Alexandra Georgakopoulou

Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis

Abstract In this article, we depart from our recent work on ‘small stories’, which we propose as an antidote to canonical narrative studies, and we advance our argumentation by sketching out a five-step analytical operation for tapping into small stories as sites of identity work. These steps grow out of the model of positioning (as put forward by Bamberg 1997, and elaborated in Bamberg 2004a; cf. also Georgakopoulou 2000) that succeeds in navigating between the two extreme ends of fine-grained micro analysis and macro accounts. We will work with positioning in the close analysis of a small story event (as part of a moderated group discussion involving ten-year-old boys in an American school) in which we will show how the tellers announcement of the story, the subsequent withdrawal, and the pre-telling negotiation with the interlocutors are as integral parts of our analysis as the actual telling. We will also demonstrate how viewing story content as a function of interactional engagement opens up new insights into identity constructions of sameness in the face of adversative conditions and constant change.

Analysing narratives as practices

Departing from a critique of the conventional paradigm of narrative analysis, inspired by Labov and the narrative turn in social sciences, we propose an alternative framework, recommending combining a focus on the local occasioning of narratives in interaction with the analysis of their participation in a variety of macro-processes, through mobilizing the notions of social practice, genre and community of practice.

The other side of the story: towards a narrative analysis of narratives-in-interaction:

The starting point of this article is what will be identified as the ‘narrative canon’ comprising a specific type of narrative (past events personal experience elicited in research interviews) that mutually feeds into a specific analytic vocabulary, an interpretive idiom, and a research agenda (normally identity analysis) within conventional narrative analysis. The aim here is to give voice to, and advance understanding for, stories that do not fit this canon and are thus in the fringes of narrative research. Examples of such stories are brought in from two communication contexts (adolescents’ conversations - private email messages) and their interactional features of ongoing-ness, intertextuality and recontextualization are documented. The issues that are then addressed on their basis involve the ways in which mainstream conceptualization of narrative analysis (e.g. tellership, tellability, embeddedness) can be revised and stretched to reach out to those cases; also, the implications for narrative cum identity research.

Small stories transposition and social media: A micro-perspective on the ‘Greek crisis’:

In this article, I employ small stories research as a micro-perspective for the scrutiny of any crisis-related positionings of ‘Greece’ and ‘the Greeks’ that accompany the circulation of news stories from Greece in social media. My claim is that such positionings cannot be fully understood without reference to what stories get circulated, where, by whom, for/with whom and how. To substantiate this, I draw on a particular incident involving the assault of two female MPs by a male MP on a Greek TV breakfast show (June 2012). My analysis will show that the ways in which the Greek crisis is invoked or disregarded and erased in the social media transpositions of the incident are intimately linked with two key-narrative processes, which I call narrative stancetaking and resemiotizations (i.e. video-based or text-based) that involve a rescripting of the initial incident. In both cases, I will show how processes of story making are important for what is signalled as relevant and for how the context of the Greek crisis is made sense of, critiqued and ultimately backgrounded or erased in favour of more personalized and localized interpretations, grounded in the original and the transposed tales and tellings.

Introduction: Narrative analysis in the shift from texts to practices

The point of departure for this special issue is the recent shift within discourse and sociolinguistic narrative analysis from a long-standing conception of (oral, cf. natural, nonliterary) narrative as a well-defined and delineated genre with an identifiable structure toward the exploration of the multiplicity, fragmentation, and irreducible situatedness of its forms and functions in a wide range of social arenas. We can refer to this shift as a move away from narrative as text (i.e., defined on the basis of textual criteria and primarily studied for its textual make-up) to narrative as practice within social interaction. For a lot of the work here, context remains a key concept and although there is an undeniably long-standing tradition of contextualized studies of narrative (e.g., ethnography of communication in studies such as Bauman 1986 and Hymes 1981, among others) there are distinct elements in this latest shift that in our view qualify it as a ‘new’ turn to narrative: 1. An increasing acceptance of narrative as talk-in-social interaction informed by conversation analysis and ethnomethodology. This has had profound implications for the definition of narrative, its exigencies, and the analytical tools deemed appropriate for its investigation (e.g., De Fina and Georgakopoulou forthcoming; Georgakopoulou 2007; chapters in Quasthoff and Becker 2004; Schegloff 1997). 2. An emphasis, derived from recent theories of context and genre (e.g., Bauman 2001), not just on the contextualized but also on the contextualizing aspects of narrative. In this sense, narrative is being studied both for the ways in which its tellings are shaped by larger sociocultural processes at work and for how it provides organization for the interactive occasions on which it occurs. Furthermore, although the notion of context remains elusive, contested, and indeterminate, there is now consensus on the view of context not as a static surrounding frame but as a set of multiple and intersecting processes that are mutually feeding with talk. The move away from context as a pre-existing ‘setting’ toward dynamic notions of social spaces that may be conventionally associated with certain kinds of language use and norms, but also prone to heterogeneity and fragmentation, has been instrumental in looking at both narrative tellings in situ and at ways in which space is more or less subtly referred to, reworked, and constructed anew within narrative plots (see contributions in Baynham and De Fina 2005). 3. An increasing commitment to social theoretical concerns (mainly within the framework of cultural studies). This is particularly evident in proliferating work on narrative and identities (e.g., De Fina 2003; Georgakopoulou 2002, 2007; De Fina et al. 2006) that has variously problematized, de-essentialized, or added nuance to the widely held view that narrative is a privileged communication mode for making sense of the self. Research in this area has also blurred the boundaries between narrative analysis and narrative inquiry, thus shifting the emphasis of the former from narrative as an end to narrative as a means to an end.

