Narrative and Narrator

Brewer, W. F., & Lichtenstein, E. H. (1982). Stories are to entertain: A structural-affect theory of stories. Journal of Pragmatics, 6, 473-486. Bortolussi, Marisa, and Peter Dixon. Psychonarratology: Foundations for the Empirical Study of Literary Response. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  • plan understanding: goals enhance recall (474)
  • narrative understanding: mental model, temporal alteration, point of view, etc. (476)
  • story schema; discourse force as purpose of text (477)
  • stories are to entertain (478)
  • discourse structures: surprise, suspense, curiosity; effect on story liking (480-2)
  • differing affect curves predict ratings for story liking and whether a story (482-3)
  • popular stories show affect curves, whereas avant-garde do not (484)
  • Narrator as participant (60)
  • Status of narrator: still a "person" (63-5)
  • Multiple entities in narrative (69)
  • Reader creates narrator: shares values, is cooperative (72-3)*
  • Narrator and author relationship; model of narrator (75-7)
  • Narrator and narratee (78-9)
  • Attributions or inferences about narrator; or associated with a character (80-82)
  • Inference invitations (81-2)
  • Unreliable narrators (82-4)
  • Implicatures and identification with narrator (87-9)
  • Transparency of character (89)
  • Reducing implicatures = lower transparency (91-4)

*Grice maxims: Quality, quantity, relevance, manner


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Document prepared March 15th 2007

 

 

 

Narrator as participant (60)

Status of narrator: still a "person" (63-5)

Multiple entities in narrative (69)

Reader creates narrator: shares values, is cooperative (72-3)

Narrator and author relationship; model of narrator (75-7)

Narrator and narratee (78-9)

Attributions or inferences about narrator; or associated with a character (80-82)

Inference invitations (81-2)

Unreliable narrators (82-4)

Implicatures and identification with narrator (87-9)

Transparency of character (89)

Reducing implicatures = lower transparency (91-4)