis
• It remains within the narrated time, it is called an internal prolepsis
• Fills a gap in advance of, it's a kompletive prolepsis
• Is the same event later told once again, it is a repetitive prolepsis ( " anticipation " )

Duration

The duration refers to the ratio between the amount of time that takes the narrative in relation to the narrative, ie the ratio of narrative time and narrated time. The description of lightning that lasts only fractions of a second, can occupy several pages in a narrative. One then speaks of a time- stretching narrative, since the process takes much longer than the event told. Conversely centuries can be done in a few words in a story. This would be a case of strong time compression.

If the action and the narrative occupy the same period approximately, one speaks of zeitdeckendem Tell ( isochrony ). This is, for example, often face in dialogues; one also speaks of a scene.

Extreme forms are the ellipse and the break. When the ellipse is - mostly unimportant - omitted in the narrative: the narrative stands still while the action goes on, so that the impression of a " time jump " arises. The pause on the other hand refers to the stoppage of the action while the story will continue, for example, by digressions or not relevant to the plot considerations are made.

Frequency

• Singulative: What happens once, once told.
• Repetitive: What happens once, several times told. For example, if an event from the point of view of different persons will be displayed or repetitions.
• Iterative: What happens repeatedly being told once. For example, " Like every morning at six he faced after getting into the shower ... "

Mode

The degree of indirectness and perspectivization of the story.

Distance / indirectness

• Narrative: With distance ( indirectly, haple diegesis, telling ) Told speech ( consciousness report, told speech )

• Direct autonomous characters' speech (without verbum dicendi )
• Direct character speech ( with verbum dicendi, for example, " he said ... " )
• Stream of consciousness
• Thoughts quote ( with verbum credendi, for example, " I thought ... " )
• Inner monologue

Focalization ( Genette after )

Main article: focalization

• Zero focalization: The narrator knows more than the character. ( Narrator > figure)
• Internal focalization: The narrator knows as much as the figure. ( Narrator = figure)
• External focalization: The narrator knows less than the figure. ( Narrator " figure)

Voice / Narrator

Question: Who is talking about?

Time of narration

Under the " perspective of the relational time position " ( the story ) is distinguished as follows:

• Subsequent narration: the classical position of the story in past tense
• Earlier narration: predictive narrative, in general in the future tense, but can be carried forward in the present tense
• Simultaneous narration: narrative in the present tense, the action accompanied simultaneously
• Inserted narration: inserted between the moments of action

Person ( Homodiegetisch / Heterodiegetisch )

The category ' person ' describes the position of the narrator in relation to the narrated world. (Author ≠ narrator! )

• Homodiegetisch: The narrator is part of the diegesis ( the narrated world), but is not the main character. ( More recent narrative theories assume that the narrator told the world is conveyed only by means of the perception of a character in the narrated world, he does not fuse with that person. )
• Heterodiegetisch: The narrator is not part of the diegesis. ( More recent narrative theories assume that the narrator basically as a mediating instance between narrative text (including narrated world) and the recipient of the text is. He is only shown explicitly or implicitly. )
• Autodiegetisch: The ( homodiegetische ) narrator is also the main character, the narrator tells his own story, so to speak. ( Analogous to the theory of homodiegetischen narrator you go to the more recent narrative theory assumes that the narrator and character can not merge because they have two different levels of awareness regarding the existence of narrative text: the characters do not know that they are part of a narrative of the narrator. the narrator can therefore never be the protagonist of his own story. If a figure recounts his / her own story in RETROSPECT, he / she has, as a narrator at least a different attitude to the narrated actions when he / she had at the moment of action. )

Level ( diegetic / extra-diegetic )

The extradiegetic narrator is the narrator, the outermost plot ( story within a story, if there is a single narrative; diegetic or narrative intradiegetische in Genette ) says. Comes in this story again a narrator, it is a intradiegetischen narrator, what he says is a metadiegetic narrative ( single story ). A metadiegetischer narrator tells a story metametadiegetische etc.

