Understanding Narrative Discourse: Key Elements & Techniques
1. Narrative Discourse: Communicative Events
1. Narrative discourse: awareness of the communicative events If the major purpose of descriptive discourse is to paint with words (cf chapter 3), the chief object of narrative discourse is to narrate, that is, to tell a story; thus, ‘tellability’ becomes the main concern of narrative discourse. In this sense, it may be suitable to emphasize from the start, that narrative discourse does not talk about a story, but rather tells a story. Telling a story to somebody implies talking about life in its flow, i.e., conveying to a receiver information expressed in words about events that have taken place in time, in a specific setting or under certain circumstances, for example, how and where a secretary met her boyfriend, why they got married immediately after their meeting, etc.
An event is, then, the central issue of narrative discourse, as an image is the most important concern of descriptive discourse. In effect, even in an anecdote, which is the simplest kind of story consisting of narrative discourse, there is always an event. These events take place in a setting where there are participants, factual or fictional characters, who usually carry out some, or all of these three activities, simultaneously: (a) acting (they do things); (b) speaking (they utter meaningful sentences in appropriate contexts), and (c) thinking (they imagine things, consider facts, make expectations, etc.) at the same time.
The story told in narrative discourse may accordingly be characterised as information about a sequence of events and episodes arranged into a plot or argument, consisting of: (a) the actions carried out by the characters participating directly or indirectly in the event; (b) the speech that they have uttered; and (c) the thoughts that have passed through their minds.
Narrative discourse is, therefore, responsible for representing by means of language an event or a sequence of events, real or fictitious, in which there are actions, words and thoughts that occur in a temporal dimension. Although in prose texts narrative discourse is undoubtedly the emperor of most passages, it is not uncommon to notice a balance between descriptive discourse depicting the setting, the mood and the characters in a spatial scope, and narrative discourse presenting the actions and the events in a temporal dimension.
Storytelling, considered as a general human semiotic45 skill, can be examined from different epistemological perspectives (anthropology, psychology, sociology, linguistics, etc.), and in order to cover all the interests of narrative analysis, an independent discipline, called narratology, has been suggested. However, this chapter will confine itself to linguistic narratives, namely, the significant elements of the verbal structure of narrative texts (descriptive texts included), embracing their formal properties, their unique configuration of language and their own internal logic and coherence (Todorov, 1969: 10; Ryan, M. L., 1979: 127-55).
2. Time in Narrative Discourse
2. Time in narrative discourse
Descriptive discourse puts space into action, that is, by means of descriptive discourse the reader is taken from one place to another, so that he can see, smell, feel, hear, etc. If descriptive discourse exploits the spatial scope, it is the task of narrative discourse to make use of the temporal dimension. In other words, if the nominal group is the brushstroke or typical form of descriptive discourse, the verbal group is the archetypal linguistic form of narrative discourse. The most common verbal tense used in narration to exploit the temporal dimension is the past tense:
As Genette (1982: 127) has said, this obligation of the use of the past time as the axis upon which narrative discourse is built is also applicable to novels set in the future and to works of science fiction, though they may point to imaginary or futuristic actions and events. However, there are other tenses expressing past time (the past perfect, the present perfect and the simple present in its historical present value) which are also suitable in arranging a sequence of events into a simple anecdote, a novel, a biography, a short story, etc.
The commonest way of presenting actions into the reader is the chronological order of events in the past, that is, the presentation of actions in the order in which they happened. How- ever, it is the narrator’s role to make use of different narrative techniques. One of these techniques consists in beginning the action in medias res, in the midst of things; another technique is the so-called ‘flashback’, whereby the time sequence is altered and the narrator returns to events in the past.
The narration of events can be condensed or expanded. An event that lasts a few minutes in real life may take many pages in the narration and, conversely, many years’ activities can be presented in an almost elliptical way through a few very short sentences. Condensed narration summarizes in a few words or sentences actions that are probably the prelude to expanded narration, normally consisting of a direct scene involving speech and full exploitation of kinesic, paralinguistic and proxemic detail.
