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National Research University Higher School of Economics Salmaso, G. (2017). Story Genres in SFL: A More Flexible Taxonomy.
Journal of Language & Education Volume 3, Issue 1, 2017 Extrapolating a Taxonomy of Story Genres in Spanish to Story Genres in
English. Journal of Language and Education, 5(1), 6-22. doi:10.17323/2411-7390-2017-3-1-6-22
Story Genres in SFL: A More Flexible Taxonomy. Extrapolating
a Taxonomy of Story Genres in Spanish to Story Genres in English
Grisel Salmaso
National University of Cuyo
The purpose of this article is: (i) to highlight the importance of flexibilizing the generic structure of the story genres proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) within the Systemic Functional Framework (SFL); (ii) to take up a taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish (Salmaso, 2009, 2010 a, 2010 b, 2012 a, 2014) which grants more flexibility to the generic structure of the five genres of the narrative family ('recounts', 'narratives', 'anecdotes', 'exempla' and 'observations') (Plum, 2004, Martin and Rose, 2008); (iii) to engage in a comparative study of the generic structure of one of the story genres: 'anecdote'.To this end, nine instances of 'anecdotes' wereanalyzed. All of the 'anecdotes' are written by native speakers of English belonging to different age and gender groups but with similar educational backgrounds (higher education). The examples are analyzed following Salmaso (2010, 2014) and comparisons are drawn between some aspects of the analysis presented herein and the analyses that would have been done following Plum's (2004) and Martin and Rose's (2008) taxonomies. Results show that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy of story genres in Spanish to English, in particular with respect to the genre 'anecdote' which is the focus of this article. Furthermore, this taxonomy enriches the analysis of 'anecdotes' andmay be simpler and clearer for applied purposes, such as teaching.
Keywords: systemic functional linguistics, story genres, categories of Narrative Instances (NIs), anecdotes, generic structure
The theoretical framework underlying this article is Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), in particular, its notion of genre and, more specifically, story genres. This article takes up a taxonomy of story genres in Spanish (Salmaso, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a, 2014) which grants flexibility and precision to the generic structure of story genres in English ('recounts', 'narratives', 'anecdotes', 'exempla' and 'observations') proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008). The assumption is that the flexibility and precision of the taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish enriches the analysis of narrative instances belonging to the five story genres. Besides, as the taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish clearly establishes those constituents that the story genres have in common and those that differentiate them and define them, it is believed that such taxonomy is clearer, for example, for teaching purposes. This article presents a comparative study of the generic structure of the story
Grisel Salmaso, National University of Cuyo, Argentina. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Grisel Salmaso, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNCuyo, Mendoza, Argentina, CP M5502JMA. E-mail: gsalmaso@gmail. com
genre 'anecdote', which shows that the taxonomy created on the basis of 'anecdotes' in Spanish can be extrapolated to 'anecdotes' in English.
This research is an integral part of the project called "Géneros textuales en la enseñanza de inglés como lengua extranjera" (Genres in EFL). The general purpose of the project is the study of genres ('natural science reports', 'anecdotes', 'narratives', 'picture narratives', 'service encounters' and 'movie reviews') in order to generate didactic material to be used in schools of Mendoza Province, Argentina, which would help teachers become familiar with the Systemic Functional Linguistics Framework, and would provide them with the knowledge and techniques to teach how to produce and understand genres. This article attempts to make a contribution to the project with respect to the generic structure of the story genre 'anecdote'.
Materials and Methods
SFL conceives language as a semiotic system, i.e. a system of options that we use to negotiate meanings, which belong to three linguistic metafunctions:
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
ideational (integrated by the experiential and logical metafunctions), interpersonal and textual (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The ideational metafunction refers to the resources of a language used to represent human experience, the interpersonal metafunction refers to those language resources used to express how we enact our experience and the textual metafunction refers to the resources of a language used to organizethe experience represented and enacted.
The system of language is divided into different strata: the level of context, the level of content (which consists of semantics and lexico-grammar) and the levels of expression (phonetics and phonology) (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004).The system of language — i.e. its potential as a meaning-making resource — instantiates in the form of a text. Texts are the authentic products of social interaction, which should be analyzed in relation to the context in which they are negotiated (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004).
Texts are instances or specific examples of text types or genres. The working definition of genre adopted in this articleis the one proposed by Martin and Rose (2003, p. 7):"[...] a genre is a staged, goal-oriented social process."It is a social process because, as members of a society, we interact and produce texts, which are instances of the genres recognized in our culture by social convention. These texts have a purpose and a structure that consists of stages or constituents, each of which has a purpose which contributes to achieving the overall aim of a text. In this regard, the notion of Generic Structure Potential (GSP) presented by Hasan (1996, p. 53) is also deployed in this article. GSPis an abstract category that represents all the possible variables in the generic structure of a particular genre. In the GSP of a genre all the obligatory and optional constituents are presented and they are assigned an order of occurrence and possibilities of iteration. A text — an instance of a genre — is considered to be complete when it presents all the obligatory constituents of the GSP of its genre. There might be variations from one text to another which may mean that the texts have different GSP — and, therefore, belong to different genres — or that each text selects different options given by the GSP — in which case they belong to the same genre but one of them, for example, presents more optional constituents than the other. Even though Hasan (1996) developed the notion of GSP based on the genre 'fairy tales', she claims this notion can be applied to all genres.
From casual conversation to written texts, innumerable linguistic practices instantiate "a narrative quality", a quality thatintuitively makes us categorize a text as narrative. There are two essential elements thatconfer such "narrative quality" to a text: a chronological order of events, which involves characters that interact in a particular setting in time
and place, and an evaluative element. This evaluative element typically refers to the expression of affection, desire and beliefs of the narrator or of the participants involved in the events. These two essential elements combine together in "narrative information structures", which have different communicative purposes (Salmaso, 2014, p. 20).
Within the SFL framework there is a long tradition of researchon narratives (Hasan, 1996: Martin & Rose, 2003, 2008; Martin, 2008; Martin & Plum, 1997; Plum, 2004; Rothery & Stenglin, 1997; Jordens, 2001, 2004; Eggins & Slade, 1997; Henderson-Brooks, 2006), which draws upon the general structure of narratives of personal experience proposed by Labov and Walezky (1997) and Labov (1972), with the following constituents: Abstract, Orientation, Complication, Evaluation, Result or Resolution and Coda. Labov (1972, p. 369) sustains that "a complete 'narrative' begins with an Orientation, proceeds to the Complicating Action, is suspended at the focus of Evaluation before the Resolution, and returns the listener to the present time with a Coda.1
According to this general definition of narratives provided by Labov (1972), any narrative text that does not present all the stages of the narrative structure in the canonical order assigned to them results in an incomplete text, one which does not fulfill its purpose. This is certainly not true because as we narrate with many different purposes, it seems only natural to assume that we use different "narrative information structures" or generic structures to achieve our purpose. In this respect, and on the basis of the general structure of narratives proposed by Labov (1972) and Labov and Walezky (1997), Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) present five categories of story genres. Each category has a different purpose and, therefore, different generic structures.
The study of the family of story genres within the SFL tradition originates with research carried out by Plum (2004).2 He conducted sociolinguistic interviews with fifty speakers of Australian English in Sydney on the topic of dog breeding and showing. The interview questions were specifically designed for the interviewees to produce story genres, in particular, 'recounts', 'narratives' and 'thematic narratives'.3 Plum (2004) ended up discovering that the subjects of his study produced not the three expected story genres but five different types of narratives texts in response to the questions. Therefore, Plum (2004) came up with five categories of story genres: 'recounts', 'anecdotes', 'narratives', 'exempla' and 'observations', which have
1 Initial capital letter is used to refer to the constituents of genres.
2 Plum presented his PhD dissertation in1988, which was published in 1998. However, as the digital version published in 2004 is the only one available, reference is made to that version.
3 The names of the different genres are placed between single inverted commas.
Table 1
Genres produced in response to narrative questions (Plum, 2004, p. 263)
GENRE: recount narrative anecdote exemplum observation
orientation:
metafunctional experiential focus - interpersonal focus -K
'real world' representational interpretative
'contextual' independent (text as artefact) dependent (texts as a reflection on context)
Purposive (to:) account enthrall amuse make a point
'objectively' 'subjectively'
certain aspects in common but which differ from each other with respect to their purpose and, thus, have different stages or constituents to achieve their purpose (see Table 1).
