Introducing ‘Narrative in Critical Discourse Studies’

Bernhard Forchtner

University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom

Email: [email protected]

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7782-9288

Bernhard Forchtner is associate professor at the School of Media, Communication and Sociology,
University of Leicester (United Kingdom). Currently, he works on far-right activism, environmental
communication and in the field of critical discourse studies. His recent publications include the edited
volume The Far Right and the Environment (Routledge, 2019), ‘Towards a revised theory of collective
learning processes: Argumentation, narrative and the making of the social bond’ (with Marcos Engelken
Jorge and Klaus Eder, European Journal of Social Theory, 2018) and The Routledge Handbook on Language
and Politics (with Ruth Wodak, 2017).
Introducing ‘Narrative in Critical Discourse Studies’

Bernhard Forchtner

Abstract

Given that narratives are everywhere, this special issue aims to contribute to the field of Critical Discourse
Studies (CDS, also known as Critical Discourse Analysis) by (a) considering the concept of narrative and
showcasing some of its uses in CDS, (b) arguing for its prominent consideration within conceptual
architectures in CDS, and (c) illustrating emancipatory potentials of the narrative form in line with CDS’
critical impetus. Indeed, while CDS has long analysed stories, the concept of narrative is employed in a
variety of ways, at times lacking a clear definition and being insufficiently demarcated from other key
concepts, e.g. discourse. In response, I start with a brief introduction to narrative before illustrating its
presence in some CDS studies, and closing with an outline of contributions to this special issue. Although
these contributions neither depart from nor arrive at one single understanding of narrative in CDS, they
acknowledge the significance of narrative in social life and for critical, discourse-analytical work. The
authors therefore also encourage the reader to consider further the various uses of the concept of
narrative in our work, the roles that narratives play in our lives and the ways in which narratives can
change our world.

Keywords: critique, Critical Discourse Analysis, discourse, narration, narrativization, story, storytelling

Once upon a time…

From princesses who free princes to journalists who tell stories about natural catastrophes and, most
generally, individual and collective actors who make sense of the world, narratives are everywhere. 1 Or,
as Barthes (1975, p.237) put it, narrative ‘is present at all times, in all places, in all societies; indeed
narrative starts with the very history of mankind; there is not, there has never been anywhere, any people
without narrative’. Hence, during breakfast conversations and when communicating politics, to name only
two contexts, it is through narrative that human beings organise time by arranging events causally, from
beginning to end, thus making sense of and positioning themselves in time (Abbott, 2002, p.3). Indeed, it
is through the stories which circulate amongst a group of people that the latter’s symbolic boundaries are
constituted. Somers (1994, p.606) thus argues that narrative is of epistemological and ontological
significance, and not simply a ‘representational form’, as ‘it is through narrativity that we come to know,
understand, and make sense of the social world, and it is through narratives and narrativity that we
constitute our social identities’. In short, identities are storied as we and what happens in the world is not
simply discovered but made meaningful via the narrative form.

It is against this background that this special issue aims to highlight the concept of narrative in Critical
Discourse Studies (CDS; also known as Critical Discourse Analysis, see Flowerdew and Richardson, 2017;
Wodak and Meyer, 2016). That is not to say that narrative has not been present. Indeed, as the narrative
(re)turn, following the work of the Chicago School in the early 20th century, is very much associated with
linguistics since the 1960s – plus historiography since the 1970s and the social sciences since the 1980s –
(e.g. Bruner, 1986; Greimas, 1983; White, 1973; Labov & Waletzky, 1967; see Riessman, 2008, pp.14-17
for an overview) such an absence would be surprising. However, while studies within CDS do analyse
stories and mention the concept of narrative, the latter has, by and large, not played a fundamental role
in conceptual architectures, i.e. the (configurations of) concepts constituting the core of approaches, in
CDS. Moreover, in its diverse uses, narrative in CDS resembles the notion of discourse (Wodak & Meyer,
2016, pp.3-4). Stressing the need for clarity when speaking of narrative is thus one of the intentions behind
this special issue as the concept is not always transparently introduced and/or is used interchangeably
with discourse (ibid.). In line with these observations, Gavriely-Nuri (2017, p.120) claims that the critical
analysis of narrative ’is an important yet little used tool of CDA’ (Critical Discourse Analysis). Thus, this
special issue aims to contribute to CDS by (a) considering the concept of narrative and showcasing some
of its uses in CDS, (b) arguing for its prominent consideration within conceptual architectures in CDS, and
(c) illustrating emancipatory potentials of the narrative form in line with CDS’ critical impetus.