The Narrator as a Narrative Device
The narrator as a narrative device Descriptive discourse exists because there is a voice that depicts characters and settings. Narrative discourse also exists because there is a voice which pilots the sequence of events of this modality of discourse. In both cases the voice is the same, the narrator’s. In short, the narrator is the voice we hear talking of settings, characters and events.
Narrators are communicative artifices or devices created by their authors to conduct narrative (and descriptive) discourse. The role of narrators has changed over the last centuries. In many eighteenth and nineteenth century novels their presence as ethical and educational orators was clearly perceived by the reader. However, in many modern novels many narrators try to pass unnoticed. Narrators, however, are not to be confused with their authors. The narrator is, in fact, the result of the great authorial effort carried out in the strategy devised by the architect of the narrative discourse.
The creation and the role of the narrator is probably the most important narrative technique. The role of the narrator in descriptive and narrative discourse is paramount: he or she has the serious responsibility of dispensing information about events, character and settings to readers of viewers. 47 Dispensing, in this case, implies both revealing and concealing valuable facts and details, that is, manipulation, as we have already seen in the temporal condensation or
expansion of events.
Therefore, the way in which this information is presented to the reader is crucial, as it may produce different and unexpected effects. Information is wrapped up in language, and language always conveys meaning, which constitutes an endless source of senses (implications, implicatures, conventional presuppositions, pragmatic presuppositions, connotations, irony, etc.). As has already been said (cf chapter 1), one of the goals of linguistic analysis of literary texts is a better understanding of its global meaning. One of the most appealing dichotomies in linguistic analysis of literary texts is devices/effects; devices are the linguistic tools, parameters or magnitudes selected by the user of the language in order to accomplish effects, i.e, motivations, impressions and results.
Two other powerful narrative techniques, besides the creation of the narrator, are: (a) the point of view adopted by the narrator, that is, the way of telling the story; and (b) the methods of presentations of the speech and thoughts of the characters.
The Narrator’s Point of View
The narrator’s point of view. In criticism and in linguistic or literary studies the term Apoint of view” can be understood in at least two senses: (a) world view, outlook or ideology; and (b) a narrative technique.
In the first sense, “narrative point of view” has a meaning associated to the one we have assigned to pragmatic presupposition (cf “meaning” in chapter 2) as it involves ideology, assumptions and beliefs and, in this case, it is a synonym of opinions or attitudes, used in its everyday sense as their substitute. In its second sense it refers to the relation between the narrator and the story, that is, the technique that shows the stance he has chosen in telling his narrative. However, both meanings, the specialized sense of “narrative technique” and the sense of “opinions or attitudes”, may, on occasion overlap, or be closely interconnected.
This stance is an effective technique of narrative discourse because of the effects it can produce on the reader. However, the term point of view here has nothing to do with seeing but with telling. That is why some critics find it confusing and unsatisfactory, because of its visual connotations, and prefer to use, in its stead, the more neutral term of perspective.
The narrator’s point of view is certainly one of the most meaningful, and the same time controversial devices used in narration. It may perform a prominent function in the representation of the general and detailed meaning of the text. Its significance arises from the motivation it can produce in the reader, that is, it can have an influential effect on his opinions and reactions because he is bound to view the world through the eyes of the narrator.
Thus, the controversy over this term arises because it is usually applied to mean two different things: (a) the narrative voice; and (b) the ideological, visual or psychological orientation towards events, characters and settings
Point of View as Narrative Voice
Point of view as narrative voice
As narrative voice, the narrator’s point of view is actually a narrative technique connected with the stance that the narrator takes in relation to the story he tells. The narrator may adopt different perspectives or points of view. For example, he can be an external voice, a voice that stands in a supernatural position above all the characters he has created, aware of what they know and how they feel; but on occasions the narrator may be the voice of a principal, often the main, character, or the voice of one of the minor characters of the story who, standing on the edges of the main incidents and circumstances of the plot, adopts the position of an aloof and acute observer. In this first case, we can talk of an omniscient Narrator; in the second, of a first-person narrator, and in the third of a fringe narrator; in The Great Gatsby, for example, the narrator is a fringe character. Due to the numerous innovative experiments in this technique during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it can be said that the number of points of view has probably no limits. The different attempts that have been made to provide for a systematic arrangement of the basic types of point of view have always disregarded one point or another. However, two large groups can be made, one for the single point of view, also called “limited point of view”, and another for multiple point of view, also called “combined points of view”:
I. Single point of view:
(a) omniscient narrator; (b) first-person narrator;
(c) third person narrator (non-omniscient); (d) fringe narrator;
(e) intrusive ‘author’ or authorial intrusion.
