14. Conversation as Narrative

Discuss Labov's six rules and give examples from conversations you've had.

an abstract - an overview of the story - When you are in the middle of a conversation and a friend interrupts with "Now that you mention..." it's expected the friend's story will be closely related.
an orientation - telling us who, what, when, where, and why - While not always necessary in the story, the who, when and maybe where would be helpful. The what is always useful and is the main point of the story.
a complicating action - sequence of events - Useful in discussing what happens when, even if it's merely by seconds in a conversation.
an evaluation - the importance and meaning of the events in the story - Good for scary stories and what makes certain parts so scary.
a resolution - how the story ends - Very important for any story. Without it, it's not complete. There's suspense, and then there's torture.
a coda - connecting the story back to present time - Not always possible, like with scary stories, but able to be brought with the phrase "but I digress," or "Anyway..." and returning to whatever the original subject was.

Can the order of events in a conversation be changed without affecting the meaing? Explain.

Yes. Assuming the meaning is to scare or is a simple message, the way things said can or cannot affect the meaning.

How can a film or television story be considered a "glorified" conversation?

In order to keep the attention of the audience a film can exaggerate certain parts of a conversation or simply alter what a simple conversation can be by adding or leaving things out. For example, the talk of a divorce can be much less dramatic in real life than on television.

Does Dialogue in films and other media narratives follow Labov's rules? Justify your answer.

For the most part, I want to say yes. The majority of any conversations do have an orientation, a complicating action of some sort, an evaluation, and a resolution. Thus you have 4 out of 6 necessities of the model. The abstract isn't necessarily given, or at least not in so many words, often it must be analyzed to find it. In a conversation, a coda isn't always needed, but sometimes for stories that branch off into other things a coda is used to relate back to the original story. If it's not, a speaker can be lost in why the subject was brought up.

Narratives are one way we make sense of the world. How does this work?

Narratives are stories that get told. It's through these stories that we can learn things and come up with alternative "what-ifs" and theories aobut how the world works. They're also ways that we share how people do things and what goes wrong so we can learn from these mistakes.

What implications does the importance of narratives have for the mass media?

Narratives are very important for the mass media. The mass media need to tell their stories for various reasons, mainly so the story is believable and the message is sent. In magazines and radio, narratives are needed to send different messages of sex and advertisement or simply entertainment. Story are often told on the radio for entertainment by the DJs.