Narrative, Dialogue, Exhibition & Argumentation: A Guide
Narrative
Usually involves a story, real or fictitious, with characters in a specific time and place.
Elements of Communication
- Narrator: The voice that projects the issuer. Their point of view can be objective, omniscient, witness, bystander, the public, or the narrator themselves (first or second person).
- Receiver: The implicit recipient of the narrative.
- Action: The development of events, which can be linear (introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution) or non-linear.
- Characters: Participants in the action with physical and psychological traits. They can be major or minor.
- Setting: The environment where the story takes place, including time and place.
- Time: Historical time (when the action occurs) and story time (duration and sequence of events).
Language
The importance of the action determines the language’s characteristics. The referential function predominates as the intention is to convey information, often using poetic and rhetorical elements.
Description
Presents someone or something in detail using language. The language function is primarily representative but can also be expressive, conative, or poetic.
Classification
According to the issuer’s intention:
- Objective: Reflects reality as it is (e.g., scientific).
- Subjective: Expresses opinions or feelings (e.g., literary).
Depending on the item described:
- Topography: Describes a place.
- Chronography: Describes a time period.
- Zoomorphism: Describes objects or animals with human traits.
- Prosopography: Describes a person’s physical features.
- Etopeya: Describes a person’s moral traits.
- Portrait: Describes both physical and moral aspects of a person.
- Self-portrait: The issuer describes themselves.
- Caricature: Distorts a person’s image.
Dialogue
Two or more individuals express their thoughts and establish a communicative relationship. It involves sender and receiver roles, aiming for clear information transfer (phatic function), expressing thoughts and feelings (expressive function), and capturing attention (conative function).
Direct Style
Characters express themselves directly without narrator intervention.
Indirect Speech
The narrator conveys the characters’ speech in their own words.
Exposition
Informs and explains concepts or ideas objectively, consistently, and orderly. It aims to transmit reliable and thorough information, primarily using the referential function. Its structure can be linear (introduction, development, conclusion), deductive (starting with a theory and deriving specific ideas), or inductive (starting with specific cases and reaching a general thesis).
Classification According to the Issuer’s Intention
- Public: Comprehensive, current, simple style, and standard language.
- Specialized: Scientific, rigorous, accurate language, and specialized vocabulary (jargon), often with a deductive structure.
- Didactic: Presents knowledge in an organized and systematic way.
Exposition may include technical descriptions to aid in explaining concepts.
Argumentation
The issuer aims to present their views and persuade the recipient. Its persuasive intent implies a predominant conative function, but it also involves the representative function (transmitting information) and the expressive function (revealing subjectivity). It’s often controversial, contrasting different positions with relevant and valid arguments. It’s associated with exposition to present facts and support the thesis.
Structure
- Thesis: The concept or position being defended.
- Body of Argument: A set of arguments, reasons, facts, examples, and evidence supporting the thesis.
- Conclusion: Summarizes the ideas and proposes a solution.
Types of Arguments
- Exemplification: Supports the thesis with real-life examples.
- Logic: Based on logical reasoning principles.
- Authority: Supports the thesis with opinions from renowned experts (quotations).
- Experiential: Uses arguments based on personal experiences.
- Common Sense: Uses widely accepted beliefs and popular wisdom as indisputable truths.
- Refutation: Presents counterarguments to opposing views.
- Fallacies: Intentionally flawed or misleading arguments.