Explanation and examples of Narrative Text

Narrative text Narrative texts are a text type we use when we want to entertain or to instruct (Pearson). According to Kistonto (2007) a narrative text is a type of spoken or written text that tells a story of one character or more who face certain problematic situations. Based on Rigby Heinemann (2004: 21), a narrative tells an imaginative story, although some narrative may be based on fact. Narratives are written in many different forms, like fable, legend, folktales, science fictions, romance, horror, etc. and each form has distinctive characteristics. According to Rigby Heinmann (2002: 21), there are some features of narratives. They are divided into:

1. Purpose or social function of the text The main purpose of narrative is to amuse, entertain and engage the reader in an imaginative experience. Some narratives also have other purpose, e.g. they may seek to explain a phenomenon (myths and legend) or to teach a lesson (fables). A narrative story deals with complications or problematic events which lead to a crisis and in turn finds a resolution. 2. Types Types of narrative text are: 1. Fable is a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, mythical creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature which are anthropomorphized (given human qualities), and that illustrates a moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be expressed explicitly in a pithy maxim. 2. Legend (Latin, legenda, "things to be read") is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible set of parameters, which may include miracles that are perceived as actually having happened, within the specific tradition of indoctrination where the legend arises, and within which it may be transformed over time, in order to keep it fresh and vital, and realistic. 3. Ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century it took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and the term is now often used as synonymous with any love song, particularly the pop or rock power ballad. 4. Folktales are a general term for different varieties of traditional narrative. The telling of stories appears to be a cultural universal, 5. Fairy Tale is a type of short narrative that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies. The stories may nonetheless be distinguished from other folk narratives such as legends (which generally involve belief in the veracity of the events described) and explicitly moral tales, including beast fables. 6. Science fiction is largely based on writing rationally about alternative possibilities. It is similar to, but differs from, fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically established or scientifically postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation). 7. Modern fantasy is literature written by a known author that is set either in make-believe or imaginary world with which places, people and creatures could not exist in and/or have events that could not possibly happen such as tiny people, talking animals, or traveling through time. 3. Generic Structure of the text 1. Orientation Sets the scene: where and when the story happened, introduces the participants of the story: who and what is involved in the story. 2. Complication Tells the beginning of the problem which leads to the crisis (climax) of the main participants. 3. Resolution The problem (the crisis) is resolved, either in a happy ending or in sad (tragic) ending. 4. Reorientation This is a closing remark to the story and it is optional. It consists of a moral lesson, advice or teaching from the writer. Note: Sometimes the writer also put his judgment or a certain event. This is called Evaluation. e.g. Once there lived a girl named Snow White. She was a kind-hearted girl evaluation 4. Language features 1. A narrative focuses on specific participants: often individual or participants with defines identities. Major participants are human, or sometimes animals with human characteristic. 2. Mainly use action, verbal or mental processes (verbs of perception: think, realize, feel, etc.) 3. It usually use past tenses (Simple Past Tense and Past Continuous Tense). 4. Direct and indirect speeches are often used (some dialogs are used in the story and the tense can change). 5. Descriptive language is used to create listeners’ or readers’ imagination. 6. Can be written in first person (I, We) or third person (he, she, and they) ( In choose – your-own-advantages, the reader is involved in the story a major character and addressed as” you”. 7. Temporal conjunctions are also used. a. As the sentence introducers: Then,....... ; After that, ....... ; Finally, ....... etc. b. As time introducers (adverbial clauses: ...... before ..... ; After ..... ; While ..... During ..... etc.

Here is one example of a narrative text.

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