A Note on Medium and Language in Narrative

abstract:In many narratives, the narrator's medium of expression—oral language, say, or written language—can be specified or left unspecified and the same can be said of the particular variety of medium used (English, French, Japanese). Moreover, narratives may feature narrators using the same (variety of) medium as the author's or a different one. Similarly, the (variety of) medium used by characters can be left unspecified or be specified and, furthermore, the narrator and the characters may adopt the same (variety of) medium or not. The (non-)exploitation of these possibilities shapes narrative in various ways. Besides clarifying aspects of narrative functioning, a consideration of the (varieties of) media used by narrators and characters not only opens avenues of empirical research on narrative reception, it also draws attention to the ways texts point to these media and their different forms. Most generally, it illuminates the intricacies of narrative silences and sonances.