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Narration /dialogue /description The Narration

The document discusses the role of genre in shaping the horizon of expectation in literary works, as outlined by Hans Robert Jauss, emphasizing how genre influences interpretation and aesthetic value. It also explores narrative elements such as narration, dialogue, and description, detailing their functions and types within a narrative text. Additionally, it defines narrative texts, their characteristics, and the importance of enunciation, verb tenses, and the reader's experience.

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11 views5 pages

Narration /dialogue /description The Narration

The document discusses the role of genre in shaping the horizon of expectation in literary works, as outlined by Hans Robert Jauss, emphasizing how genre influences interpretation and aesthetic value. It also explores narrative elements such as narration, dialogue, and description, detailing their functions and types within a narrative text. Additionally, it defines narrative texts, their characteristics, and the importance of enunciation, verb tenses, and the reader's experience.

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The horizon of expectation

Genre serves to shape a horizon of expectation as mentioned by the critic.


German Hans Robert Jauss in his work For an Aesthetics of Reception,
1978. The genre thus provides us with elements for recognizing the meaning of the work.
and guides us in its reading and interpretation. Furthermore, gender can create a
aesthetic value. According to Jauss, there is only aesthetic value in the gap between
the horizon of expectation of a work and the way in which the work disrupts this horizon
waiting. The genre therefore contributes to literary novelty.

Narration /dialogue /description

1. The narration

The narration is the detailed relation, written or oral (of a fact, an event). The
The narrative text has the main objective of telling a story to the reader. It follows in
general a scheme called narrative scheme and consists of a number of
of actants governed by an actantial scheme. The times of narration are the imperfect, the
simple past and the present of narration. Actions follow each other alongside the
dialogues and descriptions to advance the plot.

The dialogue

In a dialogue, the narrator chooses to make the characters' words heard,


word for word; this is the case of direct speech. It is no longer him who speaks but the
characters. There is therefore a change in the situation of enunciation. This change
allows to explain in particular the transition, in a literary narrative, from the simple past
(narration) in the present (dialogue). It also allows for reporting on the
possible variations of language register.

Functions of dialogue in a novel

Ensure textual cohesion, make a transition between a description and


the sequence of the narrative.

Inform about the character, make an indirect moral portrait.

Provide clues about the character, paint a moral and/or social portrait.

Advance the action by bringing in a new element.

The dialogue allows the narrator to economize on a comment.


psychological; the characters reveal themselves directly through their words; the
Exclamations, the ellipses convey their emotions.
Make the story and the words more vivid.

Types of dialogues

-Love dialogue

Confrontation dialogue

-Friendly dialogue

Didactic dialogue

Dialectical dialogue

-Realistic dialogue...

The description

A narrative can have two types of representations: representations of actions and


events on one hand, and on the other hand representations of objects, places and
characters. These latter representations are called descriptions. To describe,
It is a way of interpreting the real by selecting characteristic features.
description is necessarily selective, limiting. The author can describe a reality
concrete, characters, places, settings, objects or the context in which
they are located. The descriptions bring closer to the setting and help to engage in the action;
they can be informative and provide knowledge about an environment or a
time that the reader does not know. The description can have several functions: the
ornamental function, expressive function, symbolic function and its power
of the creation of the illusion of reality

The genre of the text

We characterize the text according to its general form. In each genre, there are
sub-genres.

Romantic, historical, detective, autobiographical, science fiction,


of adventures...
– New: science fiction, fantasy, realistic...
– Theater: comedy, tragedy, drama
Poetry: in regular verses, in free verses, in prose
Other genres: letters, tales, autobiography...

The type of speech


The same text can contain different types of discourse: narrative, descriptive,
explanatory, argumentative, instructive. In writing, we may be asked
to combine these different types by also indicating what kind of text we
we must produce.

The tones

The tone, the tonality of the text (or of a passage) is related to the effect produced on the
recipient or the reader:

makes you laugh


Dramatic: moves, fear, maintains suspense
Pathétique: evokes, inspires pity, makes one cry
Tragic: inspires terror and despair over the fate of man who seems
decided by the gods.
Lyric: shares intimate feelings.

One can add nuances to these broad tones: ironic: which mocks in
saying the opposite of what he thinks satirical: mocking by caricaturing what he
talk. Moving, sad, lively, violent, frightening…

1- Henri MICHAUX, Who I Was, Paris, N.R.F., 1927, p.56.

2- Julien GRACQ, Reading while Writing, Paris, Corti, 1980, p. 174.

THE NARRATIVE TEXT

Content

1. Definition

2. Characteristics

3. The narrative structure

4. The actantial schema

5.Author, narrator and character

6. The times of the narrative


7. The stages of the story

8. The forms of the plot

9. The point of view in a narrative

The rhythm of the narrative

11. Narration of the story and narration of the speech

************************************************

1. Definition

A narrative text (or story) is a real or fictional story told by


a narrator in the first or third person, depending on whether they are involved or not
in history. It unfolds in the order of narration. It can be a story
of adventures, of a historical narrative, of a wonderful narrative, etc. The system
The mode of enunciation used is that of narrative as opposed to the system of discourse: letter,
oral, argumentative text... The narrative text describes a sequence of events that
are linked. It is characterized by action and movement verbs that
indicating the progression of the story, in which one or more characters participate.
The narrator can also be a character in the story he tells. The narration
takes place at a given time and in a given place. The complements
circumstantial indicators of place and time are therefore often used to define the
spatio-temporal framework of action. Sometimes the tense of verbs is enough to suggest the
duration. The literary genres that use narration are: the novel, the short story and the
We can find it in plays or poems. The text
narrative organizes events in a chronological and logical order with a beginning and
an end; it is guided by one or several variable communication intentions of a
text to the other (to move, to amuse, to instruct...) and this is what is called the aim or
the objective. Furthermore, to distinguish between the story and the narration, one can say that
the story accounts for the chronological order of events and answers to the
question: "What is being told?" However, narration is the act of
written or oral formulation through which the story is told; it answers the
question: 'how is it told?'. The narrative order does not necessarily follow the order
of history.

Characteristics

The narrative text has characteristics that distinguish it from other types of texts.
Among these characteristics are:

The enunciation: enunciative aspects: focalization, presence of the narrator;


reported speech (direct speech, indirect speech, free indirect speech).
The verb tenses of the narrative: the simple past of the narration, the imperfect and the
present of the narration.
The temporal indicators or connectors: they mark the different stages.
of the story: that morning, then, suddenly, the day before, later and spatial: there, at that place...
Action verbs: the narrative text is full of action verbs that express
an action done or experienced by the subject: walking, singing, playing...
The presence of the recipient (receiver)
The dominant lexical fields: the lexical field is a set of words
(valuing or devaluing) which translates a theme: love, hate, solitude,
war...
The effect of meaning produced in the reader: what impressions does the text leave on the
reader?

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