The categories of story genres proposed by Plum (2004) are taken up by Martin and Rose (2008), who illustrate their proposal with texts from Australian aborigines originated in response to questions about their past, in particular traumatic events. The proposals in Martin and Rose (2008) and Plum (2004) differ only in a few respects. One of them is the denomination of constituents and the fact that Martin and Rose (2008) recognize the existence of the initial and final constituents called Abstract and Coda, respectively, only for some story genres, while Plum considers them to be optional constituents for all five of the story genres. Also, Martin and Rose (2004) focus more on the purpose of each of the story genres and how to distinguish one genre from another. The main difference between the two proposals is that Plum (2004) organizes the narrative categories in a continuum (see Table 1), which shows the differences with respect to the metafunctional focus — i.e. whether there is a focus on the interpersonal or experiential meanings —, the relationship of the text with the real world — i.e. whether the text represents or interprets the world around us —, and the dependence of the text on the context — i.e. whether the text is an artifact in itself and therefore is independent from the context or whether the text is used to reflect upon the context and is therefore dependent on it.
Salmaso (2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a, 2014) argues that the generic structures of the story genres in Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) — which originate from narrative instances in English that are induced, i.e. produced in response to questions specifically designed to generate story genres — do not account for the characteristics she finds in the spontaneous story genres in Spanish of her corpus. Salmaso (2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2014) analyses narrative instances produced
in admission interviews in public mental health carried out in youth centers in Mendoza, Argentina. The main characteristics of the narrative instances in such interviews are that they are spontaneous, oral and coproduced. In order to make the story genres in Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) applicable to the analysis of the narrative instances in her corpus, Salmaso (2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a, 2014) creates a taxonomy which grants flexibility to the generic structure of the five story genres within SFL.
Salmaso (2014) bases her proposal on Rosch's (1978) Prototype Theory and Hasan's (1996) Generic Structure Potential (GSP). Salmaso (2014) conceives story genres — which she refers to as categories of narrative instances (NIs), a denomination which will be used hereafter — as heterogeneous and non-discrete classes, which have members that are more representative of each class than others. Hasan's (1996) and Salmaso's (2014) proposals differ in that while both assign a canonical order for the constituents in the GSP of a genre, the latter sustains that the presentation of constituents in a canonical order is not a classification parameter and that this order can be altered without influencing the classification of a NI into one category or another (Salmaso, 2014, p. 29, 54). According to Salmaso (2014), the NIs that are prototypical in each category of NI are those that present all the constituents (obligatory and non-obligatory ones) of their category in the canonical order, while those that present, for example, only the obligatory ones in an order different from the canonical are less prototypical.4
Following Labov (1972), Salmaso (2014, p. 46) defines Nis as a means to reconstruct past events that refer to the same topic and that are temporally and logically connected. Salmaso (2014, p. 46) adds that
4 Salmaso (2014) not only analyses the generic aspects of the five categories of NIs but she also gives evidence at a lexico-grammati-cal level to show the validity of the taxonomy she proposes. These aspects will not be discussed here since they are not relevant for the general purpose of the article.
narratives are not just a compilation of past events but, most importantly, they have expressions of evaluation of different types and that these evaluations are what actually motivate the speakers to narrate. In fact, NIs can consist of just one event (although it is not frequent) when such event is used with evaluative purposes.
There are three main general characteristics in Salmaso's (2014) proposal: canonical order of constituents versus rhetorical order of constituents, coproduction of NIs and complex NIs. Salmaso (2014, p. 54) conceives two levels of analysis of the generic structure of NIs: canonical order and rhetorical order. The canonical order is the typical order of occurrence of constituents in a NI, which Salmaso (2014) specifies for each of the categories. The rhetorical order is the observable and specific sequence in which the speaker selects to present the constituents. The NIs in Salmaso (2014) are oral instances narrated by patients in admission interviews carried out by public mental health professionals. The changes in the canonical order are many times caused by the intervention of the professional while the patients are narrating. These changes are also due to the fact that the narrator chooses, either consciously or unconsciously, a rhetorical order that better helps him fulfill his purpose. Salmaso (2014) shows that when the rhetorical order does not coincide with the canonical order, it is nevertheless possible to classify a NI as a member of one category or another. Therefore, the canonical order of constituents is not a classification parameter, which helps give flexibility to the new taxonomy. NIs that would not be classifiable following Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) into any category due to a different sequencing of constituents are not discarded as members of a category in Salmaso's (2014) taxonomy. There are some cases in which there is no real alteration in the canonical order of presentation of constituents but there is a slight change in the structure of NIs caused by iteration of constituents (See example (2) for iteration of constituents and example (3) for a rhetorical order of constituents different from the canonical one).
The alterations in the canonical order are related to another characteristic of Salmaso's (2014) proposal: coproduction. As mentioned before, the NIs in Salmaso (2014) are produced in public mental health admission interviews. The questions or requests for clarification by the professionals often produce the generation of a constituent and sometimes the generation of an entire NI. This phenomena of coproduction of NIs is particularly relevant for the analysis of NIs that are produced within a conversation, so as not to leave aside segments that are highly important in the narrative structure just because they are produced by a participant that is not the narrator. However,
coproduction is not only relevant for the analysis of oral NIs within a conversation. Coproduction is also found in written NIs when the narrator makes use of dialogues between participants. Recognizing the existence of coproduction might be of great use when analyzing written NIs and when teaching how to produce this type of genres, for example, for teachers to foster the use of such resources instead of banning or disregarding its use (see example (1) for coproduction).
Salmaso (2014) also recognizes the existence of complex NIs. Even if Plum (2004) analyses examples where he finds complex NIs, which he calls "embedded" narratives, he does not give a specific definition of them, neither does he explain in which constituents they can be inserted or how they originate. Salmaso (2014) explains that complex NIs in her corpus are produced by the ramifications that are typical of NIs in conversations. Speakers narrating orally and spontaneously often make clarifications or add details to their NIs which result in the insertion of a NI within another narrative, for example, a 'recount' in the Record of Events constituent within a 'narrative'. According to the examples of complex NIs in Salmaso's (2014) corpus, she restricts the insertion of NIs to evaluative and eventive (disruptive and non-disruptive) constituents. The insertion of NIs is not possible in descriptive constituents which denote states, i.e. 'orientation' and 'reorientation'.5 In relation to this concept of complex NIs, Salmaso (2014) highlights a phenomena which she calls "syntax of constituents", which refers to the variety of combinations between the constituents of the main NI and the NIs inserted in it. This phenomenon suggests that a segment can have different and simultaneous functions and can, therefore, be simultaneously labeled as a constituent of a NI and as a NI in itself. Salmaso (2014, p. 53) finds three different cases of syntax of constituents:
(i) the realization of each constituent of the main NI by one, two or three constituents of the inserted NIs;
(ii) the realization of one constituent of the main NI by all the constituents of the inserted NI and; (iii) the realizationof one constituent of the main NI by two inserted NIs. (See example (3) for complex NIs)
Apart from these broad characteristics of NIs, Salmaso (2014) proposes some specific changes generalizable to the five categories of NIs. Taking into account the perspective of the family of story genres (Martin and Rose, 2008), Salmaso (2014) believes it is
5 For practical purposes of analyses, Salmaso (2014) groups constituents into three main classes: descriptive, eventive and evaluative. Descriptive constituents present characters, time and place (Orientation and Reorientation). Eventive constituents denote the main events and all the events either logically or temporally related to them (for example, Abstract, Record of Events, Disruption). Evaluative constituents express positive or negative evaluations of affect, judgment or appreciation (Martin and White, 2005) (for example, Evaluation, Interpretation, Comment).
necessary to establish more similarities between the members of the family of story genres: 'recounts', 'narratives', 'anecdotes', 'exempla' and 'observations'. She considers that the different categories of NIs (members of the family of story genres) have more constituents in common than Abstract, Orientation and Coda, as proposed by Plum (2004) — but not identified as constituents in common by Martin and Rose (2008). Therefore, Salmaso (2014) proposes a taxonomy that revolves around constituents that are common and differential in each category.
