Tellability 2 - sense-making devices
The second category of narrative markers involves listeners at a cognitive level in the
construction of meaning. These devices require them to participate imaginatively in
the story by creating their own mental picture of the story events, bringing it to life
and reconstructing the drama of what happened for themselves.
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Imagery and detail
Direct speech
Metaphor and metonymy
Ellipsis
Irony
Hyperbole
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a.
Imagery and detail
The ability to present a story as a scene in which the listener can participate is an
important storytelling skill and a process to which imagery and detail are crucial. In
Horses, Max uses detailed sense imagery to bring the listener closer to the narrative –
I’ve stroked their manes; the smell of a good horse, I could smell him. Since the
tellability of this particular story is based on Max’s knowing more about horses than
Lenny, the details are important for the success of the narrative. The image in I’ve
stroked their manes resonates with the listener not just because it is detailed but
because it justifies the reason for the narrative. The sense imagery also becomes more
and more particularised - the smell of a good horse becomes more personalised in I
could smell him. I’d look her in the eye is followed later by I’d look her straight in the
eye and deep down in her eye. The increased detail acts like the zoom of a camera,
taking the listener closer to the image and further into the story.
b.
Direct speech
This narrative strategy introduces narrators’ own words or those of a third party into a
story. Although we cannot remember long stretches of talk word for word and
verbatim reporting of what has been said in the past is largely impossible, narrators
often prefer to use direct speech (Max, they’d say, “There’s a horse there”) rather
than indirect speech (They said there was a horse there) when reporting what
someone has said. This inherent implausibility of direct speech does not generally
affect listeners’ acceptance of a story. On the contrary, in the interests of hearing a
good story listeners are willing to suspend their disbelief regarding the fidelity of the
reported words to the original.
Direct speech is effective because it presents the speech vividly as if the exact
words are being spoken, bringing the listener closer to what was said1. Thus in the
sentence Max, they’d say, There’s a horse here, he’s highly strung, you’re the only
man on the course who can calm him the nominalisation of Max and the use of the
deictics you and here in the direct speech create a context which enables listeners to
hear the actual words that were spoken, contributing to the overall visualisation of the
scene that Max is trying to create.
c.
Ellipsis
Another way of involving listeners is to use an elliptical storytelling style which
leaves something out of the narrative, requiring them to take part in constructing the
meaning of the narrative and thus contributing to “a sense of involvement through
mutual participation in sensemaking” (Tannen 2007). This might be straightforward
grammatical abbreviation, such as Max’s omission of subject and verb in the
utterance One of the loves of my life. This kind of ellipsis is very frequent in talk and
can contribute to the colloquial nature of a story.
There is also a more interactional type of ellipsis in which speakers refer only
indirectly to what they wish to say through the use of politeness forms (Brown and
Levinson 1987). If successful, this “elliptical” form of interaction creates a form of
complicity between speakers who can communicate through allusion. Tannen (2007)
1
Although direct speech is common in everyday spoken narratives, it may be less so
in literary ones. Tannen (1986), for example, claims that the use of direct speech in
narratives is more frequent in ordinary conversation than in literary storytelling. If this
is correct, the use of direct speech in a narrative like Max’s could be an exceptional
case.
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also refers to the role of silence as an extreme form of ellipsis - a way representing
what is not said (see also the section on pause and silence in 2.3.3). In this respect the
pauses in Max’s story can be interpreted as elliptical as he waits for Lenny’s
participation in the story which does not come.
d.
Metaphor and metonymy
Figure of speech2 is a general category of words and phrases which require listeners to
make non-literal interpretations. The ubiquity of figurative language in spoken
discourse has led cognitive linguists to suggest that all language is figurative and that
what we consider to be literal is already pre-constituted by figurative thought. For
Gibbs (1994) metaphorical thought is the engine of interpretation: “metaphor, and to a
lesser extent metonymy, is the main mechanism through which we comprehend
abstract concepts and perform abstract reasoning” (Gibbs 1994: 11). This view of
metaphor as embracing the production and comprehension of all language means that
the traditional distinction between literal and non-literal language, based on the
abstract semantic of words rather than on personal knowledge and discourse
comprehension processes, is not so clear-cut (Steen 2002). The pervasiveness of
metaphor in ordinary talk gives it a different status from other figures of speech such
as hyperbole (see below) which signal that talk can be taken non-literally (Edwards
2000).
A metaphor can be defined as a set of correspondences between two
conceptual domains, while metaphorical understanding involves a process of mapping
between these domains (Lakoff 1993). So when Max describes the horses as
thundering past the post, he is describing the horses as being noisy without saying so
directly. We interpret the expression by analogy with the sound that thunder makes.
One concept (thunder) is used to describe another concept (loud noise) and in
interpreting this connection we make a conceptual leap between the two. Although the
classification of these leaps is fraught with methodological difficulty [Semino,
Heywood and Short (ms)], it is argued that it can be derived from linguistic
expressions (Steen 2002; Heywood, Semino and Short 2002).