Other Approaches

There are some other approaches to narrative theory, which form more or less self-contained models.

• The typological model of narrative situations by Franz K. Stanzel different Authorial narrative situation: There is an omniscient narrator, which, however, is not neutral is related to the action and commenting and evaluative intervene in the action again and again.
• Personal narrative situation: narrative from the perspective of a particular character.
• I - narrative situation: It is told in the first person.

Other approaches result from a combination of classical narratology with other disciplines, media and genres, and the influence of post- structuralist thought. Examples include the feminist narratology, cognitive narratology or linguistic narratology. The new approaches are well worked in part, but offer a wide field for further theories.

Tell scheme

Under the narrative scheme is generally understood as the structure of the linear sequence ( or sequential structure ) of the elements of a story at the level of events and actions ( histoire ). In addition to the histoire level there is the level of discours, which is the concrete linguistic aspect of the text ( eg rhetorical devices ). In the analysis of the narrative scheme will not be considered.

When analyzing a narrative schema, proceed as follows. First, we examine the sequence in which the events in the story ( discours ) to be told and assigns them linearly abstracted from there to a schema:

This sequence can be more abstract:

This yields - a very simple scheme of the detective novel.

If we compare, for example, several stories of an author (or more authors ), we can see that the structure of the narrative at the level of discours always runs regardless of whether the sequence varies, etc. In the literature, certain narrative schemes are so successful that they of many authors are taken, such as the Bildungsroman, the short story, the novella. Of course there is in a particular case again deviations from the scheme, or new schemes developed.

The most conventional scheme of a narrative text is taught in the classroom: it consists of an exposition in which the acting figures are presented, a main part in which the plot is developed and with a dramatic climax ( climax in comic stories Pointe ) ends, followed by a conclusion. The scheme is actually taken from the play analysis, goes back to Aristotle and approaches to be found formulated only when Gustav Freytag (1863 ).

See Function ( system theory ), fable, plot, Aktant ( Literature) and Motif ( literature)

Space model by Yuri M. Lotman

→ See: Yuri Mikhailovich Lotman

Fictionality / factuality

It is difficult to find a clear distinction between fictional and faktualen texts. On one hand, being made in many faktualen text types with techniques that are considered characteristic of fictional literature (eg reports, history ). On the other hand, most fictional texts refer to places, times and facts of reality, ie the fiction consists almost exclusively of fiktionalisiertem real.

Fiction signals are all characteristics that indicate the fictionality of a work, that is all the features to give through which fictional texts to recognize as such. The use of fiction signals is subject to historical change and is conditioned by conventions (contract of staged discourse ).

Formal fiction signals describe the knowledge of the reader to the background of the emergence of the narrative situation, the reception and the communication situation, they are therefore contextually. Due to the generic specification (eg novel), a fiction contract with the reader arise.

Internal text fiction signals concern the internal order and organization of the text, for example, time, narrative situation, the ANP ratio ( Author - narrateur / narrator - protagonist ).

In the autobiography there is a specific agreement between author and reader, the autobiographical pact ( after Philippe Leujeune ). The identity of the author, narrator and protagonist (A = N = P ) warrants to the reader the faktualen status of the text. The author guarantees with its own name, not for accuracy, but for sincere efforts ( " Please believe me ").

Socio-cultural function of the storytelling

In the Biosoziologie, a field of sociology, it is argued that the history of man begins with the invention of storytelling by some researchers. There is no way to verify this hypothesis empirically; Rather, it is meant that the human condition is defined centrally on the ability of storytelling (see Anthropology ).

So you go in sociology from the fact that in many peoples of ancient times - as well as with some still existing tribes who know no writing - the narrator has an important social function. A narrator carries the myths, genealogies, tales and legends of a people further orally. Thus it is the social memory of his tribe.

For more, see: Oral tradition, orality