A Linguistic Approach to Narrative

Abstract

This article develops, through an analysis of a single example, a linguistic ap-proach to narrative. I argue that the discourse structure of a text functions to set up a series of interpretive questions, questions that must be answered by any acceptable interpretation, but that also constrain what count as acceptable inter-pretations. I argue that the text I use as an example, a narrative from a woman in her 20s suffering from schizophrenia, is a typical-if striking-example of human narrative sense making. The global organization of the narrative, like all deeply senseful uses of language, flows from the organization of the discourse system (line and stanzas) and from the lived and earned coherence of the narra-tor's life. (Psychology)