Narrative in English Conversation: A Corpus Analysis of Storytelling

308 Pages·2014·1.491 MB·Studies in English Language

by  Christoph Rühlemann

NarrativeinEnglishConversation
Storytelling is a fundamental mode of everyday interaction. This book is
based upon the Narrative Corpus (NC), a specialized corpus of naturally
occurring narratives, and provides new paths for its study. Christoph
Rühlemann uses the NC’s narrative-specific annotation and XPath and
XQuery,querylanguagesthatallowtheretrievalofcomplexdatastructures,
to facilitate large-scale quantitative investigations into how narrators and
recipientscollaborateinstorytelling.Empiricalanalysesarevalidatedusing
R,aprogramminglanguageandenvironmentforstatisticalcomputingand
graphics. Using this unique data and methodological base, Rühlemann
revealsnewinsights,includingthediscoveryofturntakingpatternsspecific
tonarrative;thefirstinvestigationoftextualcolligationinspokendata;the
unearthingofhowspeechreports,asdiscourseunits,formstrikingpatterns
atutterancelevel;andtheidentificationofthestoryclimaxasthesequential
contextinwhichrecipientdialogueispreferentiallypositioned.
CHRISTOPH RÜHLEMANN isaresearcheratPhilippsUniversityMarburg,
Germany.HeistheauthorofConversationinContext(2007)andco-editor,with
KarinAijmer,ofTheCambridgeHandbookofCorpusPragmatics(forthcoming).
studies in english language
Generaleditor
MerjaKyto¨(UppsalaUniversity)
EditorialBoard
BasAarts(UniversityCollegeLondon),JohnAlgeo(UniversityofGeorgia),SusanFitzmaurice
(UniversityofSheffield),ChristianMair(UniversityofFreiburg),CharlesF.Meyer(Universityof
Massachusetts)
TheaimofthisseriesistoprovideaframeworkfororiginalstudiesofEnglish,bothpresent-dayand
past.Allbooksarebasedsecurelyonempiricalresearch,andrepresenttheoreticalanddescriptive
contributionstoourknowledgeofnationalandinternationalvarietiesofEnglish,bothwrittenandspoken.
Theseriescoversabroadrangeoftopicsandapproaches,includingsyntax,phonology,grammar,
vocabulary,discourse,pragmatics,andsociolinguistics,andisaimedataninternationalreadership.
Alreadypublishedinthisseries:
GeoffreyLeech,MarianneHundt,ChristianMairandNicholasSmith:ChangeinContemporary
English:AGrammaticalStudy
JonathanCulpeperandMerjaKyto¨:EarlyModernEnglishDialogues:SpokenInteractionasWriting
DanielSchreier,PeterTrudgill,EdgarSchneiderandJeffreyWilliams:TheLesser-knownVarietiesof
English:AnIntroduction
HildeHasselgård:AdjunctAdverbialsinEnglish
RaymondHickey:Eighteenth-CenturyEnglish:IdeologyandChange
CharlesBoberg:TheEnglishLanguageinCanada:Status,HistoryandComparativeAnalysis
ThomasHoffmann:PrepositionPlacementinEnglish:AUsage-basedApproach
ClaudiaClaridge:HyperboleinEnglish:ACorpus-basedStudyofExaggeration
PäiviPahtaandAndreasH.Jucker(eds.):CommunicatingEarlyEnglishManuscripts
IrmaTaavitsainenandPäiviPahta(eds.):MedicalWritinginEarlyModernEnglish
ColetteMoore:QuotingSpeechinEarlyEnglish
DavidDenison,RicardoBermúdez-Otero,ChrisMcCullyandEmmaMoore(eds.):AnalysingOlder
English
JimFeist:PremodifiersinEnglish:TheirStructureandSignificance
StevenJones,M.LynneMurphy,CaritaParadisandCarolineWillners:AntonymsinEnglish:
Construals,ConstructionsandCanonicity
ChristianeMeierkord:InteractionsacrossEnglishes:LinguisticChoicesinLocalandInternational
ContactSituations
HarukoMomma:FromPhilologytoEnglishStudies:LanguageandCultureintheNineteenthCentury
RaymondHickey(ed.):StandardsofEnglish:CodifiedVarietiesAroundtheWorld
BenediktSzmrecsanyi:GrammaticalVariationinBritishEnglishDialects:AStudyinCorpus-based
Dialectometry
DanielSchreierandMarianneHundt(eds.):EnglishasaContactLanguage
BasAarts,JoanneClose,GeoffreyLeechandSeanWallis(eds.):TheVerbPhraseinEnglish:
InvestigatingRecentLanguageChangewithCorpora
MartinHilpert:ConstructionalChangeinEnglish:DevelopmentsinAllomorphy,WordFormation,andSyntax
JakobR.E.Leimgruber:SingaporeEnglish:Structure,VariationandUsage
ChristophRühlemann:NarrativeinEnglishConversation
Earliertitlesnotlistedarealsoavailable
Narrative in English
Conversation
A Corpus Analysis of Storytelling
CHRISTOPH RÜHLEMANN
PhilippsUniversityMarburg
UniversityPrintingHouse,CambridgeCB28BS,UnitedKingdom
PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork
CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof
education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521196987
©ChristophRühlemann2013
Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten
permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress.
Firstpublished2013
PrintedinSpainbyGrafosSA,Artesobrepapel
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN978-0-521-19698-7Hardback
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof
URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,
anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,
accurateorappropriate.
To my mother and my father

