Narrative discourse

Abstract

Ubiquitous in the social interaction of everyday life, narrative discourse takes different forms, and is used for multiple social and communicative purposes. This omnipresence makes it a resource well suited to the communication of identity and experience. However, far from being a neatly prescribed field, its study has taken various research perspectives. This entry presents a broad and unavoidably incomplete overview of some of the main themes and applications that have concerned scholars who, broadly speaking,work on narrative discourse as a social and interactional affair. Initially, it will show how the definition of narrative and the analytical tools and procedures employed in its study have evolved across time and space, as an interdisciplinary conversation between narrative analysts and other social scientists, including those involved in discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, psychology, anthropology, and sociology. It will then present a concise overview of some key contributions in the study of narrative to the areas of language and migration, language and family, language education, and language and institutions. A coda introduces some reflections for further research and orientations that might address narrative discourse from other critical and decolonial perspectives. It calls for greater methodological reflexivity, to include positionality, and a focus on ethical issues in the collection and co-production of what researchers define as ‘narratives’.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Adriana Patino: orcid.org/0000-0003-1950-3954

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