II. Multiple point of view: (f) epistolary novel; (g) ‘Chinese boxes’;
(h) ‘Bouncing’ points of view and alternate narrators
The omniscient narrator has been probably the most common in literature. Critics who dislike these narrators mock them as spies with sophisticated devices, thanks to which we are provided with information about other characters that is not given to them. But most of the so – called ‘omniscient narrators’ are merely efficient observers who have made a reasonably good use of their ‘omniscience’; if they were really all-knowing and all-seeing narrators they would be tiring and irritating advisors who would rob us of all the appeal and fascination that the reading of a text provides. The omniscient narrator can adopt the we form on some occasions.
Although we can occasionally be used by the omniscient narrator, it is more appropriate for the fictional memoir, the intrusive narrator and the first-person narrator.
In the First-Person Narrator the narrator is one of the central characters invented by the author, that is, the author dresses up as one of the principal fictional characters and will conduct the thread of the story, from his point of view. The first-person narrator is on occasions more plausible than other types of narrators because of the impression of verisimilitude that he originates. The constant repetition of the I pronoun and its related forms (my, mine, me) gives his account the value of the testimony of a witness, and therefore, of first-hand information.
As point of view in this case does not mean opinion, it might be risky and most unrealistic to think that the first-person narrator is a carbon-copy of the author or closely resembles what we know of the author himself, assuming that the first-person narrator expresses the personal feelings or impressions of the writer about the events that are taking place; authors express their true or intended opinion in the so-called Fictional Memoir. First-person narrators have two rigid restrictions:
(a) The first-person narrator, in order to direct the course of the story, is required to be present at all the events and in all the circumstances. This is a question that has caused a great deal of confusion. For example in the first line of Melville’s Moby Dick we read “CALL me Ishamel”, which is a clear sign that we are dealing with a first-person narrator. As the book goes on, we come across many more references to an ‘I’ narrator: “I thought I would sail…”, “Whenever I find …”, “I am in the habit of …”, “for my part”, etc.). But when we go deeper into the book, the main character, who is at the same time the narrator, seems to fade away for long periods of time, and his role is occasionally assumed by an omniscient narrator who tells the reader of events at which the first-person narrator is most unlikely to have been present.
(b) The presentation and description of the setting and of the other characters will necessarily be distorted as they will suffer from the narrator’s broad or narrow vision of the world if he is to be self-consistent.
A fringe narrator is also a fictional character as the first-person narrator, but his role in the events of the plot is probably minimal or irrelevant, as he stands on the outskirts or borders of the action. His main function is to observe, and when he takes a hand in the plot his role is a minor one (Raban, J., 1977: 33). Although he may try to be fair, his account of facts may also be biased as in first-person narration.
The third-person narrator, however, is not a fictional character in the plot. As an outsider to the story, he observes all the characters from a privileged stance referring to them with the neutral ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’. This more distant point of view enjoys greater credibility and his accounts are deemed more authentic and trustworthy by the reader.
The intrusive narrator, also called ‘authorial comment’, is very common in the nineteenth and twentieth century novel. Authors occasionally offer the reader general statements or interpretations; these comments have not been universally approved of by from modern critics, because of their irrelevance and the inevitable interruption of the narrative thread. In Mansfield Park the narration is suddenly interrupted by a voice expressing an opinion:
All Huntington exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefitted by her elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women to deserve them. Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, found herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances fared yet worse [our italics].
