This article investigates how the dynamics of narrative development in an oral storytelling performance can be captured so as to explain its aesthetic and communicative effectiveness. In the light of the narratological distinctions between story and discourse, an oral storytelling performance conducted by a professional storyteller in an institution in contemporary society is treated as constituting the story (i.e. content elements such as events, characters, time and location) and the storytelling discourse (i.e. expressive features employed by a storyteller during a storytelling process). It is then examined as an artistic process that ‘exploits’ more than one semiotic channel to evoke a storyworld. The performance-focused multimodal analysis shows how the interplay between verbal, vocal and visual features of the storytelling discourse produces certain interpretations and meanings of the events and characters in the story and how, through such interplay, the audience is encouraged to have relatively uniform cognitive, emotive and evaluative responses which are in line with the values and messages of the institution in/for which a particular storytelling performance is conducted. A performance-focused multimodal analysis is, therefore, suggested for capturing the dynamics of narrative development in an oral storytelling performance and for uncovering its aesthetic and communicative effectiveness.
Bal, M. ( 1997) Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (2nd edn). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
2.
Baldry, A. and Thibault, P.J. ( 2005) Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis. London and Oakville, CT: Equinox .
3.
Bauman, R. ( 1986) Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
Bauman, R. ( 1992) ‘Introduction’, in R. Bauman (ed.) Folklore, Cultural Performances, and Popular Entertainments: A Communications-Centered Handbook, pp. xiii-xxi. New York: Oxford University Press.
5.
Bremond, C. ( 1977) ‘The Morphology of the French Fairy Tale: The Ethical Model’, in H. Jason and D. Segal (eds) Patterns in Oral Literature , pp. 49-76. The Hague: Mouton.
6.
Carpenter, H. and Prichard, M. ( 1984) The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
7.
Cassell, J. and McNeill, D. ( 1991) ‘Gesture and the Poetics of Prose’, Poetics Today12(3): 375-404.
8.
Chatman, S. ( 1978) Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
9.
Drory, R. ( 1977) ‘Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves: An Attempt at a Model for the Narrative Structure of the Reward-and-Punishment Fairy Tale’ , in H. Jason and D. Segal (eds) Patterns in Oral Literature , pp. 31-48. The Hague: Mouton.
10.
Dundes, A. ( 1971) ‘The Making and Breaking of Friendship as a Structural Frame in African Folk Tales’, in P. Maranda and E.K. Maranda (eds), Structural Analysis of Oral Tradition, pp. 171-85. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
11.
Elam, K. ( 2002) The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama (2nd edn). London: Routledge.
12.
Emmott, C. ( 1997) Narrative Comprehension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13.
Fine, E. ( 1984) The Folklore Text: From Performance to Print. Bloomington, IA: Indiana University Press.
14.
Finnegan, R. ( 1967) Limba Stories and Story-Telling. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
15.
Finnegan, R. ( 1992) Oral Traditions and the Verbal Arts. London: Routledge.
16.
Genette, G. ( 1980) Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
17.
Greene, E. ( 1996) Storytelling: Art and Technique (3rd edn). Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
18.
Herman, D. ( 2005) ‘Storyworld’, in D. Herman, M. Jahn and M. Ryan (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, pp. 569-70. London: Routledge.
19.
Hymes, D. ( 1975) ‘Breakthrough into Performance’, in D. Ben-Amos and K. Goldstein (eds) Folklore: Communication and Performance. The Hague: Mouton.
20.
Jason, H. ( 1977) ‘A Model for Narrative Structure in Oral Literature’ , in H. Jason and D. Segal (eds) Patterns in Oral Literature , pp. 99-139. The Hague: Mouton.
21.
Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. ( 2001) Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold.
22.
Krummel, D. ( 1998) The Art of Speech (12th edn). Moorooka, Australia: Boolarong Press .
23.
Labov, W. and Waletzky, J. ( 1967) ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’ , in J. Helm (ed.) Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, pp. 12-44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
24.
Lambrou, M. ( 2003) ‘Collaborative Oral Narratives of General Experience: When an Interview Becomes a Conversation’, Language and Literature12(2): 153-74.
25.
Lipman, D. ( 1999) Improving Your Storytelling: Beyond the Basics for All Who Tell Stories in Work or Play. Little Rock, AR: August House.
26.
Livo, N.J. and Rietz, S.A. ( 1986) Storytelling: Process and Practice. Littleton, CO: Libraries Unlimited.
27.
Lynch-Brown, C. and Tomlinson, C.M. ( 1999) Essentials of Children’s Literature. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
28.
Martin, W. ( 1986) Recent Theories of Narrative. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
29.
McIntyre, D. ( 2008) ‘Integrating Multimodal Analysis and the Stylistics of Drama: A Multimodal Perspective on Ian McKellen’s Richard III’ , Language and Literature17(4): 309-34.
30.
Müller, K. ( 1992) ‘Theatrical Moments: On Contextualizing Funny and Dramatic Moods in the Course of Telling a Story in Conversation’, in P. Auer and A. di Luzio (eds) The Contextualization of Language, pp. 199-222. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
31.
Norrick, N.R. ( 2000) Conversational Narrative: Storytelling in Everyday Talk . Amesterdam: John Benjamins.
32.
Norris, S. ( 2004) Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework . New York: Routledge.
33.
Pellowski, A. ( 1990) The World of Storytelling. Bronx, NY : H.W. Wilson.
34.
Prince, G. ( 1982) Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin: Mouton.
35.
Prince, G. ( 1988) ‘The Disnarrated’, Style22(1): 1-8.
36.
Propp, V. ( 1968) Morphology of the Folktale (2nd edn). Austin: University of Texas Press.
37.
Rimmon-Kenan, S. ( 2002) Narrative Fiction (2nd edn). London: Routledge.
38.
Sawyer, R. ( 1976) The Way of the Storyteller. Harmondsworth : Penguin Books.
39.
Sobol, J. ( 2008). ‘Contemporary Storytelling: Revived Tradition Art and Protean Social Agent’,
40.
Storytelling, Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies4(2): 122-33. Sobol, J., Gentile, J.S. and Sunwolf. (2004) ‘Once Upon a Time: An Introduction to the Inaugural Issue’, Storytelling, Self, Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Storytelling Studies1(1). URL (accessed 16 September 2005): http://courses.unt.edu/efiga/SSS/IntroInauguralIssueSSSJournal.htm
41.
Stempel, W. ( 1986) ‘Everyday Narrative as a Prototype’, Poetics15(1-2): 203-16.
42.
Stone, K. ( 1986) ‘Oral Narration in Contemporary North America’ , in R. Bottigheimer (ed.) Fairy Tales and Society: Illusion, Allusion and Paradigm, pp. 13-31. Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press.
43.
Swann, J. ( 2002) ‘A Man Amongst Men: The Intersection of Verbal, Visual and Vocal Elements in an Oral Narrative’, in I. Blayer and M. Sanchez (eds) Storytelling: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Perspectives, pp. 145-61. New York: Peter Lang .
44.
Swann, J. ( 2006) ‘Text and Performance’, in S. Goodman and K. O’Halloran (eds) The Art of English: Literary Creativity, pp. 145-94. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan and the Open University .
45.
Tedlock, D. ( 1983) The Spoken Word and the Work of Interpretation. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
