(Re) positioning and (Re)framing in 'The Moth’s' Personal Narratives

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1 كلية الآداب - جامعة حلوان

2 كلية الاداب جامعة حلوان

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People experience the world and share their experience of the world through ‘narratives’.  Somers and Gibson (1994), and Baker (2006) classify narratives into four types: ontological, public, conceptual, and meta-narratives.  Ontological narratives refer to personal stories people tell about themselves, and these are the main focus of the present paper. The present study investigates the ways a person depicts himself/herself and his/her social identity in personal narratives. Baker’s Narrative Account (2006) is tested in the data in order to investigate how the ‘Self’ is presented as the storyline goes on. In addition, Positioning Theory (1990), is incorporated in the analysis to show how narrators refer to themselves and shift roles throughout their stories.  The data for the present study is a playlist of short narratives posted by ‘The Moth’ – a non-profit group based in New York City dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling- under the title of ‘Moth Playlist: Stories from the front Lines’ on April, 3, 2020. The playlist consists of six stories for first responders and helpers, and was posted as a tribute for front liners amidst the outbreak of Covid-19.  The study demonstrates how the ‘Self’ (narrators) and ‘the other’ (key characters) are (re)positioned and (re)framed throughout the narratives reflecting different conditions and different social roles that mark the selective appropriation of the narrative themes. Moreover, the study shows that the moral behind the narratives transcends specific temporal and spatial frames identified in the narratives, revealing how the incidents or the people involved in these narratives gave the narrators new revelations in life.
 

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