Story, Performance, and Event: Contextual Studies of Oral Narrative

Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture

by Richard Bauman

Based on a corpus of Texan oral narratives collected by the author over the past fifteen years, this study presents an analysis of the literary qualities or orally performed verbal art, focusing on the significance of its social context. Although the tales included are all from Texas, they are representative of oral storytelling traditions in other parts of the United States, including tall tales, hunting stories, local character anecdotes, accounts of practical jokes, and so on. They are also highly entertaining in their own right. Professor Bauman's main emphasis is on the act of storytelling, not just the text. His central analytical concern is to demonstrate the interrelationships that exist between the events recounted in the narratives (narrated events), the narrative texts, and the situations in which the narratives are told (narrative events). He identifies these interrelationships by combining a close formal analysis of the texts with an ethnographic examination of the way in which their telling is accomplished, paying particular attention to the links between form and function. He also illuminates other more general concerns in the study of oral narrative, such as stability and variation in the oral text, the problem of genre, and the rhetorical efficacy of literary forms. As an important contribution to the theoretical and practical literary analysis of orally performed narratives, the book will appeal to students and teachers of folklore, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, and literary theory.

Genres: Folklore

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 26, 1986

Reviews

[birdmaddgirl]

exploration of the relationships between narration as story and narration as events, focusing on tall tales and practical jokes in communities in western texas. definitely easier to follow if you've got some background in linguistics, as he references many of the big names like Jakobson and Labov, and some linguistics concepts are key to his analysis but not explained in detail. an interesting and short work if you are looking to read up on performance, linguistics, and storytelling.

[Meg]

The introduction had some good ideas that would be helpful for fieldwork. The rest of the book is a dense bit of analysis on otherwise fairly entertaining narratives. It didn't quite relate to what I was trying to learn for the sake of improving fieldwork, but there was some useful scholarship for whomever comes around to analyze the oral histories I collect, perhaps.

[Kathy]

A bit dry to read, but still an interesting look at the art of storytelling. Plus, I appreciate the tall tales and practical jokes that are discussed.

[Heather]

An interesting read on the art of story-telling. It's a bit on the dry side so you should be into reading scholarly works if you want to delve into this puppy.