ABSTRACT
One of the most common ways to communicate is storytelling. This unit, therefore, examines various spoken stories. Starting with the examination of the one-sided discourse of joke-telling, first, the unit explores the features of spoken language and, second, by comparing spoken and written forms of the same story, we are able to highlight the features expected in a narrative. Because oral stories, however, appear in a different context from written stories and oral storytellers have to interact with their listeners to attract and keep their attention, the rest of the unit examines the use and structure of oral storytelling in two different contexts: a live TV show and a personal conversation.