In doing so, contributors to this special issue neither employ the same framework nor work towards a
single one. Rather, they consider questions such as ‘What is the place of narrative in the conceptual
architectures of CDS’ various approaches?’, ‘How are/can conceptualisations of narrative (be) integrated
into CDS?’, and ‘How does narrative relate to key concepts, such as discourse and critique?’ Indeed, being
committed to discourse-analytical work in general and the key principles of CDS in particular (van Dijk,
1993), contributions to this special issue, in a number of ways, acknowledge the power of narrative by
recognizing its emotive (see already Aristotle, nd, 1452a) and persuasive characteristics, what Bruner
(1991, p.9) terms ‘narrative seduction’ through which ‘telling preempts momentarily the possibility of any
but a single interpretation’. Hence, articles in this special issue aim to illustrate the various ways in which
an explicit focus on narrative within CDS can be beneficial for critical, textually-oriented discourse analysis.

But what characterises the narrative form? How does it enable us to make sense of time? The significance
of storytelling, the latter being increasingly described as the ‘essence of humanness’ (de Fina & Johnstone
2015, p.152), lies in its function to configure (emplot) what happens in time into an ‘intelligible whole’
(Ricoeur, 1991, p.21). As such, a narrative is ‘a perceived sequence of non-randomly connected events’
(Toolan, 1988, p.7), a sequence with a beginning, a middle and an end, as already noted by Aristotle (nd,
1450b) in the context of his discussion of tragedy in Poetics. This sequence concerns events that have
consequences (and do not simply follow each other as in annals, see White, 1980; indeed, while narratives
might be everywhere, not everything is only narrative), especially those events that Chatman (1980, p.53)
calls ‘kernels’, i.e. events that are ‘branching points’ and define a particular plot. By connecting events
causally, and not just chronologically, selections of events obtain ‘the coherence, integrity, fullness, and
closure of an image of life that is and can only be imagined’ (White, 1980, p.27). Thus, they become
meaningful; and indeed, every well-crafted story has a ‘point’ (van Dijk, 1980, p.40), will make a
‘moralizing judgment[s]’ (White, 1980, p.27).

Within the fragmented field of narrative studies, text linguistics defines narrative as a text type which,
through a sequence of assertions, provides a specific account of a past series of events. The ‘function’ of
narrative is thus demarcated from other types, such as argumentation, description, explanation and
instruction (e.g. de Beaugrande & Dressler, 1981, pp.190-191; see also Reisigl in this special issue). While
this differentiation aims to provide clarity, varying classifications and typologies exist, and specific text
types, e.g. description and narrative, feature in narratives conceived in broad, generic terms (see
Aumüller, 2014). Again, by making different takes on narrative explicit, this special issue contributes to
the discussion about how to understand narrative in CDS.

The modern analysis of narrative emerges out of an interest in identifying invariant elements of stories
(see Bal, 2009 for an overview), starting with Russian formalism of the early 20th century. In particular,
Propp’s Morphology of the Folktale (1968) identifies seven basic character types (villain, donor, hero,
dispatcher, helper, princess, false hero) and 31 functions present in stories, i.e. changes of state, such as
‘The hero leaves home’. This is famously radicalised by Greimas (1983), who condensed Propp’s proposal
into six actants (subject, object, helper, opponent, sender, receiver). Others, e.g. van Dijk (1980), have
been concerned with basic elements via which stories are understood, i.e. macrostructures and story
comprehension. Within CDS, probably the best-known and most often adopted structural take on
narrative is that by Labov and Waletzky (1967) and their analysis of oral narratives of personal
experiences. Instead of analysing larger semantic units, they focus on clauses and define narrative as
‘[a]ny sequence of clauses which contains at least one temporal juncture’ (ibid., p.28), subsequently
stating that the structure of narratives consists of orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution and
coda. However, criticism levelled against structural analyses has led to the rise of interactional
approaches, which view storytelling as a social action involving interaction with an audience and the co-
construction of knowledge and social identities (de Fina & Johnstone, 2018; Gubrium & Holstein, 2009;
Riessman, 2008). Given the extensive nature of work on narrative (see de Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2015,
2012; Herman & Vervaeck, 2019; Hühn et al., n.d.), this Introduction’s modest aim is to offer a point of
departure for the various contributions to this special issue and, in so doing, an invitation to consider the
role of narrative in CDS.