Alternate narrators. As in all single-character points of view the reader may run the risk of observing and analyzing the world through an individual filter, some authors prefer several narrators’ points of view. One of them is the so-called “alternate narrators” point of view. This technique consists in having several first-person narrators narrating alternatively; according to the combination of narrators there are several possible variations on this technique. All these variations have the common feature of presenting information in interrupted sequences, that is, intermittently. Some think that this point of view is more natural and realistic than the linear, single point of view, since our perception of reality is seldom linear: it often comes at intervals, in an intermittent way.
The epistolary form, with letters as its usual modality, can add greater realism and verisimilitude to a story, chiefly because it mimics the workings of real life. It is thus able to demonstrate differing points of view without recourse to the device of an omniscient narrator.
Chinese boxes are a set of boxes of graduated size, each fitting inside the next larger box. In literature a Chinese box structure refers to a novel or drama that is told in the form of a narrative inside a narrative (and so on), giving views from different perspectives. Examples include Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel Frankenstein and Jostein Gaarder’s The Solitaire Mystery.
Many stories, especially in literature, alternate between the first and third person. In this case, an author will move back and forth between a more omniscient third-person narrator to a more personal first-person narrator. Often, a narrator using the first person will try to be more objective by also employing the third person for important action scenes, especially those in which he/she is not directly involved or in scenes where he/she is not present to have viewed the events in first person
One variation of alternate narrators is the shift from first to third person narrators, “bouncing points of view”. Many stories, especially in literature, alternate between the first and third person. In this case, an author will move back and forth between a more omniscient third- person narrator to a more personal first-person narrator. Often, a narrator using the first person will try to be more objective by also employing the third person for important action scenes, especially those in which he/she is not directly involved or in scenes where he/she is not present to have viewed the events in first person
Raban (1979: 26) has analyzed this technique in Saul Bellow’s Herzog. When Bellow shifts from an I or first-person narrator to a he/she or third-person narrator, he “seems to be trying to emphasize our shifting relationship with his hero, suggesting that we should be detached at one moment and involved the next”. The common core of all ‘alternate narrators’ is that it has the advantage of presenting ‘intermittent knowledge’, which has a parallel in our perception of life (Raban, J., 1977: 33)
4.2 Point of View as Ideological Orientation
4.2 Point of view as ideological orientation
As ideological orientation, the notion of point of view refers to the perspective that produces two rewarding effects: (a) filter; and (b) attachment or distance.
Events and characters exist only in the way in which the narrator presents them to the reader. In this way the ‘narrative point of view’ acts as an alert and knowledgeable filter of all the events and circumstances that take place in the story before the reader comes to know them. This filter will also affect the characters’ speech and thoughts; the narrator will intervene by converting them into narrativized speech and thought through indirect style.
The concept of attachment alludes to the psychological distance between the narrator and the characters of the narration that the author has created when choosing a point of view. This
‘distance’ should be interpreted as the degree of support or sympathy which readers are induced to experience. The same event presented with greater or less linguistic detail, that is, with a positive or negative manipulation of the language, will probably induce the reader to feel attraction, indifference, sympathy or repulsion for a particular character or scene. We are not often allowed to penetrate the hidden reasons of human behaviour; yet, when the narrator lets us have detailed information about the causes and the grounds that have driven the most merciless scoundrel to act, our opinions about him will probably be warmer and more sympathetic.
These two narrative questions of ‘filter’ and ‘attachment’ have been given a better and more comprehensive development in the analysis conducted by Genette through the concept of focalisation.
Methods of Presentation: Voices and Thoughts
Methods of presentation of the voices and thoughts of the character. The polyphony of the text.
As we have seen, point of view is an influential narrative artifice. It may arouse the reader’s sympathy or antagonism when the narrator tells him of the events that take place and the things done by the characters. But characters also speak and think, they are social beings that interact, i.e., they perform a communicative function.
The primary role of speech in narrative discourse is, as one could expect, the introduction of a social or ethical argument, the presentation of facts or evidence, the assessment of a moral issue, etc. But it also serves for the description of setting and mood, for the progression of plot (cf textual progressivity in chapter 2) and, above all, for the development of character. And, although there is usually a balance in prose between discourse presenting setting and characters (de- scription), discourse presenting action and events (narration) and speech, in some novels speech bears the greatest responsibility in the creation of plot, action, setting and character. For example in Compton-Burnett’s A Family and a Fortune, about 98 per cent of the novel consists of dialogue.