The taxonomy in Salmaso (2014) — summarized in Table 2 — uses the same label for those constituents that have the same function in different categories of NIs, while Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) use different labels for constituents that have the same function in all the categories of NIs. For example, Martin and Rose (2008) and Plum (2004) assign a different label to the disruptive event in each category of NI when it has exactly the same function in all of the categories. For this reason and, in order to provide a taxonomy that clearly distinguishes those constituents that differentiate the categories of NIs and those they have in common, Salmaso (2014) gives the same label to the disruptive event of all the categories of NIs: Disruption, and she shows that it has the same function in all the categories, i.e. to change the normal course of events.
Another phenomenon that Salmaso's (2014) taxonomy attempts to avoid is assigning a multiplicity of functions to one constituent. While Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) sometimes assign more than one function to the same constituent, Salmaso (2014) assigns a single function to each constituent in all the different categories of NIs. An example of multiplicity of functions of one constituent is that of the Coda. Martin and Rose (2008) assign different functions to the Coda in each category of NI and sometimes even more than one function per category. In order to clarify the function of the Coda, Salmaso (2014) assigns it just one function, which is the same in all the categories of NIs, i.e., a final event or reflection which brings the NI to an end.
Following Plum (2004, p. 231), Salmaso (2014) recognizes the possibility of fusion of constituents which occurs when the function of two (or more) constituents is not distinctively realized in a given text, either because they occur in the same clause and it is not possible to clearly distinguish each of the constituents or because they are interspersed in a section of text and separating them would just imply an artificial and repetitive labeling of constituents, showing them as iterative when there is really no iteration. Salmaso (2014) explains that the definition of constituents in terms of a unique function does not exclude the possibility of fusion of constituents
since, when there is fusion, it is not possible to clearly determine the boundaries between constituents but it is possible to clearly state the function of each of them (Examples (1), (2) and (3) show fusion of constituents).
Salmaso (2014) not only defines constituents in terms of a unique function but also shows the existence of more constituents in each of the categories of NIs, constituents which perform a function that is not distinguished or accounted for by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) for story genres in English. An example is the inclusion of an Evaluation in 'recounts' (Salmaso, 2009, 2014) which has exactly the same function as the Evaluation in 'narratives' — i.e. to evaluate the effects of the events or the participants in those events through positive or negative affect, judgment or appreciation, — and a constituent called Interpretation of the Reaction in 'anecdotes' (Salmaso, 2010, 2014) which has the function of explaining and evaluating why a participant in an 'anecdote' reacted in a certain way to a disruptive event.
The changes Salmaso (2014) proposes in the generic structure of the different categories of NIs result in a slight change in the purpose of each of the categories as well as in their classification in a continuum determined by the parameters focus, relation with the real world and dependence on the context (Plum, 2004) (see Table 1). For example, the purpose of 'recounts' is to show how a series of non-disruptive events affect the participants in those events and, due to the inclusion of an Evaluation (Salmaso, 2009, 2014), they are typically used to evaluate the effects of the events or the participants involved in those events. Also, including an Evaluation in 'recounts' produces changes as regards the three parameters mentioned above. The focus of 'recounts' is on the events but they possess a highly relevant interpersonal element realized by the Evaluation. They are representative of the real world but the Evaluation gives them an interpersonal quality and they are independent from the context, i.e., they are artifacts in themselves (Plum, 2004), but at the same time they may be used to reflect upon the context.
In brief, Salmaso (2014) proposes a flexible and precise taxonomy for the classification of NIs in which the different categories are characterized by defining their constituents in terms of a unique function and by establishing with precision which constituents are common to all categories and which are differential, the latter being those that distinguish and determine each category of NI. The differentiation between prototypical and non-prototypical NIs, the recognition and characterization of complex NIs and the verification of the essential role of coproduction naturally conflate to a notorious flexibilization of the categories of NIs. Salmaso's (2014) proposal is
summarized below in Table 2.6 Table 2
6 For a complete summary of Plum's (2004) and Martin and Rose's _
(2008) taxonomy for the five categories of NIs see Salmaso (2014, p. 43-46). Categories of NIs: generic structure, purpose, focus, relation with the real world and context dependence - Translated from Salmaso (2014)7
Category of NI
Recount: Series of non-disruptive events that are culturally significant. Recounts are typically used to evaluate the effects of the events or the participants in those events.
Narrative: Series of events with a disruption which gets solved, either because an actual solution is provided or because there is an adaptation to the new situation created by the disruption.
Anecdote: Series of events with a disruption which produces a reaction in a participant in the events or the narrator of the events. The reaction is typically interpreted by a participant/narrator.
Exemplum: Series of events with a disruption which are narrated to judge the behaviour of a participant involved in the events.
Observation: Series of events with a disruption which are told to show the effects of the disruption on the narrator.
Generic structure
(Abstract)
(Abstract)
(Abstract)
(Abstract)
(Abstract)
(Orientation)
(Orientation)
(Orientation)
(Orientation)
(Orientation)
Record of events
( Record of events ) ( Record of events ) ( Record of events ) ( Record of events )
Inter- Inter- Inter- Inter- Interpersonal Interpersonal
personal personal personal personal Disruption Disruption
Disruption Disruption Disrup- Disrup-
tion tion
(Consequence of the events)
Inter- Inter-
personal personal resolution resolution
Reaction
(Evaluation) -positive or negative expression of affect, judgment or appreciation-
(Evaluation) - positive or negative expression of affect, judgment or appreciation-
(Interpretation of the reaction) -positive or negative expression of affect, judgment or appreciation-
Interpretation -positive or negative expression of judgment-
Comment - positive or negative expression of affect or appreciation -
(Reorientation)
(Reorientation)
(Reorientation)
(Reorientation)
(Reorientation)
(Coda)
(Coda)
(Coda)
(Coda)
(Coda)
Purpose To tell events that
are not disruptive but are all the same culturally significant. In most cases, the point of recounts is to evaluate the effects of the events or the participants involved in those events.
To show how a disruptive event is solved or how people adapt to the disruption, and to evaluate the disruption, the resolution or a participant in the events.
To show (and interpret) the reaction of a participant or the narrator towards a disruptive event.
To judge the behaviour of the participants in a disruptive event.
To show the effects of a disruptive event on the narrator who expresses his feelings (affect) or evaluates the events (appreciation)
Focus Focus on the events: Experiential (there might be interpersonal elements) Balance between the events and the evaluation: Experiential- Interpersonal Focus on the evaluation: Interpersonal
Relation with the real world Representative (also interpretative when there is Evaluation) Representative-Interpretative Interpretative
Context dependence -C = The text is an artefact in itself that is sometimes used to reflect on the context +/ - C= The text as an artefact in itself and as a way to reflect on the context +C = The text is used to reflect on the context
' ( ) indicates constituents that are not obligatory
Results and Discussion
The purpose of this article is: (i) to highlight the importance of flexibilizing the generic structure of the story genres proposed by Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008) within the Systemic Functional Framework (SFL), (ii) to take up a taxonomy proposed for story genres in Spanish (Salmaso, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012 a, 2014) which grants more flexibility to the generic structure of the five genres of the narrative family ('recounts', 'narratives', 'anecdotes', 'exempla' and 'observations') (Plum, 2004, Martin and Rose, 2008) and (iii) to engage in a comparative study of the generic structure of the story genre: 'anecdote'. The final aim of this article is to confirm whether the taxonomy created on the basis of 'anecdotes' in Spanish can be extrapolated to 'anecdotes' in English, as a stepping-stone towards the extension of the application of such taxonomy to the five categories of story genres in English.
The central hypotheses of this research are: (i) that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy in Salmaso (2014) produced on the basis of oral, coproduced and spontaneous NIs in Spanish to written, induced NIs in English and; (ii) that the use of such taxonomy simplifies and enriches the analysis of the NIs in English, particularly for applied purposes. These hypotheses have been tested for the category 'anecdote' and the results are illustrated in this article with the analysis of induced, written instances in English. Nine instances of 'anecdotes' were analyzed, all of which were written by native speakers of English belonging to different age and gender groups but with similar educational backgrounds (higher education). Due to space restrictions, the analysis of only three instances of 'anecdotes' is presented in this article. The examples of 'anecdotes' were generated in response to the following instruction: write one or two anecdotes (or what in your mind is an anecdote) related to some 'special' (inspiring, scary, funny, etc.) event in your life.
The texts were analyzed following the generic structure proposed by Salmaso (2010, 2014) and drawing comparisons, when pertinent, with an analysis that draws on Plum (2004) and Martin and Rose (2008). The different instances of 'anecdotes' are analyzed only in terms of their generic structure — reference to lexicogrammatical features is made only when entirely relevant and, in particular, with reference to the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes' in terms of Appraisal (Martin and White, 2005) and the boundaries and transition between constituents in terms of types of Themes8 (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Martin et al., 1997; Fries, 1995). The constituents are labeled in bold type between square brackets (see Analysis and Results section).
