Life Storying in Oral History

Download or read book Life Storying in Oral History written by Jarmila Mildorf and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book proposes the concept of "fictional contamination" to capture the fact that fictionalization and literary complexity can be found across different kinds of narrative. Exploring conversational storytelling in oral history and other interviews from socionarratological perspectives, the book systematically discusses key narrative features such as story templates, dialogue, double deixis, focalization or perspective-taking and mind representation as well as special narrative forms including second-person narration and narratives of vicarious experience. These features and forms attest to storytellers’ linguistic creativity and serve the function of involving listeners by making stories more interesting. Shared by fictional and conversational narratives at a basic level, they can bring conversational stories closer to fiction and potentially compromise their credibility if used extensively. Detailed analyses of broad-ranging examples are undertaken against a rich narrative-theoretical background drawn from the fields of narratology, linguistics, oral history, life storytelling, psychology and philosophy. The book is of interest to scholars and students working in these fields and anyone fascinated by the richness of conversational storytelling.