If discourse is multimodal, then we should expect a certain degree of ‘permeability’ between modes. This section of the review will focus upon the research into the role of narrative in argumentation. It does so in order to establish a theoretical frame for the research questions: What is the role of narrative in argumentation? How is argumentation authorized? The principal focus, therefore, is not on narrative per se, but, rather, on the role it plays in
argumentation. To be more precise, the focus here is on narrative as a resource for the authorization of argumentation and the performance of identities.
The section aims to establish a dialogic approach, in which narrative is conceptualised in terms of a move in unfolding argumentation. Baynham (2011a), in his position paper on narrative studies, identifies space for the study of the role of narrative in argumentation. Chapter 6 of this thesis situates itself in this space.
Narrative and argumentation are clearly distinct modes of discourse (Andrews, 1995; Kress, 1989). Kress conceptualises argument and narrative as two distinct modes of dealing with difference. Narrative, for him, is a closed, conservative form, one which resolves difference and reproduces the status quo. Argument, on the other hand, is open, and generative of change. Whilst this is a helpful starting point, framing the distinction in these terms reveals a rather text-oriented approach, as Andrews points out, one which ignores the fact that argument can be closed and conservative when there are power asymmetries (Andrews, 1989, p.171).
In the Adult ESOL policy discourses e.g. Adult ESOL Core Curriculum (2001), these two modes of discourse are rigidly demarcated and no real connections are established between them. The situation here is the same as it is in the English National Curriculum, where, as Andrews (2001, p. 99) observes: “There is no understanding that narratives can contribute to arguments, or, indeed, be arguments.” Moreover, there is no awareness of the ways in which these modes of discourse may have permeable boundaries and inter-penetrate in complex ways, as suggested by Chapter 6. Whilst an awareness of such complexity is perhaps not to be expected in a curriculum document, it constitutes an interesting focal point for research. This is because research increasingly suggests that the two modes of discourse are indeed permeable (Baynham, 1995; Andrews, 1991; 1989); metaphorically, it might be said that they bleed into each other in various ways like the colours of a dye (Baynham, 2012, pers comm.) This concept of permeability will be taken up in Chapter 6 and again in the thesis discussion. However they blend or bleed into each other, and whether one talks in terms of embedding (see Ochs and Capps, 2001) or permeability, research suggests that, as Parret (1987, p. 165) states: “argumentation and narrativity overlap in many sequences of discourse.”
Aristotle acknowledged that the use of example was one way in which argumentation could be authorized, although his view of the evidential status of narratives of personal experience in rhetoric, though, is clear: “The educated reason with axioms and universals the uneducated
on the basis of what particulars they know and instances near their experience” (1926[4BCE, p. 1395]). The evidential superiority attributed to logical reasoning here and the downplaying of personal experience are still visible in the way that “anecdotal” is sometimes used pejoratively when connected with the providing of evidence. This is despite the fact that, as Andrews (1995, p.116) observes, witness testimony is important in many contexts e.g. in court. Furthermore, Aristotle’s view of narrative is mono-logic, emphasising the unity of time and place and a view of narrative as an event that happens to one person on a single occasion in the past. Baynham (2003) asserts that, in such a view, narrative is often seen simply as a means of bringing vividness to argumentation, whereas he suggests assigning it a more important and integral role both in and as argumentation.
In the context of spoken discourse analysis, the modern descendent of the Aristotelean narrative is arguably the narrative structure identified by William Labov (Labov and Waletsky, 1967; Labov, 1972). These narratives emerged from sociolinguistic interviews and consist of the temporal stage-by-stage unfolding of a past event, told and, crucially, evaluated by a single speaker. These generic stages consist of: an abstract, orientation, complication, resolution and a coda. This approach to discourse analysis is structuralist, in that it analyses narrative in terms of its internal structures or stages. This is what is often seen as the ‘canonical’ conceptualisation of narrative (Georgakopoulou, 2007; Baynham, 2011b). This is also the conceptualization of narrative that informs the Adult ESOL Curriculum (2001). This conceptualization is, as we shall see, useful in the context of a policy document but not sufficient to capture the ethnographic texture and variability of narratives in unfolding argumentation.