8 Theme with initial capital letter is used to refer to the type of Theme: marked or unmarked topical, textual or interpersonal.
Even though the taxonomy in Salmaso (2014) was created on the basis of NIs in Spanish and in the context of admission interviews in public mental health, its flexibility suggests that the taxonomy can be extrapolated to the analysis of NIs that are produced in similar contexts, i.e. semi-structured interviews in public or private institutions, carried out face to face, with the purpose and roles of the interactants similar to those of the admission interviews in Salmaso (2014). Likewise, it is possible to predict that, because of its flexibility, the precision in the definition of constituents and the clear distinction between the different categories of NIs, the taxonomy in Salmaso (2014) may be useful for the analysis of NIs produced in contexts different from the one that originated it.
This article focuses on the category of NI 'anecdote'. Therefore, it is necessary to specify the changes that Salmaso (2010, 2014) proposes for 'anecdotes'. First, Salmaso (2010, 2014) renames the Extraordinary Event calling it Disruption, and argues that the Extraordinary Event in 'anecdotes' does not differ from the disruptive events in all the categories of NIs. That is the reason why Salmaso (2010, 2014) assigns the same name to all disruptive events in all categories of NIs. Salmaso (2010, 2014) states that the Disruption may be any type of event — either positive (e.g. funny) or negative (e.g. catastrophic) — or the attitude or behavior of a person, and that as such event or attitude is contrary to what is expected in a particular situation, it changes the normal course of events. Salmaso (2010, 2014) distinguishes two types of Disruption in 'anecdotes': Interpersonal Disruption and Natural Disruption. The Interpersonal Disruption refers to human conflicts, i.e. problems related to feelings, thoughts, actions, etc. of the participants in the events. The Natural disruption refers to natural phenomena (e.g. an earthquake, rain, etc.) as well as external conflicts (e.g. a car accident, losing the key to our house, etc.).
As mentioned before, the Disruption in one of the constituents that 'anecdotes' have in common with the other categories of NIs - with the exception of 'recounts', which do not have a disruptive event. What distinguishes 'anecdotes' from the other categories is the Reaction. What is significant about 'anecdotes' is that one or more participants involved in the events react to the Disruption, while in 'narratives', for example, the Disruption is resolved.
It is precisely in relation to the Reaction that Salmaso (2010, 2014) proposes another change in the generic structure of 'anecdotes'. She redefines the function of the Reaction and introduces another constituent called Interpretation of the Reaction. While Martin and Rose (2008) consider the reaction to be the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes' in which the events are explicitly assessed from the point of view of the narrator with expressions of affect (Martin and White, 2005), Salmaso (2010, 2014) argues that the
Reaction (for example, "I decided to leave", "I turned round and didn't say a word") shows the behavior of the narrator or a participant in the events towards the Disruption, but she sustains that the Reactions of her corpus do not have an evaluative quality. Salmaso (2010, 2014) considers the Interpretation of the Reaction to be the evaluative constituent in 'anecdotes'. In the Interpretation of the Reaction, the Reaction is evaluated either positively or negatively through affect, judgment or appreciation (Martin and White, 2005), for example, "I reacted so badly because I was terribly angry". The Interpretation of the Reaction is clearly a consolidation of the Reaction we expect in an 'anecdote'.
The inclusion of the Interpretation of the reaction brings about other changes regarding the function of constituents in 'anecdotes'. Martin and Rose (2008) mention the function of the Interpretation of the Reaction but they assign this function to the Coda, which, at the same time, they consider to be the constituent that reorients the 'anecdote'. Besides, when defining the Coda for other categories of NIs, Martin and Rose (2008) give it a third function: a final event that wraps up the NI. As Salmaso's (2014) aim is to define constituents in terms of a unique function and to clearly show which constituents are common to all categories, she states that the Coda is a constituent that presents the final event or a final reflection on the whole 'anecdote' and claims that the Coda has the same function in all categories of NIs. She includes another constituent common to all categories, the Reorientation, which has the sole function of reorienting the 'anecdote' - and all the other categories of Nis -in space and time. For the other function assigned to the Coda in 'anecdotes' by Martin and Rose (2008), Salmaso (2010, 2014) introduces the new constituent mentioned and defined before called Interpretation of the Reaction.
Salmaso (2010, 2014) also shows that 'anecdotes' may have an Abstract which Labov (1972) includes as a constituent of 'narratives' and Plum (2004) considers to be a constituent of all categories of NIs - but it is not explicitly included by Martin and Rose (2018) for any of the categories of NIs. Salmaso (2010, 2014) also includes a Record of Events, a constituent that is common to all categories of NIs according to her taxonomy.
To sum up, the generic structure of 'anecdotes' in Salmaso's (2010, 2014) taxonomy is the following:
(Abstract) A (Orientation) A (Record of events) A Natural disruption v Interpersonal disruption A Reaction A (Interpretation of the reaction) A (Reorientation) A (Coda)9
The constituents above are presented in the canonical order of occurrence and, as previously explained, Salmaso (2014) states that this order may
9 Notations:
( ) indicates constituents that are not obligatory
a means followed by
v denotes disjunction
be altered. The alteration in the order of presentation of constituents is due to the decision (either conscious or unconscious) of the narrator to use a rhetorical order different from the canonical one. According to the above formulaic representation of the generic structure of 'anecdotes', the only constituents that are obligatory in this category are the Disruption (either natural or interpersonal) and the Reaction and they are, therefore, the ones that define the category and distinguish it from the others. The following are the definitions that are to be applied to distinguish the different constituents in the generic structure of 'anecdotes' according to Salmaso (2010, 2014):
- Abstract: one or more clauses that briefly narrate the main event in the 'anecdote', which is usually the disruptive event.
- Orientation: one or more clauses that present the characters and/or the time and place where the events in the ' anecdote' occur.
- Record of events: a sequence of clauses that present one or more non-disruptive events.
The events in the Record of Events in an 'anecdote' unfold along a specific stretch of time (a day, last weekend, last holidays, a special day in my childhood, a trip, etc.), are temporally and logically related and lead to the Disruption.
- Interpersonal Disruption: a sequence of clauses that change the normal course of events; such change is caused by one or more of the participants (which might be the narrator) in the 'anecdote'.
- Natural Disruption: a sequence of clauses that change the normal course of events; such change is caused by some sort of natural phenomena (e.g. an earthquake) or an external conflict (e.g. a car crash).
The Disruption (either interpersonal or natural) may consist of just one clause when there is a Record of Events, and such clause is temporally or logically linked to the clauses in the Record of Events.
- Reaction: one or more clauses that show the behavior of the narrator or another participant towards the Disruption.
The reaction is logically and/or temporally related to the event(s) in the Disruption.
- Interpretation of the Reaction: one or more clauses where the reaction is evaluated. The evaluation might be positive or negative and it may express affect, judgment or appreciation.
- Reorientation: one or more clauses that recontextualize the 'anecdote' in terms of time and space. Usually, the recontextualization is to the time of speaking.
- Coda: one or more clauses that present the final event or a final reflection of the whole 'anecdote', finishing off the 'anecdote'.
The changes in the generic structure of 'anecdotes' presented in Salmaso (2010, 2014) produce changes in the purpose of this category of NI. According to Salmaso, the purpose of 'anecdotes' is to show the reaction of a participant/narrator towards the Disruption. When the constituent Interpretation of the Reaction is present, the narrator uses the anecdote to interpret his own reaction or the reaction of another participant.
Salmaso (2010, 2014) also reconsiders the three parameters for classification of NIs proposed by Plum (2004): the focus of the text — whether the text has interpersonal or experiential focus, - the relation of the text with the real world - whether the text is used to represent or interpret the real world - and context dependency - whether the text is an artifact in itself, independent from the context or whether the text is dependent on the context and used to reflect upon it. Plum (2004) places 'anecdotes' in the middle of the continuum (see Table 1) since he considers 'anecdotes' to be experiential and interpersonal, representative and interpretative of the real world and independent from the context although they are used to reflect upon it. Salmaso (2014) agrees with Plum's (2004) classification of 'anecdotes' into the continuum. However, as Salmaso (2010, 2014) does not consider the Reaction in 'anecdotes' to be the evaluative constituent and as the evaluative constituent in 'anecdotes', the Interpretation of the Reaction is an optional constituent, she believes the focus of anecdotes is on the events and that they are, therefore, more experiential than representative and that they are independent from the context. Only when the Interpretation of the Reaction is present do 'anecdotes' have a balance between the experiential and the interpersonal, representation and interpretation of the real world and, in such cases, they are still independent of the context and, at the same time, they serve to reflect upon it.
