叙事研究中的语境取向

Context-Oriented Approach in Narrative Research

目前叙事研究已经成为科学研究中的一种普遍方法,而近十几年里该领域中出现了一种语境转向,即从研究作为事件的叙事转向了关注语境中的叙事。文章探讨了这一转向出现的主要外部原因与内部原因,并介绍了一种较为简单明确的叙事语境分类,在此基础上提出叙事语境的研究方法可以大致分为两类。结论是,只有在叙事研究中将叙事产物(故事)与叙事过程(语境)结合起来,才能更全面地理解个体所讲述的故事。

Narrative contexts have garnered increasing attention in narrative research during the past few decades. Influenced by thetraditional linguistics, which focused on language itself more than its contexts, narrative contexts were ignored by event - centered ap-proach. But after the 1990s, a dynamic concept of contexts was proposed in linguistic research and then it was widely accepted. That isthe external background that facilitated？ the？ emergence of context - oriented approach. The development in narrative research alsocalls for attention to narrative contexts, because increasing studies revealed the limitations of focusing on narrative products only. Re-gardless of the disagreement on categorization of narrative contexts among narrative researchers, a relatively simple and definite classifi-cation could be considered in a local context and a sociocuhural context. The article proposes that the methods to analyze narrative con-texts can be divided into two categories One applies to oral and written linguistic materials and the other applies to paralinguistic mate-rials. These two methods are quite different in the nature of its analyzing materials and the equipments used in the research process. Fororal and written linguistic materials, the methods used in narrative content research are also helpful, such as big stories research andsmall stories research. The method of big stories is commonly used in traditional narrative content analyses, and is particularly helpful toexplore sociocuhural contexts. In these studies on narrative contexts, central study materials are key narratives and canonical narratives;whereas the former focuses on individuals, the latter on groups. By contrast, the method of small stories is recently advocated by somenarrative researchers, but is also quite fruitful in the analysis of narrative contexts. First, the method of small stories focuses on the nar-rative contents that are produced in passing or inconsistent with big life stories, which are regarded as intractable or troublesome in anal-ysis with the method of big stories, and as a result they are neglected in big stories research. But the method of small stories exploresthem as important parts of a narrative. Second, the method of small stories focuses on contextual interactions that are assumed as the ha-sis of narrative development and the point of analysis using the context - oriented narrative approach. Third, the method of small storiesis characterized by uncovering the unconscious contexts in text analysis. These studies can be performed on the basis of either psychoan-alytic unconsciousness or the implicit mental process proposed from contemporary cognitive perspective. This is a noteworthy field for fu-ture work. The strategies of analyzing the paralinguistic materials pose narrative researchers a great challenge. Some fundamental issuesabout paralanguage still remain unsettled. The paralinguistic materials are more flexible and delicate, which means more explanatoryspaces. Correspondingly, the role of researchers gets more important and obvious. These problems may also increase the difficulties ofintegrating the context research of paralinguistic materials with oral and written materials. Further explorations and discussions on how toanalyze the paralinguistic materials are needed in the future. The narrative researches should not only focus on the stories proposed bythe narrators and do text analysis on the events, but also need to explore the contexts in which the narrative process appears. The combi-nation of these two constituents of narratives will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the stories being told by narrators.