Life, Language, and the Pursuit of Narrative

 

Deborah Schiffrin

Georgetown University

 

Story telling is basic to our lives, our experiences, our identities and our interactions with one another. Not surprisingly, then, the study of stories has told us a great deal about how we use language (in intonation units, turns at talk, clauses and texts) to accomplish multiple goals simultaneously. Analysis of stories told during Holocaust oral history interviews provides another domain in which to examine the intersection of function and structure. After a brief overview of oral histories, and some examples of how stories are interactively situated in oral history interviews, I focus on changes (in structure, evaluation, and footing) in one story reported by a Holocaust survivor in four different oral history interviews over a thirteen year period. The analysis of retold narratives, and how they change (or do not change) over time, suggests that both our "lived" experiences (what happened) and our "narrative" experiences (what we say about what happened) contribute to our pursuit of narrative.