Analysis
Example (1)
[Orientation/Abstract]10 You never really understand the worth of what surrounds you until you're taken out of that environment and sent 6,000 miles away. Living in the foothills of the Andes mountains for half a year to learn Spanish forced me to reexamine the life I left at home. [Record of Events] One evening, I was sitting at the dinner table with my Argentine host-mom, and I was gushing about the beauty of the mountains she got to look at every day. I was jealous that we didn't have mountains where I was from. "Well, what do you have in Missouri?" she asked me. With my limited Spanish vocabulary, I told her that we had wild rabbits, squirrels, turtles, turkeys,
10 Fusion of constituents is signaled with the symbol /
peacocks, raccoons, opposums, and I wanted to tell her that we also had a lot of deer. [Interpersonal Disruption] However, I didn't know the word in Spanish for deer, so I began to creatively describe it, just as I was forced to do every day when I didn't know the word for something. "They're kind of like horses, but smaller. They're bigger than dogs. And they have hair on their bodies and horns--" [Reaction] "You have Bambi's in Missouri?" she yelled excitedly. "Bambi's... yeah!" I responded, laughing. "What is the word in Spanish for those animals, though?" I asked. "Well, I don't know. We don't have Bambi's in Argentina," she told me. "But you have all the Bambi animals where you live!" [Interpretation of the Reaction] She was so excited to imagine my house in the middle of the woods surrounded by lush green fields, rabbits named Thumper, and skunks named Flower. [Reorientation] Every time I see a deer at home now, [Coda] I think of my excited host-mom, sitting at the dinner table, laughing and talking about how fun it would be to have Bambi's in your own back yard. This is a special memory that will stay with me for a long time because just like a death in the family forces you to give your mom more hugs or a near car crash causes you to drive more carefully, glimpsing a Bambi crossing the street reminds me to be thankful for the world that surrounds me, whether it be majestic mountains, the vast, blue sea, or green, rolling hills.
Example (1) presents one of the general characteristics in Salmaso's (2010, 2014) proposal: coproduction of constituents. In this case, the coproduction is not at the time of speaking between the narrator and his/her interlocutor, as is the case in some NIs in Salmaso's (2010, 2014) corpus, but between two of the participants in the events in the 'anecdote'. The latter type of coproduction is as relevant as the former and it is important to acknowledge its existence, for example for teaching purposes, in order to make it explicit to students who are learning to write or tell 'anecdotes' that this category of NI — and all categories for that matter — are not always monologic, and that including dialogues is a valid and powerful linguistic resource to make the events more vivid to the reader or listener of the 'anecdote'.
Example (1) follows the generic structure of 'anecdotes' proposed by Salmaso (2010, 2014). It has the obligatory constituents as well as all the non-obligatory ones and there is no alteration in their canonical of presentation. In this instance of anecdote there is fusion of two constituents: Abstract and Orientation. In the first clauses of the 'anecdote', the narrator makes reference to the place where the events happened, first in a general way - "6,000 miles away" - and later more specifically — "in the foothills of the Andes mountains". These elements constitute the Orientation of the 'anecdote' together with one
of the participants presented in these clauses which is the narrator herself - "forced me to reexamine the life I left at home". Intermingled with these references to the place and one of the participants in the 'anecdote', there is the Abstract. In this case, the Abstract summarizes the Coda, probably because the Disruption and all the other events in the 'anecdote' are not that relevant compared to what the narrator learnt from them, which is the final reflection the narrator makes in the Coda. The evaluative language used in the Abstract shows its close connection with the Coda: "really understand the worth of what surrounds" -inscribed positive appreciation: valuation (Martin & White, 2005) - and "forced me to reexamine the life I left at home" - invoked affect: inclination (Martin & White, 2005).
The beginning of the Record of events is signaled by the marked topical Theme (circumstance of time) "One evening", which introduces a sequence of non-disruptive events that took place that evening: she was talking to her Argentine host-mom, she made reference to the beauty of the mountains around them, the host-mom asked her about Missouri, and she started mentioning the natural beauties and animals in Missouri. This non-disruptive sequence of events is altered by the Interpersonal Disruption - caused by the participants - that is signaled by the textual Theme (concessive conjunction) "however". The change in the normal course of events presented previously in the Record of Events is due to the fact that the narrator did not remember the Spanish word for deer and she used Bambi instead, which is what triggered the Reaction of the host-mom and of the narrator herself. There is inscribed affect: happiness (Martin & White, 2005) in the Reaction: "she yelled excitedly" and "I responded, laughing".
Even though the use of affect in the Reaction seems to contradict Salmaso's (2010, 2014) redefinition of the Reaction as an eventive constituent (instead of an evaluative one), it is relevant to point out that if we do away with the inscribed affect (Martin and White, 2005) there would still be a Reaction. The point is that the reaction may or may not contain inscribed attitude (Martin & White, 2005) and, when it does not, its purpose of showing the behavior of the narrator/participant towards the Disruption is still fulfilled. In fact, as mentioned before, there is also inscribed appreciation (Martin & White, 2005) in the Abstract and that does not make it the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes'. The Reaction is considered to be an eventive constituent because it is an event that is logically and chronologically connected with the rest of the events in the 'anecdote', while when the Interpretation of the Reaction - which is the constituent considered to be evaluative by Salmaso (2010, 2014) - is present, it does not have a logical or
temporal connection with the events in the 'anecdote' but the narrator takes distance from the events, interrupting the narrative flow to reflect upon them, in particular to evaluate the Reaction.
When the intention of the narrator is to use the 'anecdotes' not just to show how someone reacted towards a Disruption but to interpret the real world — in Plum's (2004) terms - he/she includes an Interpretation of the Reaction to highlight the relevance of telling the 'anecdote'. The purpose of the Interpretation of the Reaction is precisely to evaluate the Reaction by interpreting the reasons why a participant acted in a certain way when faced with a disruptive event. This is exactly what the narrator does in the Interpretation of the Reaction of example (1): she explains why her host-mom reacted so excitedly, "She was so excited to imagine my house in the middle of the woods surrounded by lush green fields, rabbits named Thumper, and skunks named Flower." The Interpretation of the Reaction is not an event, as the Reaction, but a reflection upon an event.
After the Interpretation of the Reaction, there is a Reorientation that brings back the 'anecdote' to the time of speaking "Every time I see a deer at home now", followed by the Coda that, as previously mentioned, provides a reflection of all the events in the 'anecdote' showing the importance of those events in the life of the narrator and bringing the 'anecdote' to an end.
If this example (1) had been analyzed following the generic structure of 'anecdotes' proposed by Martin and Rose (2008), the analysis would have been quite different. Martin and Rose do not consider the Abstract to be a constituent of 'anecdotes'; therefore, the function of the Abstract and the connection between the Abstract and the Coda would not have been taken into account and the information in the Abstract would have probably been labeled Orientation. As Martin and Rose (2008) do not consider the Record of Events as a constituent of 'anecdotes', the information contained in that constituent would also be included in the Orientation, which they define as the constituent that shows a state of normality. Thus, the Orientation would be fulfilling three functions: to summarize the most important event in the 'anecdote', to introduce characters and place and to present events that demonstrate a state of normalcy. This means including general information, descriptive information (place and characters) and eventive information (concerning events) altogether under the same label, underestimating the relevance of the function that each of these constituents have in achieving the purpose of the whole 'anecdote'. Moreover, Martin & Rose (2008) do not include the Interpretation of the Reaction or the Reorientation as constituents of 'anecdotes' and they define the Coda as the constituent where the Reaction is interpreted
and/or where the story is reoriented. Again, there would be a constituent with at least two different functions since the Interpretation of the Reaction and the Reorientation would be included under the label Coda. The question is what would be done with the information analyzed as Coda following Salmaso's (2010, 2014) proposal. It would probably be included under the label Coda as well but not because Martin and Rose (2008) specify such a function for the Coda of 'anecdotes', but only because they define the coda as a final event or final reflection when referring to the generic structure of other categories of NIs. The only difference between Martin and Rose's (2008) proposal and Plum's (2004) is that Plum recognizes the existence of an Abstract and he assigns it a function similar to Salmaso (2010, 2014). Therefore, that would be the only aspect that would be different analyzing the text from Martin & Rose's (2008) perspective and Plum's (2004) perspective.