Textual speech is formed by the voices of all the characters; in this case, the text becomes
‘polyphonic’, as the narrator’s lone voice joins a consortium of other voices. These voices may emerge, in theory, as independent or with some degree of semantic and literary independence from the author, but as Bakhtin has pointed out they are dependent and are useful to the intention of the writer “lui servant, jusqu’a un certain point, de second langage”.
In order to present their voices, their actual speech, and their thoughts, narrative discourse provides the author of a literary work with another relevant device, called modes of presentation of speech and thought, consisting of the techniques used by the narrator in presenting the actual speech and thoughts of characters. The most traditional methods of speech presentation are direct speech and indirect speech.
Direct Speech
Direct speech is in theory the best way to present speech in narrative prose as it is the most mimetic, that is, it tries to create the illusion that the dialogue or conversation is taking place in the present. This illusion is achieved by reproducing the message intact in all its details, with the exact, accurate and complete words uttered by the characters in the actual dialogue. This method also has several advantages over the other:
(a) It gives fictional characters autonomy to speak directly without any apparent authorial filter. Autonomy in this case means that the actual words of the characters are not mediated in any way by the narrator, as in this short passage from John Buchan. The opposite of autonomy in this case is “narrativisation”, as we shall see in the other techniques of speech presentation.
‘When did this happen?’
‘Early last December, the time we had the black frost. You remember, Dick, how I took a week’s holiday and went down to Norfolk after duck’.
‘You haven’t told me the man’s name’.
‘I have. Medina’.
‘Who on earth is Medina?’
‘Oh, Lord! Dick. You’re overdoing the rustic. You’ve heard of Dominick Medina’.
(John Buchan, The Three Hostages, 1953, p. 42).
However, this autonomy is not complete in most cases. The presence of the narrator is felt in the verba dicendi that support the actual utterance of the characters and in the non-verbal language that usually accompanies it, that is, the kinesic, paralinguistic and proxemic comments.
(b) Autonomy helps in creating the impression of naturalness, of proximity and even of intimacy. The presentation of the original register of formality by preserving the original lexical and syntactic features of the actual utterance help in the creation of impression of naturalness:
‘I said what stake you got in this guy? You takin’ his pay away from him?’
‘No, ‘course I ain’t. Why ya think l’m sellin’ him out?’
‘Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is’.48
(c) And finally, it gives variety to the text, as the voice of the narrator alternates intermittently with the voices of the characters. Then the text is said to become polyphonic, breaking the possible monotony of the narrator’s sole voice. The text is now richer with new voices that can offer stylistic variety in lexis, syntax, phonology dialect and register.
However, the integration of direct style with the narrator’s voice is not always successfully achieved. Sometimes there is a brusque transition from narration to speech, and vice versa; in these cases, the reader perceives jerks or leaps in the narrative prose. Abrupt integration in the narration seems to be one of the inconveniences of direct style. This curtness is most easily felt in the unvaried use of verba dicendi (ask, say, tell, etc); some refined writers try to avoid these uninteresting verbs by resorting to others like add, name, exclaim, request, repeat, reply, hesitate, mumble, mutter, cry, call, shout, muse, etc., which offer the additional feature of conveying paralinguistic information.
Indirect Speech
In indirect speech there is, however, a smooth bringing together of narration and speech into a harmonized entity. A great part of this smoothness is due to the fact that the third person pronoun of narration has absorbed the original first and second person pronouns of direct speech. In indirect speech there is a main clause including the verba dicendi, which identifies the speaker, and a subordinate clause in which the changes in tense and pronouns have taken place.
When the supposed dialogue, i.e., speech, has been absorbed by narration (with the corresponding changes in lexis and grammatical forms) Genette calls this method of speech presentation “narrativised speech” because narration has absorbed or incorporated speech into itself and the transition from speech into narration is hardly discernible, while we have seen that indirect speech implies the manipulation of the characters’ voice by the narrator. In narrativised speech there is a greater degree of manipulation by the narrator of the actual speech of the characters. Very often we cannot retrieve the actual words uttered by the characters because there are no clues or hints left that could help the reader to reconstruct the original utterance.
