ABSTRACT

The three types of oral narration examined here clearly differ in important ways, most notably in terms of the nature of the performance; we are dealing with different levels of self-conscious technique and spontaneity, with different performance events (one-to-one conversation, performance in an intimate setting, performance before a larger public), different sources (oral and written), different levels of formality, and speakers from different sociolinguistic and educational backgrounds. What the study suggests is that, notwithstanding these differences, in a context of oral story performance, the common patterns with regard to temporal structures are striking: tense-switching is attested in all three types; the passe compose plays a key role, both in terms of its frequency in the various alternations attested, and as a temporally and aspectually pivotal form; many of the functions of tense-switching — notably the structural ones — are attested across all three types of story; and in terms of structures linking narrative clauses, all three varieties have major features in common. In short, many of the observations on oral story performance with respect to conversational data in French and in other languages are also valid for the more highly performed narration that is storytelling. We can, thus, speak of distinct temporal patterns in 'oral story performance', where this term encompasses different categories of both story and performance. This study also supports the idea that storytelling is a distinct type of discourse. Patterns for conversational reports differ substantially from stories, and current research on temporal indexing and framing may prove to be the means by which the key characteristics of reports will be conceptualized in the future.