Example (2)
[Abstract/Orientation] One of the most memorable moments in my life came one night when I was fishing with Titus. He was about 8 or 9 years old. We went to a place on the edge of Seneca Lake to fish for a few minutes after dinner one night. The sun was just going down. [Record of Events] We did not have any luck catching fish, so we were about to pack up our gear and head home. [Natural Disruption 1] But at that moment I saw a slight movement on the pier where we were standing. The pier - actually it was more of a jetty - was made entirely out of rocks, so there were cracks between the rocks. Out of one of the cracks appeared a little black nose. Then the head appeared. It was a mink - a small, but cute, rat-like animal. The mink was obviously a baby. It was probably about the size of my hand. It came out and walked towards Titus and I. Then another appeared from another crack. Then another. And another. By the end there were probably a dozen minks walking around that jetty. They walked to us and started to sniff our shoes; then they climbed on top of our shoes. [Reaction 1] These were wild animals! But they were so cute. I imagine it was the first time they ever left the nest. [Natural Disruption 2] After about 10 minutes I realized that if there were a dozen baby minks around, there was probably a mother mink around too. Knowing that minks have very sharp teeth,[Reaction 2] I told Titus it was time to leave. [Coda] But I would say it was one of the times in my life that I felt most connected to nature.
Example (2) follows the generic structure of 'anecdotes' proposed by Salmaso (2010, 2014) and the constituents are presented in their canonical order. The optional constituents, Interpretation of the Reaction and Reorientation, are not present in this example. The alterations in the structure of the 'anecdote' are not
due to the fact that the narrator chooses a rhetorical order that differs from the canonical one, but to the fact that there is iteration of constituents: there are two Disruptions and two Reactions.
As in example (1), in this instance of 'anecdote' the Abstract and the Orientation are fused. In the Abstract
- "One of the most memorable moments in my life"
- the narrator briefly summarizes the most important events in the 'anecdote', which are the Disruptions: his finding baby minks while fishing with Titus and his realizing that the mother mink might be around and that she might be dangerous. In the Abstract, there is inscribed positive appreciation: reaction (Martin and White, 2005). The Orientation presents information about the place - "a place on the edge of Seneca Lake" -and the time - "one night", "a few minutes after dinner one night." - of the events as well the characters and information about them and what they were doing at that place - I was fishing with Titus. He was about 8 or 9 years old.
The Record of Events is very short; it only consists of two events — "They had no luck catching fish and they were about to leave" - that lead up to Disruption 1. There are two Disruptions in this 'anecdote' and both of them are Natural Disruptions since they do not refer to a conflict caused by the participants in the events but one caused by an external factor that changes the normal course of events. The first Natural Disruption (Natural Disruption 1) is signaled by the textual Theme (concessive conjunction) "but" and the marked topical Theme (circumstance of time) "at that moment" and the information presented in it consists of a series of events showing how a dozen of baby minks appeared and approached them. These events are disruptive not just because it is unusual to be faced with wild animals like minks but also because the appearance of the animals at that moment prevented them from leaving, which is what they had planned to do. The participants reacted to this Disruption (Reaction 1). In Reaction 1, the narrator expresses his thoughts about the animals using inscribed positive appreciation: reaction (Martin & White, 2005) — they were so cute — and it might be argued as well whether there is invoked negative appreciation: valuation (Martin & White, 2005) when the narrator says "they were wild animals!" However, there is little evidence to say whether the narrator is evaluating their being wild as dangerous or whether he just mentions that in contrast with their being cute, just because he cannot believe that wild animals can be so cute. What is crystal clear is that there is inscribed positive appreciation of the animals.
Disruption 2 is also a Natural Disruption, as mentioned before, since it is the possible presence of a mother mink with sharp teeth (Disruption 2) that makes the characters leave (Reaction 2). Reaction 2 is the type of reaction that Salmaso (2010, 2014) finds in
her corpus, i.e. a reaction with no explicit evaluative language. It might be argued that they were afraid and, therefore, that there is invoked affect: insecurity
- they were afraid - (Martin & White, 2005). However, the way they act does not really show they are afraid since the narrator does not say that they have to leave immediately or in a hurry, for example. Saying that they were afraid would be putting our own feelings or thoughts into the analysis of the 'anecdote'. Reaction (2) is just an event logically and temporally related to the other events in the 'anecdote' and it has no explicit evaluative language.
In this 'anecdote' there are two Reactions, one of them contains evaluative language and the other does not. It is clear, then, that the function of the Reaction, i.e. to show the behavior of the narrator or another participant towards the Disruption, can be fulfilled without the expression of affect. As explained in the analysis of example (1), the presence of affect (Martin & White, 2005) - or any type of attitude for that matter
- in the expression of the Reaction does not make it the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes' just as the use of evaluative language in the Abstract of example (2) - "most memorable moments in my life", for example, does not make it the evaluative constituent. The Interpretation of the reaction is the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes' since, when its present, it is always evaluative - expressing affect, judgment or appreciation - and it produces a change in 'anecdotes' in relation to the parameters of focus, relation with the real world and dependence on the context (Plum, 2004), making the text more experiential and interpretative of the real world and turning it into an artifact used to reflect upon the context. Besides, following Martin & Rose (2008), the Reaction should always express affect (Martin & White, 2005) and that is not the case according to example (2). Therefore, the presence of affect should not be considered a classificatory parameter for the Reaction. The Reaction may contain evaluative language - affect, judgment or appreciation
- but if it does not, it still fulfills its function in the 'anecdote'. In the Coda, the narrator makes a final reflection about the whole 'anecdote' which brings it to a close.
If example (2) had been analyzed following Martin & Rose (2008), the information in the Abstract and Record of Events - constituents which are not considered by the authors to be part of 'anecdotes' -would have been included in the Orientation, therefore considering constituents with different functions -providing general information, descriptive information and eventive information - to be performing only one function: show a state of normality - which is the function these authors assign to the Orientation. As Martin & Rose (2008) consider the Reaction to be the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes' and its
function to be the expression of affect (Martin & White, 2005), the constituent previously analyzed as Reaction 1 would not be considered a Reaction by the authors since it expresses appreciation; therefore, it is difficult to know how they would label it. If it were to be included as part of the disruptive event the first Reaction of the narrator to the minks would be missing from the analysis. It is also difficult to know how the constituent previously analyzed as Coda, would be labeled following Martin & Rose (2008) since they define the Coda of 'anecdotes' as the constituent where the reaction of the narrator or another participant is interpreted and/or the constituent where the story is reoriented. The main difference if this example had been analyzed following Plum (2004) instead of Martin & Rose (2008) would be that the former includes the Abstract as a constituent of 'anecdotes'.
Example (3)
[Abstract/Orientation 1]
It's very rare for me to remember dates. I, along with countless others I'm sure, can only remember the birthdays of friends and family through the wondrous invention of social networking, specifically Facebook. Many times, I even find myself completely oblivious to the day of the week I am currently in. It's quite an issue, yet this particular date has stuck with me even up to the moment I am writing this, nearly six months later.
I should first set the scene. This date took place on my last weekend in Hawaii. I had been staying in this breathtaking island for three months, selling hot dogs and smoothies on the beach and spending time with the many friends I had made throughout the trip. I had decided to quit my job two weeks before my flight back to Mendoza in order to travel to the other islands and treasure my last few days there. Throughout the three months, I had heard from a couple acquaintances about a sky diving company on the north shore. I heard great things, and it really got me thinking. I suppose nowadays, it is common for everyone to have a 'bucket list', a list of things you want to do before you die. Now I can admit that my list is quite thorough and large-scale, just like a little child's Christmas list to Santa Clause would be. But here, I had an opportunity to do something I couldn't even dream of: get on board an airplane and jump off with only a parachute.
