A Method for the Analysis of the Structure of Narrative Texts
T. SNELGROVE · Literary and Linguistic Computing · 1990
The paper describes a new method for (i) analysing the Structure of narrative texts and (ii) Charting reader response Most audience-Oriented Criticism dismisses the Possibility of quantifying reader response because that response is considered to be idiosyncratic. However, it is possible to establish a methodology that objectively analyses those elements in the text that are intended to make us think and feel Any discourse may be broken up into its structural components The first task is to decide on a system of classification, and then segment the text according to that classification. To this end, in the study of narrative texts, the narrative mode was decided upon as the base structural unit and a taxonomy of 17 modes developed This model unit might comprise a sentence, clause, phrase or even a single word; but its defining factor is its narrative value. Each model unit possesses a narrative value in the same way, for example, that words have a semantic value. The narrative value is based on the unit's function in the text, for example, a single piece of description such as ‘beautiful’ is tagged ‘Dc’ (description of character). On the other hand, ‘She sat on the Chair’ is tagged ‘Ns’ (specific narrative) because the Whole Clause functions as the report of a specific narrative action For the study, the modes were tagged in three novels by George Eliot: Silas Marner, Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. The first and last three chapters of each of the novels were tagged as was a representative but random sampling of entire chapters from the main body of the narrative. STRAP (a STRuctural Analysis Program) Subjects the tags which have been manually inserted in the text with a word processor, to different Kinds of analysis The analysis of the distribution of the narrative modes, the way they combine sequentially, and the resultant narrative patterns they create, enable us to get beneath the surface Structure of a text. Moreover, the Close analysis of a text using a 17-mode taxonomy discloses that the arrangement of the many parts of the narrative are strategically placed with the purpose of variously ‘moving’, ‘delighting’, and ‘persuading’ the reader