Narratives as Socially Situated Events

- 7 - SLA are: the description of the regularities of L2 development e.g. Jordens 1988, the explanation of variability in L2 performance e.g. Tarone 1988, Gregg 1990, the effects of input and interaction on L2 acquisition e.g. Slimani 1987; Bygate 1988; White 1990, and exploratory research into learning style e.g. Reid 1987; Willing 1987. This study can be said to contribute to our understanding of the regularities of L2 narrative development and to offer some explanation for the inherent variability present in this corpus of L2 performance data.

1.3 Narratives as Socially Situated Events

When we peruse a set of transcribed and analysed narrative texts cf. appendix 1 with all preceding and following utterances, and other extraneous material, carefully edited out, we may well be forgiven for viewing them as self-contained entities, comprising a formal system of various components, divorced from the real world and the social and cultural contexts in which they were originally created. Toolan 1988 states: They [i.e. narratives] often do stand alone, not embedded in larger frames, without any accompanying information about the author or the intended audience: they’re just “there”, it seems, like a pot someone has made, and you can take them or leave them. Toolan 1988:4 This isolationist view of narratives is challenged by Dundes 1968 and Polanyi-Bowditch 1976 and discarded completely by researchers, such as Polanyi 1978, 1981b, Tannen 1979, and Heath 1983, who are interested in stories told in particular societies and what they reveal about a community’s cultural presuppositions and values. One reason for the rejection of this de-contextualized view of narratives is that the role of the hearer, or addressee, is totally ignored. Yet this role is crucial to the whole definition and identification of what constitutes a narrative. To quote Toolan again: Perceiving non-random connectedness in a sequence of events is the prerogative of the addressee: it is idle for anyone else e.g. a teller to insist that here is a narrative if the addressee just doesn’t see it as one. In this respect at least, the ultimate authority for ratifying a text as a narrative rests not with the teller but with the perceiveraddressee. p. 8 C h ap te r 1 - 8 - T h er ef o re , w ith o u t g o in g i n to t o o m u ch de ta il h er e, w e n ee d t o s ay s o m et h in g a b o ut h o w th e n ar ra tiv es w er e c o lle ct ed . T h e eig h t P an ja b i L 2 E n gli sh s p ea ke rs w er e e ac h p air ed w ith six d iff er en t in te rlo cu to rs : t w o L 1 E n glis h s p ea ke rs , t w o f ello w L 1 P an ja b i sp ea ke rs , a n d tw o f ro m o th er m in o rit y gr o up s u sin g E n glis h a s t h eir L 2. S ee t ab le 1 .1 b elo w f o r th e p ar tic ula rs o f t h e dy ad s in vo lv ed in t h e p ro d uc tio n o f t h e n ar ra tiv es . fair Sadia G 5.2.82 Pak 15.5.87 Jerome B 14.5.81 Af-Ca 18.6.87 Victor B 9.2.81 Port 11.5.87 David B 9.2.81 Port 23.6.87 Victor B 9.2.81 Port 1.7.87 David B 9.2.81 Port 12.5.87 Shadi G 5.1.82 Farsi 2.6.87 Victor B 9.2.81 Port 2.6.87 Other good Mahjabeen G 25.8.80 Pak 7.4.87 Nadia G 28.1.80 Af-Ca 23.3.87 Sukbhir B 5.12.81 Sikh 15.6.87 Nadia G 28.1.80 Af-Ca 18.6.87 Nadia G 28.1.80 Af-Ca 22.6.87 Shvinder G 12.4.80 Ind 15.6.87 Nadia G 28.1.80 Af-Ca 24.6.87 Sukhbir B 5.2.81 Sikh 7.4.87 fair Dharminder B 30.12.81 Sib 3.6.87 Taslem G 2.2.81 23 6.87 Shaid B 9.5.80 13.5.87 Zabear B 8.12.79 19.5.87 Shazia G 13.8.81 9.4.87 Shaid B 9.5.80 9.4.87 Refat G 1.11.79 15.5.87 Khorum B 1.4.80 20.5.87 BIilingual L2 Own group good NaMr. ata G 10.8.81 11.5.87 Osma G 18.6.80 8.4.87 Asif B 14.3.81 Sib 3.6.87 Mahjabeen G 25.8.80 13.5.87 Osma G 18.6.80 21.5.87 Nasir B 3.11.79 20.5.87 Sheiba G 27.10.80 9.4.87 Asif B 14.3.81 14.5.87 fair Michael B 17.7.81 19.5.87 Adrian B 28.6.79 21.5.87 Sophie G 19.12.79 18.5.87 Matthew B 4.3.81 22.6.87 Clare B G 17.8.80 14.5.87 Christopher B 29.4.81 18.5.87 Clare V. G 11.9.80 5.5.87 Karl B 14.7.80 5.5.87 Monollingual L1 good Nina G 5.1.80 23.3.87 John B 22.5.80 12.5.87 Kenneth B 8.11.79 25.3.87 Julia G 11.11.79 25.3.87 Tammy G 12.12.79 26.3.87 Kenneth B 8.11.79 26.3.87 Tammy G 12.12.79 24.3.87 Tom B 19.6.80 24.3.87 Interlocutor Language abililty in English SPpeakers 1 Shvinder G 12.4.80 Ind VERY GOOD 2 Fariba G 15.9.79 Pak VERY GOOD 3 Sakander B 15.1.80 Pak GOOD 4 Humira G 2.7.80 