[Interpersonal Disruption 1] 'anecdote'
[record of events] It took me a very long time to find someone to go sky diving with. It was practically the only factor that was preventing me to do it. Usually, some people would take into consideration the fact that you are jumping off a plane at 12,000 feet (3,657 meters) or the risk of a malfunction of the parachute. Not me... I just didn't want to go by myself! [disruption] Luckily enough, my two friends from Switzerland, who had gone to Hawaii in an exchange
program to study English, also wanted to go and we set the date. We paid and signed up to go for the 2nd of March. [reaction] Words cannot describe the anxiety I felt the day before. [Interpretation of the reaction] I honestly believe that is the worst part of an experience like this... the famous 'butterflies in your stomach'.
[Natural Disruption 2] 'narrative'
Unfortunately, on the day we went it was cloudy and rainy at the north part of the island. [Record of events] We watched the safety video, signed the waivers and waited to see if the weather would improve. It didn't. The company receptionist suggested that we go bright and early the next day. [Evaluation]I was a bit pessimistic because I only had a couple of days left, but nonetheless we waited one more day (and my anxiety level nearly tripled) and [Resolution]I was surprised to see that the stormy weather had gone away the next day. It was go-time.
[Orientation 2/Record of Events 1]
After waiting a few hours at the base, it was finally our turn. We each met our instructors who would dive with us and they drove us towards our plane. The group included the three of us and two sisters (one was celebrating her birthday), and each person had their instructor and their personal photographer (someone who jumps seconds before you do and films/takes pictures). As we reached the small plane, my moment of fear kicked in. I had never in my life been in such a small plane and I found myself doubting if we would all fit in. Thankfully, I didn't have time to contemplate on my decision and back out as we were instantly pushed inside. We sat in two small rows with our instructors behind each of us. After everyone settled in, the door was shut and there was no turning back.
As soon as the small plane took off, our instructors began to tighten our harnesses. It was amusing, because while they were busy with that, everyone else was silent. I looked out the window the entire time. I'm not sure why, but as soon as we were up in the air I was actually pretty calm. The tiny size of the plane had terrified me, but once I had confirmation that it wasn't going to crash, I was ready to jump. After a few minutes, we finally reached the altitude of 12,000 feet and the frenzy began. First up were the individual divers who didn't have an instructor. A German woman who was diving by herself hesitated at first, and I clearly remember someone yelling, "If you're not gonna jump, step aside!" This immediately brought her back into the moment and she jumped off. After one of my friends jumped with his instructor, it was my turn. My instructor and I sat on the edge of the plane. I looked down and saw a blanket of clouds just waiting for us to drop through them.
[Interpersonal Disruption 3] I then closed my eyes and before I know it, I was no longer on it. [Interpretation of the Reaction 1] Everyone always
asks me how the free fall felt. I always say that I felt a dropping sensation for the first five seconds and then I felt like I was floating as if I were swimming. [Record of events 2] I was very cold but that was because I had made the intelligent decision to go barefoot with shorts and a T-shirt. I also struggled to breathe at one point as the wind just crashed through your body. But all of these minor setbacks didn't matter at that moment. [Reaction 1] I lifted my hands up and pretended that I was flying, something that I had always fantasized as a child.
[Record of events 3/Reaction 2]
After about a minute later (probably the longest minute of my life), the instructor lifted the parachute and we descended slowly. I was astonished by the amazing view of the island and the Pacific Ocean. I got to enjoy the view for a few moments with calmness and tranquility before we landed back to the base. As soon as we landed, I looked up and waited for the other pairs to land. My heartbeat was probably on overload for the next ten minutes.
[Reorientation/Coda]
When I look back on this moment, I always remember the range of emotions I felt: anxiety, fear, adrenaline, calm and gratitude not only because I got to skydive but also because I survived! I can definitely say that this day was the highlight of my life so far and if I learned anything from the experience, it's that one should never put off doing things they dream of doing. I have a great deal of goals I have yet to reach, such as improving my first novel in order to share it with the world and travelling to fascinating places like China and Australia. The list goes on, but I am determined to work hard and attain them the first chance I get because, let's face it, life is too short for anyone to be carrying a long list of things they want to do.
Example (3) illustrates three characteristics in Salmaso's (2014) proposal. Firstly, this example is a complex NI: an 'anecdote' that contains another 'anecdote' and a 'narrative' in its interior, more precisely in the constituent called Disruption.11 In fact, the inserted 'anecdote' and 'narrative' constitute two different Disruptions: Interpersonal Disruption
I and Natural Disruption 2, respectively, the first one caused by the participants - the narrator does not want to go skydiving alone - and the second one caused by a natural phenomena: the bad weather. Also, in this example there is fusion of constituents, for example, Abstract/Orientation 1, Orientation 2 /Record of Events 1. Besides, in this example, the narrator chooses a rhetorical order of presentation of constituents which differs from the canonical order: Abstract/Orientation 1 A Interpersonal Disruption 1 A Natural Disruption 2 a Orientation 2/Record of Events
II The inserted NIs are signalled in the example with a deeper indentation.
1 a Interpersonal Disruption 3 a Interpretation of the Reaction 1 a Record of Events 2 a Reaction 1 a Record of Events 3/Reaction 2 a Reorientation/Coda.
In the Abstract/Orientation 1, the narrator first anticipates the main event in the anecdote and the main participant in it, himself: "this particular date has stuck with me even up to the moment I am writing this, nearly six months later", although he does not anticipate the exact event yet. The anticipated event is clearly disruptive from the use of the material process "stick with", meaning that it is such a strong memory that he has not been able to forget it. He then goes on, in his own words, "to set the scene". He sets the 'anecdote' in place and time: "my last weekend in Hawaii" and gives information about the activities he did at that place and a special one in his 'bucket list' he now had the opportunity to do: to sky dive, which is the central and disruptive event in the 'anecdote', anticipated at the beginning of the Abstract/Orientation 1.
Interpersonal Disruption 1 constitutes a digression in the flow of the main 'anecdote' since the narrator does not go directly to retell the main event in the anecdote, i.e. the time when he jumped off an airplane with a parachute, but writes about something that is not the main topic of the anecdote although it is related to it. He writes a short anecdote on how he found someone to go skydiving with. This digression is an 'anecdote' inserted in the main 'anecdote'. The inserted 'anecdote' begins with a Record of Events where the narrator expresses that he was determined to go skydiving but was not able to do so since he did not have a companion. The Interpersonal Disruption of the inserted 'anecdote' changes the course of the events in the Record of Events: two friends of the narrator from Switzerland who were in Hawaii agreed to go skydiving with him. As Salmaso (2014) explains, the Disruption does not necessarily need to be a negative event but an event that alters the normal course of events presented in the Record of events. In this inserted 'anecdote', the Interpersonal Disruption changes the course of events for the better. The Reaction expresses the narrator's attitude towards the Interpersonal Disruption: anxiety - inscribed affect (Martin & White, 2005). Whether his attitude is positive or negative is not clear from the Reaction since anxiety might be either the feeling of being very worried about something or the feeling of wanting to do something very much. Here, the importance of the constituent called Interpretation of the Reaction becomes clear. In this constituent the narrator describes the feeling of anxiety as negative: "that is the worst part of an experience" - negative appreciation: value (Martin & White, 2005). In the Interpretation of the Reaction of this example, it becomes evident in the tense shift from past to present that the narrator takes distance from the events he is narrating to reflect
upon his Reaction. The Interpretation of the Reaction is clearly the evaluative constituent since it has the characteristic of interrupting the narrative flow (Labov, 1972) to evaluate the events. It is the Interpretation of the Reaction that shows the significance of telling the inserted 'anecdote': Even though he was determined to go skydiving and did his best to find someone to do so with, realizing that he was actually going skydiving was "the worst part of an experience like this. the famous 'butterflies in your stomach'".
Interpersonal Disruption 1 is followed by another digression, which constitutes Natural Disruption 2. This second Natural Disruption is another inserted NI, in this case a 'narrative'. Instead of directly telling the reader about the day he actually jumped off a plane, the narrator decides to refer to another downside of his skydiving adventure. The inserted narrative starts with a Natural Disruption signaled by the interpersonal Theme "unfortunately", which shows that the narrator believes the event he is about to introduce is a negative one. The disruptive event presented is that the day they were supposed to go skydiving the weather was bad and they had to wait and see if it improved the following day. There is then an Evaluation in which the narrator expresses his feelings about this Natural Disruption "he was pessimistic and anxious" - inscribed affect: dissatisfaction (Martin and White, 2005). In the Resolution the conflict presented in the Natural Disruption is solved: the following day the weather was good.12
After the first two Disruptions there is Orientation 2 and Record of Events 1. These two constituents are fused. The author introduces new participants in the 'anecdote' - the people that were jumping, the instructors and the photographers, - specifies the exact setting in place - the plane, first on land and then flying - and tells a series of non-disruptive events which specify what they did from the time they got on the plane until they got ready to jump.