The merging of narration and speech is carried out at the expense of loss in naturalness, autonomy and variety in the language of the characters. The loss of naturalness is more clearly felt in the more ‘neutralized’ register of the characters. Here the actual words uttered by the characters are not offered in their original form; they pass through the filter of the narrator, who necessarily manipulates them when he attempts to reconstruct them. In short, this integration means that narrative discourse consists of narration proper (the account of events), verbal lan- guage or speech, authorial comments and comments on non-verbal language (paralinguistics, kinesics and proxemics). These comments (dropped his aitches, poor articulation, etc.) are designed to counterbalance the loss of the features of an original voice.
As a consequence of the easy integration of speech and narration, there is a free movement from one to the other, which adds two further positive features, with the result that the tempo of the narrative text gains in vividness and pace.
The linguistic differences between direct and indirect style include three types of changes, all of them related to deixis, plus a fourth one, the presence of the optional ‘that’:
a) changes in the tense (there is a backshift);
b) changes in the person of the subject of the clause;
c) changes in other words;
However, indirect style may have other drawbacks:
(1) It cannot always guarantee the exact reproduction of the characters’ words. For example, it can manipulate the communicative meaning of the characters’ words by giving more prominence to some parts of the original utterance (The use of techniques such as thematisation, especially by using It was his mother who … etc.)
(2) There is not always an even balance between the language of the narrator and the language of the characters; in other words, smooth integration is usually achieved at the expense of speech. The language of the narrator is always expected to exhibit accurate diction and well- built syntax. The characters’ speech does not necessarily have to be so perfect. Inevitably the characters’ speech is influenced by the richer and more careful prose of the narrator. However, this merge in the register of the narrator’s voice and the characters’ speech is sometimes desirable from a literary point of view.
(3) Not all direct utterances or sentences can be turned into indirect style. As Seymour
Chatman has pointed out, some sentences can only appear in direct form. “Egbert blurted out,
‘How I have loved it!’” cannot be transformed to “Egbert blurted out how he had loved it” and still preserve its original meaning. In the first sentence ‘how’ means ‘how much’, while in the second it means ‘in what manner’”.
In order to overcome or to reduce the problems caused by the shortcomings of the two traditional methods of speech presentation, direct and indirect speech, many experiments have been carried out in the presentation of characters’ speech. As a result of these experiments new methods of speech presentation have arisen. The variety of techniques is much richer than all the taxonomies that have attempted to summarise them. The most important classes in modern prose seem to be: free indirect speech, free direct speech, submerged speech and summarised speech.
Free Indirect Speech
Free indirect speech is used in the representation of verbal events (utterances) and non- verbal events (thoughts). This modality of speech tries to have the advantages of both direct and indirect speech. As indirect speech, free indirect speech has narrativisation, that is, a smooth integration of narration and speech, the presence of the narrator being linguistically felt in the backshift of tenses, in the subordinate clause with a verb in the third person, and in the verba dicendi or ‘speech verbs’. And it also has the advantages of direct speech because the actual words of the characters are kept with their exclamations, repetitions, interruptions, vulgar or colloquial expression. Consequently this speech is not ‘neutral’, as it does not eliminate or erase the traits of the original words in their actual utterance.
As free indirect speech displays an atypical structure (Oltean, 1995: 21-41), delimiting what it is has been a source of challenge and bafflement for both linguists and stylisticians, most of whom think that free indirect speech is a label or cover-word that embraces many experiments in the immediate representation of spontaneous, non-reflexive consciousness, including states of perception, dreams or fantasies. This is the reason why the verba dicendi can include, besides verbs of saying and asking (say, ask, wonder, answer, reply, etc.), others, such as psychological verbs (think, decide, realize, etc.), verbs of perception (see, feel, hear, etc.), verbs of exclamation (exclaim), “world creating verbs” (dream, imagine etc.). However, these verbs are external to the free indirect structure, being separated by commas (“Well then let her go and be damned to her, she told herself”. Mrs Dalloway), by dislocations (“What would he think, she wondered, when he came back?”. Mrs. Dalloway) or by parentheses (“But these questions of love (she thought, putting her coat away), this failing in love with women”. Mrs Dalloway).