The amount and complexity of metaphor in spoken narratives may affect the
degree of listener involvement. Gibbs (2006: 44) claims that “conceptual metaphors
seem to be ubiquitous in the ways people talk of their experiences”. Stories that
contain a lot of non-literal language may require the listener to do more work in
constructing the connections between conceptual domains and this increases the
degree of listener involvement. As regards complexity, metonymic relations and subclasses of metonymy, such as the part-whole relation of synecdoche, are based on a
closer connection with our everyday experience and are arguably easier to interpret.
This would imply that speakers might be able to vary the extent to which they use
non-literal language to accommodate the listener. However, the question of the
amount of cognitive effort required to interpret figurative speech is the subject of
intense debate. In an assessment of the evidence from metaphor processing studies
Gibbs concludes that there is little evidence to show any difference in processing time
for literal and non-literal speech – “the findings of these widely varying studies
strongly imply that metaphors are not deviant and do not necessarily take more time
to understand” (2006: 46). He suggests that it is not the amount or complexity of
metaphorical usage per se which contributes to involvement in stories but whether
listeners are familiar with them or not.
2
See Leech (2008: 11ff.) on how linguistic theories can be used to account for figures
of speech.
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e.
Irony
Emerging from dynamic conversational activity, irony is the result of a violation of
conversational expectations (Clift 1999). Its success in storytelling therefore depends
on its being correctly interpreted by the listener, who recognises “the markers used to
direct the recipient of the message to the right interpretation” (Boutonnet 2006: 28).
These markers may occur at the level of prosody, lexis or grammar. For example,
irony is often signalled by an intonation pattern which communicates to the listener
that an utterance is not to be taken literally. In Horses it is possible to interpret the
expression he talks to me about horses as ironic even though there is no marked
intonation. The irony is signalled by the fact that Max is addressing Lenny but uses
the third person form he as if referring to an imaginary audience, thus creating a
distortion of the interactional framework. We therefore interpret he talks to me about
horses as meaning “he talks to me about horses but he isn’t qualified to talk to me
about horses because I know more about them than he does” and the subsequent
Horses story can be interpreted as an attempted justification for this ironic claim.
What this example shows is that irony is more closely dependent than metaphor and
metonymy on the interactional dynamics between story participants and is designed to
provoke an interested response from them. This is confirmed at the end of the story.
When Max pauses after the summative phrase I had a gift, a response does not come
and he then repeats the expression and he talks to me about horses. This final dig at
Lenny does prompt a response from Lenny but it is a polite request to change the
subject.
f.
Hyperbole
When Max says I used to live on the course we understand that he is exaggerating.
We know he did not actually live there and that all he really wants to say, in a
colourful way, is that he used to spend a lot of his time there. Hyperbole then is one of
the linguistic devices a speaker might use to exaggerate. The terms “bold
exaggeration (Preminger 1974: 359), “overstatement” and “extreme case formulation”
(ECF) (Pomerantz 1986) are also used to describe the way that hyperbole operates in
discourse. It is important then to distinguish this terminology in order to understand
how hyperbole is interactively used in narrative.
Edwards (2000) has shown how ECF’s are used in conversation without
softening or hedging as markers of speaker attitude and, specifically, to signal
investment in what speakers are saying. This “heightening” of the speaker’s attitude
shows that they are particularly committed, determined or certain about the stretch of
talk to which the ECF is applied. Edwards also argues that these markers serve to
signal to a listener that a stretch of talk can be taken non-literally. It is likely that the
more they are used in a stretch of narrative, the more committed the speaker is to it
and the less literally he/she intends it to be taken.
Norrick (2004) distinguishes the ECF from what he calls “non-extreme
hyperbole”, arguing that the former is actually a sub-category of hyperbole rather than
being a general umbrella term. ECF’s are blatant exaggerations violating Grice’s
maxim of truthfulness, and “generally embed extreme expressions in otherwise literalseeming talk”. Max’s you’re the only man on the course who can calm him. I used to
live on the course are thus both good examples. The context is literal-sounding but the
only man and live are obviously exaggerated.
Hyperbole, on the other hand, is less obviously untrue, more image-based and
corresponds more closely to the beliefs of the speaker. Unlike ECF’s, hyperbole “ …
is surrounded by obviously non-literal talk” (Norrick 2004: 1737). Max’s one of the
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loves of my life is thus a good example of its non-extreme variety. Speakers often use
it in harness with the other markers of narrative described in this chapter. For
example, you’re the only man on the course is also in direct speech and includes the
marker of intensity only. Norrick (2004) notes how ECF’s are often tied to formulaic
expressions and Max is particularly fond of this hyperbolic/formulaic combination.
His phrases one of the loves of my life and knew it like the back of my hand are both
clichéd and exaggerated at the same time.
Hyperbole then is a powerful device which speakers use to “do non-literal”
(Edwards 2000) in narrative. It enables the speaker to embellish stories while at the
same time reassuring listeners that the embellishment does not have to be taken
literally.
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