Interpersonal Disruption 3 — caused by the narrator himself — is the central disruptive event in the whole 'anecdote': jumping off the plane. After Interpersonal Disruption 3, there is Interpretation of the Reaction 1, Record of Events 2 and Reaction 1. In the Interpretation of the Reaction 1 - "Everyone always asks me how the free fall felt. I always say that I felt a dropping sensation for the first five seconds and then I felt like I was floating as if I were swimming", -the narrator explains why he reacted positively even though there were a some setbacks. The interpretation of the Reaction 1 is not part of the chain of events
12 Even if the generic structure of 'narratives' is not the focus of this article, it is relevant to clarify that the main difference between an 'anecdote' and a 'narrative' is that in the 'narrative' the Disruption is solved or the characters adapt somehow to the new situation, while in the 'anecdote' there is no Resolution but only the Reaction of the characters to the Disruption (see Table 2).
logically and temporally connected but it is a reflection the author makes on his reaction when he is asked to explain it sometime after the events occurred. In the Interpretation of the Reaction there is invoked affect: satisfaction (Martin & White, 2005). The events in the Record of Events 2, i.e. his being cold because of his wearing light clothes and no shoes and his struggling to breathe (presented as non-disruptive by the narrator himself "these minor setbacks didn't matter at that moment") are followed by the Reaction 1 "I lifted my hands up and pretended that I was flying, something that I had always fantasized as a child". In Reaction 1 there is invoked affect: satisfaction (Martin & White, 2005). Even if the Interpretation of the Reaction and the Reaction have the same type of affect, there is a crucial difference between them: the Reaction is one more events in the chain of events in the 'anecdote' while the Interpretation of the Reaction, as explained before, is not logically and temporally connected and it is the explanation the narrator makes of his feelings upon reflection.
The narrator presents the final events in the 'anecdote' that are fused with his reaction - Record of events 3/Reaction 2. He explains they started to descend and "[he] was astonished - inscribed affect: satisfaction (Martin and White, 2005) - by the amazing view of the island and the Pacific Ocean - inscribed positive appreciation: valuation (Martin & White, 2005), — [he] got to enjoy the view for a few moments with calmness and tranquility" - inscribed affect: satisfaction and inscribed judgment: normality (Martin & White, 2005), they landed and his heartbeat was probably on overload for the next ten minutes -inscribed negative appreciation: reaction and invoked affect: dissatisfaction (Martin & White, 2005). As mentioned before in the analysis of the other two examples, when there is evaluative language in the reaction, it is not just affect, as stated by Martin & Rose (2008) but there might also be appreciation and judgment.
In the Reorientation/coda, the narrator reorients the anecdote to the time of speaking, recapitulates his feelings at the time of the event, reflects upon the importance and influence that the events in the 'anecdote' had on his life and finally brings the 'anecdote' to an end, going back to the idea of the 'bucket list' mentioned in the abstract: after going skydiving, he is determined to try hard to do the other activities in his 'bucket list'.
If example (3) had been analyzed following Martin & Rose (2008), the inserted 'anecdote' and 'narrative' - Interpersonal Disruption 1 and Natural Disruption 2, respectively - would not have been analyzed as such, since the authors do not recognize the existence of complex NIs. Therefore, the information contained in them, would have probably been analyzed as just one
Disruption, together with Interpersonal Disruption 3, missing the fact that the events in the first two disruptions are not the central disruptive events in the general 'anecdote' but just contribute meanings related to it. Moreover, the inserted 'anecdote' and 'narrative', would not have been analyzed in detail and the subtle meanings they contribute to the whole text would have been lost in generalizations. Martin & Rose (2008) do not recognize the existence of fusion of constituents, so it is difficult to predict how such constituents would have been analyzed. Additionally, Martin & Rose (2008) do not present Abstract, Record of Events, Interpretation of the Reaction and Reorientation as constituents of 'anecdotes', so the information contained in those constituents would have been inside other constituents, either assigning a double function to one constituent or missing important and meaningful information they contain. Even if Plum (2004) provides some analyses of complex NIs (which he calls "embedded" narratives), as stated before, he does not give a restrictive definition of them neither does he explain in which constituents they can be inserted or how they originate, so it is difficult to know whether he would have analyzed the inserted NIs as such. The only certain similarity between his analysis and the one following Salmaso (2010, 2014) is that Plum (2004) acknowledges the existence of an Abstract and Coda for 'anecdotes' and he is the one who first proposed fusions of constituents.
Conclusion
The central purpose of this article is to show that the taxonomy proposed for NIs in Spanish (Salmaso, 2009, 2010a, 2010b, 2012a and 2014) can be extrapolated to NIs in English, in particular with reference to the category of NI called 'anecdote'. According to the examples of 'anecdotes' analyzed, the extrapolation is possible and the taxonomy enriches the analysis of the 'anecdotes'.
The three examples of 'anecdote' illustrate the concept of prototypicality in NIs (Salmaso, 2014). Example (1) is a prototypical instance of the category 'anecdote' since it has all the constituents of 'anecdotes' — obligatory and non-obligatory — in their canonical order of presentation (Salmaso, 2010, 2104). The other two examples of 'anecdotes' are less prototypical since they do not present some optional constituents (example (2)) and some constituents are not presented in the canonical order (example (3)).
The general characteristics of coproduction of constituents, fusion of constituents and complex NIs presented in Salmaso (2014) are also illustrated in the examples. The three instances of 'anecdotes' in this article present fusion of different constituents.
Example (1) illustrates coproduction of constituents and example (3) is a complex NI, an 'anecdote' that contains another 'anecdote' and a 'narrative' in its interior, more precisely in the eventive constituent called Disruption.
The three examples also illustrate some specific characteristics in Salmaso's (2010, 2014) taxonomy regarding the inclusion of constituents not present in Plum's (2004) and Martin & Rose's (2008) proposals. All of the examples present the constituents Abstract, Record of Events, Reorientation and Coda, as defined by Salmaso (2010, 2014). In the examples, the difference between Natural Disruption and Interpersonal Disruption (2014) has also been illustrated. Examples (1) and (3) present the constituent considered by Salmaso (2010, 2014) to be the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes', i.e. the Interpretation of the Reaction. It has been shown that the Interpretation of the reaction is the evaluative constituent of 'anecdotes' since, when it is present, it is always evaluative — expressing affect, judgment or appreciation — and it produces a change in 'anecdotes' in relation to the parameters of focus, relation with the real world and dependence on the context (Plum, 2004), making the text more interpersonal and interpretative of the real world and turning it into an artifact used to reflect upon the context. The Interpretation of the Reaction is the constituent where the narrative flow is suspended (Labov, 1972) for the narrator to take distance from the events and to be able to reflect upon them. It has also been shown that the Reaction is an event that is logically and temporally connected to all the events in the 'anecdote' and that it may contain any type of evaluative language — affect, judgment or appreciation — just as any other constituent in the 'anecdote'. It has been pointed out that when the Reaction does not have explicit evaluative language, it still fulfills its purpose in the 'anecdote'. The Interpretation of the Reaction, as opposed to the Reaction, is not an event in the chain of events presented in the 'anecdote' and its purpose is purely evaluative.
This article constitutes only the beginning of a study that aims to show that it is possible to extrapolate the taxonomy proposed in Salmaso (2014) for the five categories of NIs in Spanish to instances of those categories in English. It is believed that due to the flexibility of the taxonomy (Salmaso, 2014), the precision in the definition of constituents in terms of a unique function and the clear distinction between the categories in terms of constituents in common and differential constituents, this taxonomy may enrich the analysis of the different categories of NIs and it may also be simpler and clearer for applied purposes, for example for teaching purposes. Since the ultimate purpose of this study is to contribute to the research project, "Géneros textuales en la enseñanza de inglés
como lengua extranjera" (Genres in EFL), it is believed that the simplicity and precision of the taxonomy in Salmaso (2004) might prove practical to produce didactic material to be used by teachers, and to help teachers become acquainted with the five categories of NIs so that they have the knowledge and techniques to teach students how to produce these types of genres.
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