In sum, free indirect speech has a ‘blended’ nature: (a) It is free, that is, it has grammatical autonomy in the preservation of the emotive element (exclamations, colloquialism, slangy words, etc.), in the syntactic features suggesting dialogue (I asked him what were you doing here?) or in the lack of subordination clauses; and (b) it is indirect in that it has the same changes in verbal forms (present tense becomes past tense, etc.) and in personal pronouns (first and second person, etc,) as in indirect speech.
Submerged Speech
Submerged speech shares a common feature with free indirect speech, viz., an attempt at narrativisation, which is absolute in submerged speech and relative in free indirect speech. Submerged speech is the most thrifty method of speech presentation as all the message that the characters actually utter is summarized in a few words:
He made a sour remark to her. She offered to help them.
He approved of her behaviour.
They argued about the trip to Australia. She had mentioned that before.
Here the reader is not provided with the specific means to reconstruct the actual speech that has been uttered when “He made a sour remark to her”, “She offered to help them”, “He approved of her behaviour”, etc.
The term of stream of consciousness is the label applied to the effect of a number of techniques used to represent human consciousness, especially the embryonic stage of thought characterized by chaotic and contradiction, called ‘interior monologue’. However, not all the techniques that are so named really deserve this term, unless we only mean ‘inner awareness’ (Humphrey, R., 1953: 5). One of the characteristics shared by all the techniques of stream of consciousness is that the representation of thoughts does not follow the ordinary principles governing syntax. This absence of syntactic rigour, through the endless clustering of sentences and clauses, or their continuous branching is called anacoluthon. It is probably the result of the desire to reflect the flow of consciousness.
Thanks to the combination of free direct style and free indirect style in the expression of interior monologue, there has been an easy integration of stream of consciousness into modern narrative discourse as one of its chief components. The two styles, free direct and free indirect, due to their different linguistic structures, can be very suitable for the representation of different phases of the psychological process (Dolezel, L., 1966: 257-64), in which moments of lively emotion (expressed through free direct style) alternate with moments of tranquil reflection (expressed with free indirect style).
In this way, narrative discourse in this century has lost a great deal of its objective, realistic character and has become ‘polyphonic’ (Reyes, G., 1984), as two simultaneous levels reveal themselves outwardly: the level of extrospection, or external reality, and the level of introspection, or internal reality.
5.2. The characters’ non verbal language. The unity of the communicative act
The voices of the fictional characters are important because they interact with each other in their world of fiction, also called diegetic world. Their utterances convey meanings. Speaking or oral behaviour, is mainly, although not exclusively, a verbal action. When we speak we emit sounds, that is, we make meaningful utterances, but at the same time we produce gestures, we make noises, etc. That is why communicative events are not exclusively verbal; there are a lot of peripheral phenomena that take place simultaneously when an utterance is expressed. Verbal communication consists not only of words, but also of non-verbal acts that take place at the same time as the words are uttered. In daily life, dialogues, verbal and non-verbal acts are carried out simultaneously, while in narrative discourse they have to be split up into successive acts. Only dramatic discourse can preserve the simultaneity of verbal and non-verbal acts.
In this way, a communicative event consists of simultaneous verbal and non-verbal acts that produce verbal and non-verbal meanings. But this simultaneity inevitably turns into successiveness in narrative discourse; simultaneous acts are split up into successive acts of verbal and non-verbal acts.
Needless to say, communication is not only made up of words, of spoken language, but also of paralinguistic and kinesic elements as well as of a socio-cultural context. Intonation, gestures, physical contact between the speakers, social class, intellectual levels, etc., are part of the dialogue, and the meaning of a sentence may be changed depending on these elements. Thus, Sinclair gives the following example: if a father asks his son in a rather angry way “Is that your coat on the floor?” the sentence is not understood as a question but as an order. Again, the expression “You fool!” may have very different meanings depending on who it is uttered to and in what circumstances it is uttered.