In line with this aim, and before turning to an outline of the contributions to this special issue, let me
introduce a few illustrative uses of narrative within a critical, discourse-oriented framework by those not
participating in this volume. These examples illustrate engagement with narrative in CDS, including, first,
discussions of the concept and role of narrative/narrative identity, and, second, empirical analyses (often,
both aspects are present in one article, though I do not offer full reviews but single out telling parts).

First, amongst those publications which include notable discussions of the concept and role of
narrative/narrative identity in CDS are many studies conducted within the framework of the Discourse-
Historical Approach (DHA). These include well-known analyses of national identity and collective memory
in Austria (e.g. Rheindorf & Wodak, 2017; Wodak et al., 2009, pp.14-30; Heer & Wodak, 2008; Wodak et
al., 1994) which reflect on how storying leads to different pasts due to selectively and causally connecting
historical events. Similarly, Flowerdew (2011) includes reflections on narrative in relation to identity and
historiography. Further discussion of the role of the narrative form can be found in Viehöver (2011), who
thematises the significance of narrative to understand meaning-making within discourse, drawing on, e.g.,
Somers. Also acknowledging the significance of narrative, Stibbe (2017) discusses CDS and ecology,
viewing stories as foundational, as ‘stories we live by’. He (ibid., 502) suggests that stories take eight forms
(ideology, framing, metaphor, identity, evaluation, conviction, erasure and salience), which manifest
linguistically as, e.g., discourses. Finally, Souto-Manning’s (2014) piece on critical narrative analysis (CNA)
proposes uniting macroanalytical critical discourse analysis with a microanalytical focus on (mediated)
narrative. As such, Souto-Manning (2014, p.163) claims that ‘CNA allows for the critical analysis of
narratives in the lifeworld – the everyday stories people tell – within the context of institutional
discourses.’ Fairclough and Fairclough (2014) point out that scholarly discussions of the financial and
economic crisis have stressed the role of, e.g., narrative in signifying ‘the crisis’ – though they assert that
this focus omits the centrality of argumentation. In their words (ibid., p.3), narratives are ‘embedded
within’, ‘feeding into’ and serve as ‘premises in arguments’. Narrative is, furthermore, present in work on
legitimation by van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) and van Leeuwen (2007) which assign a prominent role
to legitimation achieved through storytelling (mythopoesis), alongside legitimation through
authoritization, moral evaluation and rationalization. Already this brief review illustrates diverse uses and
thus points to the value of clear definitions.

Second, turning to illustrations of empirical analyses of narratives, I draw selectively on Riessman’s (2008)
typology of mutually non-exclusive analytical approaches to narrative analysis: thematic analysis which
focuses on the content of a story; structural analysis which focuses on structural units and their functions;
and dialogic/performative (or interactional) analysis which illuminates how stories as interaction are
present in contexts.

The context in which narrative is probably mentioned most often within CDS is that of various kinds of
thematic analyses, focusing on the what of stories. For example, Roger (2014) points out themes in a
student’s narrative of her high-school career, including violence and criminalization, in the context of a
discourse of accountability. More recently, Richardson (2018), within a discourse-historical framework,
investigates arguments and narratives related to Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration. 2 Also
including analysis of argumentation within a CDA framework, Kutter (2014) draws on the concept of
‘causal stories’ in a study on the discursive construction of the Greek economic crisis, identifying a number
of such stories, e.g. a ‘debt story’, and what characterizes them along the lines of problem-cause-
responsibility-solution. Poppi et al. (2018) analyse ‘discursive strategies’ (described as goal-oriented
discursive attempts to manipulate ‘reality’) and ‘thematic narratives’ (representing past events of the
narrator and being viewed as sense-making devices) as conveying ideology in ‘mafia discourse’. While
looking at these two devices illuminates the case of Cosa Nostra, shedding light on the separation between
narrative and other concepts is needed to increase clarity, clarity concerning both differences between
key terms of and conceptual hierarchies in our analyses.