Pak GOOD 5 Sheiba G 27.10.80 Pak FAIR 6 Aqeel B 6.6.81 Pak FAIR 7 Shazia G 13.8.81 Pak POOR 8 Fehdah B 7.2.80 Pak POOR T ab le 1 .1 - 9 - Key to the abbreviations: Table 1.1 B = boy; G = girl; sib = sibling of speaker Ind = Indian Panjabi L1 speaker, Hindu religion Pak = Pakistani Panjabi L1 speaker, Moslem religion Sikh = Pakistani Panjabi L1 speaker, Sikh religion Af-Ca = Afro-Caribbean L1 speaker, Christian religion Port = Portuguese L1 speaker, Christian religion Farsi = Iranian Farsi L1 speaker, Moslem religion The name, date of birth, and ethnic background of each child is recorded and also the date that each session took place; age-related inferences can thus be made as and when appropriate, although, with such a small sample, no direct relationship can be assumed between age and ability in English as an L2. It was the class teachers who graded the speakers’ language ability in English as “very good”, “good”, “fair”, or “poor”; there were no absolute standards applied in the selection and the label was only intended as a very rough guide. Interlocutors were, wherever possible, chosen from among the speakers’ own immediate peer group so that the dyads would interact well together; they were graded as either “good” or “fair,” and this grading reflected present attainment rather than potential ability. The importance of the interactional relationship between speaker and interlocutors has been recognized by researchers such as Kernan 1977, Watson-Gegeo and Boggs 1977, and Cook-Gumperz and Green 1984. Wolfson 1982 listed a number of variable factors which have a direct bearing on the success of an oral narrative production, such as similarity of sex, age, and ethnicity between the teller and addressee, whether the teller and addressee are friends, and whether the speech situation itself is conducive to the creation of a context for the occurrence of spontaneous speech. Romaine 1984 gives an excellent example of what Wolfson 1982 calls a “performed narrative” pp. 147–148, where “the child presents an ‘eye-witness’ account, whose vividness derives from the fact that a number of events are reported in direct speech” p. 149; but the ten-year-old could only produce such a dramatic narrative because she felt comfortable with her interviewer and perceived her to be a sympathetic listener. - 10 - Another important factor, of course, is the relative appropriateness of the narrative task. Studies in the growth of productive narrative abilities have employed a number of methods to elicit usable data, such as requesting spontaneous first-person narratives e.g. Peterson and McCabe 1983, describing events depicted in a wordless movie e.g. Sleight and Prinz 1985 or wordless book e.g. Bamberg 1987, or retelling a story told by someone else e.g. Merritt and Liles 1989. We chose a retelling task, creating six clearly defined characters and weaving six stories around them, but bringing only two or three of these characters into any one story. We devised two other, less demanding tasks, to precede and follow the main narrative task, which would also centre on the same six fictional characters; these were a picture drawing activity and a free conversation involving puppets. The subjects varied in the extent to which they followed the original but most managed to produce narratives that were uniquely their own, adding imaginative touches not present in the Model Story. The most obvious finding to emerge from the data is the simple fact that children are not equally competent at telling stories; whereas, in conversational tasks, this spread of ability is far less apparent. The narratives produced vary considerably in length as well as in content and in their general effectiveness as communicative acts. Those of the more able storytellers stand as clearly defined monologues with minimal intervention from the interlocutors; while those of the less able tend to be collaborations between teller and hearer. Here the teller more often gets stuck and the hearer is either called upon to assist in the telling, or, unbidden, tries to take over the role of teller. In general, the findings seem to indicate that children find the production of third-person narratives of vicarious experience more difficult than conversational types of discourse. Why should this be? What are the particular constraints imposed on a narrator and why is the narrative task so daunting