Non-verbal meanings of an utterance can perform three functions: enhancement, reduction or annulment of the propositional meanings of the utterance (i.e. the meaning of the utterance has nothing to do with the propositional meaning). “Non-verbal meanings” can be arranged in three groups:
l) kinesics, or facial or corporal movements.
2) paralinguistics, or modulations of the voice (pitch, loudness, whispering, etc.)
3) proxemics, or space, position or distance between the speakers (Duncan, S., 1969; Lindenfeld, J., 1971).
6. Semantics of lexis and syntax in narrative discourse
As lexis and syntax carry the greatest load of the semantics of language, they are useful and powerful devices when exploited by narrative discourse.
6.1.Lexis in the narrator’s voice
6.2.Lexis in the speech of the fictional characters
6.3.Syntax in the narrator’s voice
6.1 Lexis and the narrator’s voice
We have already seen the relevance of lexis and of syntax in descriptive discourse. The two linguistic levels are also relevant in narrative discourse, as both of them have generally played a significant role in the criticism carried out in narrative discourse; in classical literary criticism, the study of diction, or the appropriate choice of words in a literary work, has always been a goal. It includes, for example, accuracy indicating shades of meaning, for example fling instead of throw, or cast, etc.
The examination of lexical units is relevant because these linguistic components can reflect more easily than others a hierarchical system of moral values, a scale of social excellence and merits (pragmatic presupposition). For example, a cursory analysis of Jane Austen’s works can provide us with two strands of meaning:
a) lexical units involving money and social classes: (education, money, connections, rank circles, advantage, etc.) in Jane Austen;
b) adjectives and abstract nouns and verbs assessing the values of the different social classes and ranks; words of this sort are also called ‘reactive vocabulary’ because they reflect personal emotions, feelings and sensations, that is, people’s reactions (delightful, excellent, admired, evaluation, etc.).
6.2 Lexis and the speech of the fictional characters
Lexis in the speech of the fictional characters (register and dialect) can be very useful in the successful creation of fictional characters; appropriate exploitation of lexis provides numerous possibilities for the creation of highly individual characters.
Syntactic constructions in speech are also a good means of reinforcing character discrimination: (a) Well-ordered sentences, with suitable superordination and subordination (parataxis
and hipotaxis), are usually assessed by readers as a sign of logical, creative and intelli- gent minds, although they may lack sincerity or naturalness. These minds are capable of structuring information hierarchically, resorting to antithetical clauses where necessary, while, at the same time, making a logical progression in the discourse. This is the typical syntax of intelligent characters, which is also used by the intrusive narrators with their authorial comments, or by some first-person narrators, such as Robinson Crusoe.
(b) Syntax formed by a succession of shorter sentences linked by juxtaposition or coordination may reveal a more spontaneous mind, free from social or mental constraints.
(c) Unstructured syntax may denote a partial or utter incapacity to perceive plans, to discern facts or events and to understand people; in other words, it is a clear hint of hedonistic minds with illogical thought processes. It may also appear in the speech and thoughts of children or mentally disabled characters.
6.3 Syntax and the narrator’s voice
We have already suggested that textual meaning is an endless source of meanings. Syntactic forms can be relevant in the creation of communicative meanings:
a) The historical present is used occasionally to convey more vividness to the story, as the events and the characters seem to be closer to the reader.
b) Modals convey a considerable percentage of the communicative meanings. Modals of obligation (must, have to) imply certainty, distance, authority; modals of possibility (may) suggest doubt;
c) impossible conditionals, for example, may create the meaning of “hopelessness”:
Even if Lydgate had been inclined to be quite open about his affairs, he knew it would have been in Mr Farebrother’s power to give him the help he immediately wanted. (George Eliot Middlemarch).
d) The repetition of syntactic patterns may create a sense of insistence, of dismay, etc:
With the year’s bills coming in from his tradesmen, with Dover’s threatening hold on his furniture, and with nothing to depend on …(George Eliot’s Middlemarch).