Narrative + Narrative Genres The genre of 'self-disclosure

Narrative + Narrative Genres The genre of ‘self-

disclosure’• and approaching self

disclosure in the form of small story-analysis

• o BETTY tells her STORY – Two BIG STORIES of how she

lost her dress

Small stories-a different genre?

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Genre + Self Disclosure

• Genre Theory studies “kinds of texts”• their defining features, their production, their reception

to place a text in a genre category is immediately to interpret the category (or particular text) in terms of a theory about genre (Kearns, 2004, 201)

it is to make assumptions about the text’s production, reception + defining features

What, then, are the defining features, the typical production and reception conditions of SELF DISCLOSURE?

Self Disclosure

• Self-disclosure is not simply providing information to another person. Instead, scholars define self-disclosure as sharing information with others that they would not normally know or discover. Self-disclosure involves risk and vulnerability on the part of the person sharing the information.

• Once one person engages in self-disclosure, it is implied that the other person will also disclose personal information. This is known as the norm of reciprocity. Mutual disclosure deepens trust in the relationships and helps both people understand each other more. <from abacon.com>

Betty tells her story

• a twice-told story– in the morning– four hours later

• opportunity to compare and contrast the construction of a story-world (time, place + characters)

Liane Brandon1972Betty Tells Her Story

Betty’s StoryThe story Betty tells is a simple one. She needed the perfect

dress for a special occasion. Betty describes in amusing detail how she found just the right one, spent more than she could afford for it, modeled it for admiring friends, felt absolutely transformed and then…never got to wear it. Then Betty is asked to tell her story again. This time the story is strikingly different. While the facts are the same, Betty reveals how she really felt: her anxiety over buying the dress, her discomfort at being praised for beauty she feels she doesn’t have, and her subsequent bewilderment at the way things turn out. Betty becomes withdrawn, sad and vulnerable, and her voice, body and words express the painfulness of the memory. The contrast between the two stories is haunting.

References to knowledge states

• I knew• I didn’t know• I remember• I mean• I guess• I think• I know• I don’t know• You know

how narrators positionthemselves as charactersand as tellers/narrators

engage in separatingand weaving togetherStory <back-then> andDiscourse <here-and-now>

resulting in a ‘sense-of-self’

I knew

• When did narrators ‘know’?– what do comments on the characters’

knowledge back-there-and-than do?

Contrasting presentations of eventsin version A with presentationsin version B where knowing wasexplicitly mentionedStarting with version A

Lines 78-100

• Version A– lines 78-100

QuickTime™ and aH.264 decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

next version Blines 68-90

I knew…



Version B– lines 68-90

…and I knew whenI went downstairsthat they would be…


I knew…

• Version B– lines 135-141

…I somehow knew you know that thatthat dress was gone




I knew…


…and and I knew I’d never find it again




I knew…


…and with no conviction that we would



Version A Version B

• I knew 5• I didn’t know 1 1• I remember 2 8• I mean 1 8• I guess 1 5• I think 1 1• I know• I don’t know 1 6• You know 23 25

What do narrators do

• when they knew?• when they remember? • when they mean and guess?• when they don’t know?

Self Disclosurewhat is it + how is it done?

• by use of intersecting and manipulating character’s and narrator’s consciousness– fusing narrator and character in version A versus differentiating

between them in version B• authorial intrusion of the narrative flow• generating different empathies (for character back-then versus

narrator in the here-and-now)• seemingly making the self (of the narrator) heard (over the

character) (by “telling over what we narrate”)• taking these features as signs of “internal monologue” - the

authentic self• the narrative production of authenticity by undercutting

narrativity through reflexivity

Conclusion---Implications

• Self Disclosure --- just a genre?• A genre that is more anti-narrative than narrative?• Big Stories, reflexivity and the narrative

interview? • “Death of the Novel” - novels replaced by

biographies? • “Self-Perpetuating Therapies”?• Implications for Genre Theory???

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Narrative + Narrative Genres The genre of 'self-disclosure