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Article published In: Lingvisticæ Investigationes
Vol. 44:1 (2021) ► pp.1–36

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Temporal structures in Occitan and French oral narrative

The role of frames and connectives

 | Queen’s University Belfast, UK
 | Université de Poitiers, France
Published online: 20 September 2021
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https://doi.org/10.1075/li.00055.car
Abstract
This article explores the temporal structuring of Occitan and French oral narratives. Using contemporary linguistic theory and through a corpus-based analysis, it aims to explore the relationship between language and orality, with a specific focus on two key temporal features of oral narrative, i.e. frames and connectives. The authors create a digitised corpus involving three sub-corpora demonstrating different degrees of orality in Occitan and these are also compared with a French oral corpus. The analysis shows that there is quantitative evidence to support the idea that frames and connectives have complementary roles in narrative, with inverse proportions of frames and connectives in the four sub-corpora. In terms of degrees of orality, the results suggest that not only is the use of particular connectives strongly associated with oral as opposed to written narratives but also that factors relating to sources, transmission and storytelling practice are highly influential and interact with each other in complex ways. Frames are generally ‘primarily structural’ in function rather than ‘temporal and structural’ and certain frame introducers recur in all the sub-corpora but there are complex differences between the different sub-corpora and a clear link with story-type. Questions of sources, transmission and narrative practice are central to our argumentation throughout and are particularly striking in the case of the contemporary Occitan sub-corpus.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Corpus characteristics
    • 1.1Oral narratives
    • 1.2Occitan and the sub-corpora
  • 2.Connectives and frames: Theoretical and methodological perspectives on two complementary modes of discourse organisation
    • 2.1Temporal connectives
    • 2.2Temporal frame introducers
    • 2.3The research questions
  • 3.Connectives, frames, complementarity and temporal patterning: Analysis of the corpus
    • 3.1Broad patterns
    • 3.2Connectives and frames: Further detail and nuances in the argument
      • Discourse connectives: Variation in the range attested
      • Frame introducers: Variation in the range attested
      • Framing and story type
    • 3.3Interim conclusions on patterns
  • 4.Strategic structuring of the narrative: Frame introducers and ALORS
    • 4.1The structural functions of discourse framing in oral narratives
    • 4.2Specificities and functions of ‘temporal and structural’ and ‘primarily structural’ frames
    • 4.3Frames and the connective ALORS: Are both structuring devices in OOT?
    • 4.4Interim conclusions on strategic structuring with frame introducers and ALORS
  • Conclusions and future directions
  • Notes
  • References
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