Revisiting discourse boundaries: The narrative and non-narrative modes

The article has a programmatic aim, namely to critically review the main assumptions of research on discourse boundaries and propose a viable way around current pitfalls. Discourse distinctions by mode can be a useful antidote to text classifications based upon genre, text-external or text-internal factors, or the spoken versus written dichotomy. While narrative figures in all classifications by mode, studies of modes other than narrative have so far remained fragmented and artificially separated. Furthermore, although classificatory frameworks assume a symmetrical relation between modes, the primacy of narrative in communication needs to be taken into account. Our proposal for a systematic treatment of the narrative and non-narrative modes rests on the conceptualization of mode as a level above that of genre that serves as both a text- and context-organizing tool, providing speakers and writers with rhetorical resources that can be strategically drawn upon in discourse. This view avoids the polarization that has led to a depreciation of non-narrative and overvaluing of narrative texts, and allows us to recognize the relative importance of each mode by reference to textual analysis. In particular, the distinction can be operationalized in terms of prototypical features relating to configurations of spatial, temporal, and personal relations, as well as aspects of interpersonal management. Prerequisites for the further systematization of the distinction include the exploration of the respective prototypical cases and the study of their hybridization and interaction in such contexts as computer-mediated communication or institutional discourse

Conjunctions versus discourse markers in Greek: the interaction of frequency, position, and functions in context

Most studies of discourse markers, including the classic Schiffrin (1987), fail to distinguish properly between considerations of local and global discourse organization. The present study argues for the introduction of a distinction between conjunctions and discourse markers, on the basis of each elements contribution to the local binding of discourse as opposed to the global discourse unfolding. This suggestion is based on the analysis of five connectives (ala, lipon, telospandon, and etsi) in Greek, studied in large corpora spanning the two basic discourse continua (Georgakopoulou and Goutsos 1997), spoken-written and narrative-nonnarrative. Typical patterns relating the distribution of connective forms with unmarked or preferred positions and functions in specific contexts were identified. The analysis specifically suggested that connectives that predominantly operate as discourse markers tend to appear in initial position. Furthermore, discourse markers are characterized by a wider range of functions in spoken than in written genres. The suggested distinction between conjunctions and discourse markers concurs with current views on the role of contextualization cues in discourse and has significant implications for the teaching and lexicography of Modern Greek

Small stories and identities analysis as a framework for the study of im/politeness-in-interaction

Abstract Although (socio)linguistic studies of im/politeness and identities present many parallels in their disciplinary trajectories, not least the shift toward interactional approaches, there is still scope and need for bringing the two traditions together and fruitfully exploring their intersections in method and analysis. In this paper, I put forth a proposal for studying im/politenessin- interaction on the basis of small stories as a framework for narrative and identity analysis. My analysis shows how focusing on the stories’ ways of telling, sites, and tellers and drawing on the concept of positioning sheds light on the tellers’ management of particular im/politeness norms in the uses of and behavior in new media sites. I show how im/politeness and identities construction are interwoven in such cases.

On the Sociolinguistics of Popular Films: Funny Characters, Funny Voices

This paper illustrates the need for, as well as the benefits of, language-centered approaches to Greek film studies. It focuses on the linguistic codes of popular comedy films of the 1960s, and it shows how these films index sociocultural processes. It is argued that, despite the diglossic situation of the period, the linguistic choices in these films are not register-based but character-derived. In other words, the choices capitalize on variation that exists between speakers on the social dimension. The discussion foregrounds the patterned relationship between a set of social varieties (sociolects) and the representation of character-types. This relationship is well-suited to genre requirements, forming a vehicle for the creation of humor. The interpretation of the choice of sociolects in these films is attempted within a Bakhtinian framework of analysis that acknowledges the conflictual (heteroglossic) relations between the sociolects, as well as the ideological and cultural standpoints that each of them encodes.

From Narrating the Self to Posting Self(ies): A Small Stories Approach to Selfies

Abstract Selfies have by now earned a prominent place in the diverse forms of self-representation on social media. In sociolinguistic terms, they have been undergoing a process of enregisterment (Agha 2005), as attested to in moral panics in public discussions and in a developing selfie-related lexicon. A phenomenon worthy of study then, yet largely unexplored, particularly within discourse and sociolinguistic perspectives on identities (possibly due to the selfie’s visual nature). My aim in this article is to venture (and justify) a ‘claiming’ of selfies by small stories. Selfies present the semiotic hallmarks of small stories, as I will show, and so they constitute valuable ‘data’, the study of which can benefit from small stories inquiry into genres as communicative and social practices on social media. Small stories apparatus is well-suited to selfie analysis: it has been specifically developed to account for genres that challenge the assumptions and modes of analysis of conventional narrative and life writing studies. Using data of selfie postings by adolescent women on FB, I will show how within a small stories framework, far from being narcissistic expressions of ‘ideal selves’, selfies emerge as contextualized and co-constructed presentations of self, shaped by media affordances.