Indeed, Labov revised his ideas about narrative structure, moving away from seeing evaluation as a separate stage towards an idea of it as something that permeates the narrative. He also acknowledged the rather decontextualized and monologic nature of the narratives he elicited in interview, in words which resonate for a study of narratives in argumentation:
They exhibit a generality that is not to be expected in narratives that sub-serve an argumentative point in a highly interactive and competitive situation. Such narratives are highly fragmented and may require a different approach.
(Labov, 1997, p.397). Similarly, Georgakopoulou (2007, p. 86) observes that there is a need to move away from a conceptualization of narrative as a “finished” and “detachable” structure with a “beginning,
middle and end” and towards a “pluralized view of structure as variable and potentially fragmented that hinges on a view of narrative as consisting of a multitude of genres.”
To account for this, she introduced the concept of ‘small stories.’ This she uses to capture: A gamut of under-represented narrative activities, such as tellings of ongoing events, future or hypothetical events, shared (or known events), but also allusions to tellings, deferrals of tellings, or refusals to tell. These tellings are typically small when compared to the pages and pages of transcript of interview narratives.
(Georgakopoulou, 2006, p.123). She offers the concept of ‘small stories’ as both a description of their size and as a counterpoint to the ‘grand narratives’ of Lyotard (1984). In ways that resonate for the current study, Georgakopoulou examines the ways in which small stories (e.g. what she refers to as shared stories) function as argumentative devices, providing evidence in support of argumentation and opportunities for speakers to position themselves and each other in displays of identity work.
There is other research examining the rhetorical role of different types of narrative in argumentation. Baynham’s (2011b) research on teacher interviews suggests that different kinds of narrative (e.g. personal, generic, hypothetical) bring with them different evidential claims to truth, authorizing positions in argumentation in distinctive ways. Thus, the evidential claim of a particular type of narrative, the personal or generic narrative, is that it is factual, rooted in the speaker’s own experience. In these circumstances, challenging the argumentation amounts to challenging the experience (Baynham, 1995, p.42). The suggestion is that narrative adds evidence and authority to argumentation because it is more difficult to dispute the truth of a narrative, grounded in notions of consent, than it is to dispute the truth of an explicit argumentation proposition. In these terms, narrative thus becomes a strategy for closing down argumentation, for presenting an argumentative proposition, in effect, as fact.
Given these observations, it is perhaps unsurprising that what gets argued over is not the truth of the narrative itself; rather, it is the point of the narrative in relation to the issues debated, the positions taken up. This is an assertion that both Schiffrin (1990) and Georgakopoulou (2001) make in relation to the role narrative plays in more everyday argumentation. This will be taken up in the analysis presented in Chapter 6.
There is also research focussing on the rhetorical effects that can be achieved through the practice of speech reporting. Hill and Zepeda (1993, p. 212) suggest it is a practice which enables the narrator to take up complex positions in relation to others, including themselves as figures in a narrative. This can serve a number of rhetorical purposes: distributing responsibility for events, distancing the author of the narrative from their claim, thus creating the illusion of objectivity, drawing in the listener, making them complicit with what is expressed, with the result that the argumentation becomes more difficult to counter. For similar reasons, Schiffrin (1990) also suggests that narratives can widen the base of support for the argumentation claims being made.
To summarise, research suggests that different types of narrative play an important role in the emergence, unfolding and authorisation of argumentation. Narratives also contribute to the display of identities. Different types of narrative make different rhetorical claims to truth. They perform a powerful rhetorical function. Thus, when we are considering how narrative functions in argumentation, what kind of claims it makes, we need to be clear about what kind of narrative it is e.g. personal, generic etc. These claims to truth are also visible in the form of different types of speech reporting. This last point is taken up in the next major section where I set out my analytical approach to the thesis.