ABSTRACT
Anthropologists study narratives in terms of the cultural patterning of customs, beliefs, values, performance and social contexts of narration. This chapter describes the notion of 'ways of speaking' will be introduced and consider the structure and function of narratives in different cultures and studies of narrative performance. Colby set up a basic unit of plot, which he calls an 'eidon', as part of 'eidochronic' analysis. Some cultures were shown to have a relatively stable distribution of narrative plot elements, which might, however, differ from the distribution of another culture. Longacre and Grimes have been more widely used to describe narrative structure and function in a great variety of languages in many cultural groups. Longacre's analysis of narrative structure will be described here and related to narrative structures in a number of cultures. A recent movement in the study of folklore has turned to oral stories of personal experience, showing how these reflect important aspects of society and culture.
