Blackwell Reference Online

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Communication research has long recognized the centrality of storytelling in the construction of identities, relationships, and communities. Fisher (1987) went so far as to propose the metaphor of man as “homo narrans,” pointing to the narrativization of experience as a fundamental human cognitive strategy and social practice (→  Rhetoric and Narrativity ). Narratives are made up of sequentially organized verbal and/or other types of signs (visual, musical, kinesthetic) that depict a temporal transition from one state of affairs to another ( Ricoeur 1988 ). Using one or more modalities, they create a plot that incorporates the narrated events within a sense-making scheme. Thus, narratives interweave events, circumstantial elements, and emotions by imbuing them with a sense of meaning and order in terms of temporal coherence, causal links, and value orientations. Current research into narration as a socio-culturally situated activity is a multidisciplinary enterprise, spanning literary studies, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and linguistics. It encompasses both face-to-face and technologically mediated communicative encounters, as well as the poetics and politics of high-profile narrations and everyday storytelling performances. While some scholars view the term “narrative” as an overarching category designating any explanatory system (such as science), reserving the term ... log in or subscribe to read full text