for young speakers? Why are they so reluctant to “hold the floor” as a storyteller and yet are only too eager to do so when asked to issue instructions to their partners or engage in a free conversation as they manipulate puppet characters? In this thesis we seek to address these and other related questions. In section 1.1, we looked at the presence and function of evaluation in the text, but not at the role of evaluation in the interactional relationship between speaker and hearers during the narrative event. Labov defines this role as one of ensuring that the narrative is appreciated and considered by the hearers to have been worth the telling. As Labov 1972a puts it, - 11 - every good narrator is continually warding off the question, So what?, with regard to his narrative performance. Good narrators are capable of holding their hearers’ attention and of conveying to them their own feelings about the story they are telling, and particular events or characters contained in it. They use specific phonological and syntactic devices to indicate the point of the narrative and to bring their hearers more closely into the narration. The evidence that this is more than mere speculation is supplied by hearers who actually verbalize their responses or make appreciative noises immediately following the effective use of such evaluative devices. We are fortunate in being able to provide such evidence in a few specific instances; unfortunately, any non-verbal responses such as facial expressions and gestures, if not noted down at the time, are subsequently lost. One important question which is raised by this brief consideration of the speaker-hearer relationship during a successful narrative event concerns the consciousness of the teller: Does the good narrator make a conscious decision to use a particular set of evaluative devices or is the selection largely subconscious? It is our contention that it is the latter. Peterson and McCabe 1983 suggest that their “better narratives have an elusive quality best described as charm” p. 202, and enumerate such things as “striking imagery”, “an amusing insight”, the articulation of “expectations”, “an appealing and apt description”, and “how well the participants in an experience are portrayed”, providing telling examples of these factors which all contribute to this indefinable flair that some narrators seem to possess as a natural or instinctive ability. Chapter 2 is a background chapter, dealing with theories of narrative; it also includes a selective discussion on the operation of evaluation in narrative discourse. In chapter 3, we discuss the emergence of narrative skills, first in general terms, and then from the second- language perspective. chapters 4 and 5 belong together: chapter 4 describes the collection, processing, and analysis of the data, and then continues with some general discussion of the findings, particularly the way evaluative syntax correlates with other indicators of language and narrative ability and the evaluative devices preferred by young speakers. Chapter 5 deals with evaluation and related issues, such as plot construction, the incidence of errors especially discourse errors, and a comparison of L1 and L2 narrative productions. Chapters 6 and 7, presenting a detailed report of the actual evaluative devices found and examples of their usage by the various subjects, also belong together: chapter 6 - 12 - is an extended treatment of the Intensifier category, concentrating specifically on the use of Expressive Phonology and Direct Speech; chapter 7 gives an account of the other three evaluative categories, all of which significantly complicate the syntax of the narrative clause. It also deals with External Evaluation. Finally, chapter 8 attempts to draw out some general themes from the findings, some of which have been alluded to above, such as retelling versus performing a narrative and interactive discourse versus monologue, and to correlate these directly with degrees of language proficiency. The chapter concludes by relating the work reported in this thesis to the field at large and by endeavouring to discuss objectively some of its strengths and weaknesses. There is also an evaluation of Labov’s model, stating what it captures and what it fails to capture. - 13 - CHAPTER 2: SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF NARRATIVE

2.1 Preliminary Remarks