Turning to structural analysis in CDS, Labov and Waletzky’s model (1967) is often utilised. Examples can
be found in, e.g., Caldas-Coulthard’s (1996) analysis of sex narratives, Wodak et al.’s (1990) discussion of
anti-Semitic discourses in post-war Austria, Wodak’s (1996) work on therapeutic discourse to promote
critical, self-reflective agents and Wodak’s (2009) analysis of interviews with Members of the European
Parliament. Furthermore, and in the same book, Wodak utilises elements of Propp’s Morphology of the
Folktale to make sense of the tv series West Wing. One of the most illuminating points of departure for
structural analysis within CDS is Toolan (1988), who does not offer an integrated framework but provides
an excellent introduction to structural analysis before turning to the individualisation of structural
elements in particular contexts, e.g. via passivization, with a focus on ‘political and ideological freight’
(ibid., p.227). Structural approaches are arguably the dimension of narrative analysis currently least
comprehensively utilised in CDS. As such, drawing critically on, e.g., Greimas’ (1983) aforementioned
actantial model but also Frye’s (1957) formalist analysis (i.e. the archetypes of romance, tragedy, comedy
and irony; see Forchtner in this special issue) can provide largely unexplored resources for enriched
analytical frameworks in CDS.

As mentioned above, dialogic/performative analysis focuses on the interactive co-construction of

knowledge and identity. In his analysis of the ‘war on terror’ narrative, which is viewed in terms of a
Foucauldian or a macrolevel discourse, Hodges (2011) not only analyses the content of, e.g., speeches by
the former president of the United States, George W. Bush, but also includes a chapter on a focus group
discussion by college students about the ‘war on terror’ narrative, carving out how they recontextualize
the latter. Achugar (2016) analyses intergenerational transmissions of the Uruguayan past within the
context of a critical, discourse-analytical project. Exploring youth’s socialization into memory
communities, her analysis includes, e.g., family interviews and the interaction between parents and
children. Amongst others, she shows how a family of four co-constructs meanings of the past together, so
that the children understand events, actors and their motivations (ibid., pp.54-61). Bietti (2014), who
draws on van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach in CDS, similarly offers a relevant analysis of family
conversations about dictatorship, this time in Argentina (1976–1983). 3 Here, everyday family
conversation is investigated by adding a focus on cognition, thus also reconstructing context models as
the conversation unfolds. More recently, a project on narratives of persecution, flight and survival (Berger
& Wodak 2018; see also Wodak, 2018) analyses stories told by (grand)children of Austrian victims of
National Socialism during semi-structured and in-depth interviews. Interestingly, while this project
illustrates the co-construction of biographical narratives, it also utilises quantitative methods, e.g. corpus
linguistic means, to identify macro themes. In sum, these and other examples illustrate the usefulness of
detailed textual analysis of actual interaction.

Outline
Bernhard Forchtner starts by suggesting a framework comprised by the Critical Theory of Jürgen
Habermas, narrative genres (romance, comedy, tragedy and irony) and the DHA in CDS. Forchtner argues
that tragic and ironic stories, e.g. self-critical commemorative speeches, convey complexity and keep
communication open, thus facilitating recognition of others. In contrast, comic and romantic stories, e.g.
texts which reassure the self of its righteousness, centre around clear-cut boundaries, hero/ines which
invite affirmative audience identification and happy endings. Thus, they tend to prevent audiences
widening their perspective. By arguing that the latter hinder, while the former facilitate, weak but
pragmatically unavoidable presuppositions of communication reconstructed by Habermas, and thus
collective learning processes, Forchtner offers a framework for critical discourse-analytical analysis in
which the epistemological and ontological significance of narrative is acknowledged; the aforementioned
genres act as sites through which Habermas’ immanent notion of critique is anchored within the DHA;
and the latter’s toolkit enables detailed textual analysis of the workings of these narrative genres.

