Fictional Devices

2 Key excerpts on "Fictional Devices"

• 

  eBook - ePub

  Narratives in Popular Culture, Media, and Everyday Life

  • Arthur A, Berger(Authors)
  • 1996(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications, Inc

    (Publisher)

  Authors often speak to readers in indirect ways. When authors offer descriptions, through their choices of nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives they are actually speaking to readers, telling them what they should think about certain characters or events. Descriptions and the figurative language found in them (and the other techniques authors use) give readers considerable amounts of information, as we shall see shortly.

  Readers must always keep in mind that, as Yuri Lotman (1977) has noted, nothing that happens in a text is irrelevant or accidental. This point has also been made by Aristotle, as a matter of fact; he suggests that if we take one thing out of a well-constructed work, it will suffer. A great deal of what authors do when they write stems from their psyches and functions at an unconscious level, so often writers can’t explain why they used this word rather than that one or had a character do X instead of Y. That is the task of critics.

  Many of the devices found in popular literary works can also be found in narratives in other media, such as film and television, though sometimes the devices take somewhat different form—for example, what we can see on the screen in a movie takes the place of a written description. In some cases devices are used in tandem, so that, for example, we get a summary that is also a confession, but it is usually possible to determine which device is basic. I will discuss below in turn the following common authorial devices:

  • Descriptions
  • Thoughts of characters
  • Dialogue
  • Summaries
  • Characterization
  • Stereotypes
  • Overheard conversations
  • Letters, telegrams, and other correspondence
  • Articles from publications
  • Phone calls
  • Confessions

  Descriptions

  Descriptions are one of the most important means through which authors give us information. They tell us what characters look like and how they behave, help situate actions, and generate feelings and attitudes in readers. Let me offer an example from The Maltese Falcon

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• 

  eBook - ePub

  Folk Stories and Personal Narratives in Palestinian Spoken Arabic

  A Cultural and Linguistic Study

  • N. Sirhan(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  7

  Linguistic Features of the Oral Narratives

  We previously discussed how sociolinguistic variables and topic can affect the way a person speaks, narrates and interacts with other speakers. Undoubtedly, there are devices typical of all narrative genres and narrations, but there are nonetheless genre-specific ones. The general linguistic features of narration found in both personal narratives and folk tales fall into four main sections: narrative devices, literary devices, grammatical devices and lexical specificities.

  7.1 Narrative devices

  A narrative device is a technique or device used by a narrator in order to produce a particular effect on the audience. It can serve to advance the plot or to create narrative continuity. The continuity of a narrative binds the story together through plot, characters, setting and devices. Narrative devices include such things as personal contributions by the narrator and asides, devices used to avoid repetition, the rhetorical and pseudo-rhetorical question, the use of intensifiers, linkers and fillers, the use of formulas, interjections and time markers.

  7.1.1 Narrator’s personal influence and contribution

  Some narrators convey their own opinions when narrating. To what degree, however, varies depending on the type of narration. The narrator’s own voice is more evident in personal narratives than in folk tales. In order to convey their feelings, narrators frequently make a comment directly to the audience. They are similar to asides, although asides serve to explain, elucidate or illustrate a point made in the narration, whereas a narrative comment serves largely to convey the narrator’s opinion. In tales, the narrative voice is commonly conveyed through an aside. The narrative voice serves to render the narration more personal, more interactive and reflect the opinions and feelings of the narrator.

  Use of šāyif/šāyfeh

  The use of šāyif/šāyfeh

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