Narrative and Myth

The baseline features of the evocative vector we have traced—the nature of symbolism, the emergence of language from the symbolic capabilities of early hominids, and the metaphorical potential represented by language itself—are such that we can conceivably begin to speculate about how the extensions of language such as cultural narrative, myth, and literature are influenced by its evocative features. While the very use of the term “culture” brings with it, as we shall see, a host of qualifications, exclusions and objections, ¹ it is safe to say that we consider the link between language and human culture to be fundamental to the nature of each. As Duranti (1997) says, “Language...entertains metonymic relations with our society and culture” (336); and Pribram’s remark, “Cultures can be thought of as nonverbal languages” (1971:376), can be said to summarize much of the thinking of modern linguists and anthropologists about both.