1.6 The text corpus
There are six narrative texts in this study. In this section, I give an outline of the data collection methodology, the typology of the texts collected, a summary of
the plot of each narrative and a guide to the format of the data presented in this thesis. The methodology used in grammatical and discourse analysis of the texts
is described in the relevant chapters; e.g. the grammatical analysis methodology is outlined in the Methodology section of the Nominal Structures chapter.
1.6.1 Data collection
All of the texts in this study were collected orally in the Lao PDR. The Man-eating Tiger Man-eater was told by Mr Siang Man and recorded and
transcribed by Ajarn Suksavang Simana in Vientiane, and then translated by myself.
Tans Hospital Story Tan was told by Mrs Tan Ounpachanh from Hin Tit village, Hin Heup district, Vientiane province. The text was initially recorded by
Mr Bounpheng Thammavong in Vientiane in 2005. I transcribed it, Mrs Tan edited it to what she felt was an appropriate written style, and then I translated
the written text.
The Bear Bear and The Thief Thief were told by Mrs Ceeng Vilay of Tav Thaan village, Hin Heup district, Vientiane province. The Two Thieves 2
Thieves was told by Mrs Man Ounpachanh Tans mother from Hin Tit village, Hin Heup district, Vientiane province. I recorded these stories in Vientiane in
August 2006, and then transcribed and translated them.
The Orphan and the Monkey Orphan was told by Ajarn Sosavanh Silaphet in Samkhoon village, Hom District, in Vientiane Province in October 2006. I
recorded this story and later transcribed and translated it.
All transcription and translation was done with the help of Kmhmu speakers, Mrs Ceeng Vilay, Mrs Tan Ounpachanh, Mr Buavanh Phengpaseuth and Miss
Pang Vilay, from Vientiane Province; and Mr Khamleey Loytisith from Luang Prabang Province.
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1.6.2 Typology of texts
The texts in this study were selected with a view to studying participant reference patterns. They are all monologue narrative texts. That is, they exhibit a
pattern of chronological progression in the past, and are agent oriented with a system of tracking participants in the story Longacre 1996. Third person
narratives with at least three participants generally give a clearer picture of the participant tracking system of a language Grimes 1975:34; Dooley and
Levinsohn 2001:44, so each text selected for this study has at least three participants, and four of the six are third person reported stories. A first person
narrative was studied to provide further insight into pronoun reference patterns, and a folk-tale was included to check for the use of special linguistic devices in
tracking mythical or supernatural characters. As individual speech styles may vary, a total of five speakers was involved, three women and two men, aged
from 24 to 52 years, with varying levels of education, in order to find general rather than individual usage patterns for the language.
Greninger 2009 outlines further textual features such as textual form, textual content, context and rhetorical goals of the texts under study, which are used
here to further describe the typology of the texts collected.
In terms of textual form, all texts were originally collected in oral form, and one, Tan, was then edited into a written form. There is some variation in openings,
with Tan and 2 Thieves opening with a sentence title, Orphan and Man-eater with an introductory paragraph, and Bear and Thief with no formal opening. The
length varies with the shorter and structurally simpler texts, Thief 20 lines and 2 Thieves 27 lines, the medium length texts, Bear 53 lines and Man-eater 56
lines, and the longer and structurally more complex texts, Tan 135 lines and Orphan 181 lines. All texts are told in the third person except Tan, which is a
first person eyewitness account, and the Bear story, where the storyteller is a backgrounded or peripheral participant. The literary units employed in the texts
include reported events in The Bear, Thief and 2 Thieves, along with physical description and dialogue. Tan includes a eye-witness accounts of events,
description, dialogue and personal comments. Man-eater includes reported events and details of historical, geographical and character identification. The
Orphan is a folk-tale, and includes dialogue, description, and a final moral and hortatory speech.
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Textual content in all these narratives is concerned with rural life among the Kmhmu people of northern Laos, their struggles with health issues, forest
animals, thieves and the desire to escape poverty and become wealthy and prosperous. In terms of context, The Bear, Thief, 2 Thieves and Tan were all told
to a group of family and friends, some of whom had heard the stories before and were familiar with the people and places mentioned. They were told in
Vientiane, away from the original village setting of the stories. The Orphan was told in a rice-field hut and this setting seemed to help the storyteller to move
into the reminiscent mood needed to recall his childhood when he heard this folk-tale from his grandfather.
The main rhetorical goal of most of these stories was to entertain the audience. An exception to that is the Man-eater, which is a gruesome historical record of
the havoc caused by a man-eating tiger in the late 1940s, although some may see entertainment value even in this story. A secondary goal of The Bear, Thief
and Orphan is to show how good character traits, such as courage, skill and kindness are rewarded and bad character traits, such as greed, deceit, violence
and oppression are punished.
1.6.3 Plot summaries
Kategori