Next, Darren Kelsey turns to archetypical storytelling and his discourse-mythological approach.
Introducing this conceptual framework in detail, Kelsey reconstructs the various stages through which his
approach has evolved, delineating concepts such as myth, discourse and narrative, and discussing the
relation between affect and discourse. As a possibly innovative element in how CDS could engage with
narrative, Kelsey draws on the work of Carl Jung (acknowledging the latter’s controversial dimensions).
More specifically, Kelsey discusses Jung’s concepts of the collective unconscious, a set of universally
shared psychic structures, and archetypes. He subsequently provides examples of two of the latter, the
monomyth and the trickster. By better understanding the workings of storytelling, paying attention also
to insights from psychology, evolution and biology, Kelsey ultimately seeks to provide a toolkit which
enables a critical understand of the workings of ideologies.

Emilia Djonov and Chiao-I Tseng take a systemic functional linguistics perspective in their discussion of the
implications of analysing narratives in different media formats. Stressing, like other contributions to this
special issue, the persuasive power of narratives, the authors consider transmedia narratives and their
promise for multiliteracy education. This literacy is viewed as crucial for increasing the capacity to engage
critically with social themes and is illustrated by Djonov and Tseng through their comparative analysis of
three adaptations (film, book and app) of the character-based narrative The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr
Morris Lessmore. The authors conclude that by centring on a character, the story, across animated film,
traditional-format picture book and interactive picture book app, invites identification (thus achieving
persuasion and educational goals), and point out that the different affordances of each version
‘strengthens or constrains the capacity of narrative strategies to draw attention and create engagement’.

Martin Reisigl contributes a passionate call from the position of linguistics, arguing against what he views
as a too broad, ‘cultural and social science studies’ perspective on narrative. According to Reisigl, the latter
commits a ‘category mistake’ by conflating narrative with other text types (argumentation, description,
explanation and instruction), what he calls ‘basic generic patterns’. Introducing these patterns and the
functions they fulfil in detail, drawing on examples from the discourse on climate change, Reisigl claims
that narrativization ‘tends to go hand in hand with a relief of action, historicization, potential
fictionalization, subjectivization and relativization’. In doing so, Reisigl’s contribution provides a distinct
answer to this special issue’s call for conceptual precision, arguing that a consideration of all five patterns
is needed to not only avoid the aforementioned ‘category mistake’ but also support action and change
behaviour, e.g. to prevent climate change.

In the final contribution to this special issue, Felicitas Macgilchrist takes a perspective different from those
above by focusing on narrative elements in writing our critical discourse analyses, by reflecting on the
potential of us telling stories. That is, Macgilchrist reminds the reader of the relevance of narrative due to
the storied character of our lives, discusses examples and considers implications of storytelling. In doing
so, she draws on Le Guin’s ‘carrier bag theory’ of storytelling, stressing the need to not simply tell stories
of heroes and their adventures, but to tell stories about everyday life which connect us, stories which
convey multiple perspectives and thus involve complexity. Against this background, Macgilchrist
ultimately argues that storytelling supports epistemological work (to undermine boundaries between
researchers and the public), relational work (to connect things, people, events, etc.) and political work (to
give voice to unheard issues) often associated with CDS.

In sum, all these contributions, in different ways and with different foci, acknowledge the significance of
narrative in social life and for critical, discourse-analytical work. As such, this special issue hopefully
encourages the reader to consider further the various ways in which narrative is defined (in relation to
other key concepts) in our work, the roles that narrative plays in our lives and the ways in which it can
change the world.

Acknowledgements
I am thankful to Ruth Wodak, Raimundo Frei and two reviewers for comments on an earlier version of this
article. All mistakes remain my own.

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1
There have long been conceptual differentiations, especially those proposed by Russian formalists
(fabula-sjužet) and French structuralists (histoire-discours), as well as Chatman’s (1980) story-discourse.
Roughly speaking, the first term of each couple signifies the raw material of a story presented in a
chronological order (pre-eminently events, but also characters and settings; the what), while the second
term captures the actual presentation of the story (the how) (see Chatman, 1980, pp.19-20; Toolan, 1988,
p.12). However, in line with contemporary conventions (Riessman, 2008, p.7), I use the common notions
of narrative and story interchangeably.
2
For a consideration of narrative in news stories, see Richardson (2006, pp.71-74), who separates the
narrative form from the content of individual stories.
3
In his socio-cognitive approach, van Dijk (2008) views stories as ‘discourse structure types’ (ibid., p.150)
and based on mental models. The book includes reviews of research on narrative, including van Dijk’s own
extensive work on stories and prejudice.