Contents
Listoffigures pagex
Listoftables xii
Acknowledgements xiv
Listoftags xvi
Introduction 1
1 Towardsaworkingdefinitionofconversational
narrative 4
1.1 Introduction 4
1.2 Genre 4
1.3 Participation 6
1.4 Temporalsequence 14
1.5 Agentorientation 22
1.6 Narrativestructure 24
1.7 Recipientdesign 30
1.8 Sense-making 34
1.9 Summary 37
2 Data,methods,andtools 40
2.1 Introduction 40
2.2 TheNarrativeCorpus 40
2.2.1 Corpusconstruction 40
2.2.2 Corpusannotation 44
2.3 Methodsandtools 63
2.3.1 Methods 63
2.3.2 Tools 65
3 Howdonarratorsandrecipientsco-construct
turntaking? 76
3.1 Introduction 76
3.2 Co-constructionofturnorder 78
3.2.1 Introduction 78
3.2.2 Dataandmethods 82
vii
viii Contents
3.2.3 Results 85
3.2.4 Discussion 88
3.2.5 Summary 90
3.3 Co-constructionofturnsize 92
3.3.1 Introduction 92
3.3.2 Dataandmethods 93
3.3.3 Results 98
3.3.4 Discussion 104
3.3.5 Summary 108
4 RecipientdesignI:Howdonarratorsmarkquotation? 110
4.1 Introduction 110
4.2 Interjectionsasquotationmarkers 123
4.2.1 Introduction 123
4.2.2 Dataandmethods 126
4.2.3 Results 128
4.2.4 Discussion 133
4.2.5 Summary 141
4.3 Pausesasquotationmarkers 142
4.3.1 Introduction 142
4.3.2 Dataandmethods 144
4.3.3 Results 146
4.3.4 Discussion 151
4.3.5 Summary 153
5 RecipientdesignII:Howdonarratorsusediscourse
presentationfordramatization? 155
5.1 Introduction 155
5.2 Climacticstructureatmicrolevel:Sequential
orderingofreportunitsinutterances 156
5.2.1 Introduction 156
5.2.2 Dataandmethods 157
5.2.3 Results 160
5.2.4 Discussion 167
5.2.5 Summary 171
6 Howdorecipientsco-authorstories? 173
6.1 Introduction 173
6.2 Howdorecipientsinfluencenarratorverbosity? 176
6.2.1 Introduction 176
6.2.2 Dataandmethods 178
6.2.3 Results 180
6.2.4 Discussion 184
6.2.5 Summary 187