Narrative Texts – a Structural and Functional Analysis

Abstract

There is a relationship between language, thought and reality. Language is the principal factor influencing the shape of our insight, judgements, knowledge and customs, while narrative enables people to tell others about the essence of the reality they are creating. Both the content and construction are important in a narrative, but it is construction that forms the basis for the considerations presented in this article. The study opens with definitions of such terms as the narrative text, narrative, narratology, specific nature of a narrative structure, as understood from the viewpoint of different sciences, and with the presentation of the foundations concerning the structural and functional analysis of narrative texts in the light of the theories coined by de Saussure, Rosner, Barthes and Todorov. Emphasis is laid on the analysis of narrative structures proposed by Propp, the author of general patterns for constructing stories. It is useful in studies on different systems of culture, including mass culture. Moreover, it often forms a basis for analyzing narratives in films, as well as other types of oral or written narratives. Propp’s morphology has also been applied to analyze some narratives used in school education.