The Handbook of Narrative Analysis - Paperback

by Anna de Fina (Author), Alexandra Georgakopoulou (Author)

Featuring contributions from leading scholars in the field, The Handbook of Narrative Analysis is the first comprehensive collection of sociolinguistic scholarship on narrative analysis to be published.

• Organized thematically to provide an accessible guide for how to engage with narrative without prescribing a rigid analytic framework
• Represents established modes of narrative analysis juxtaposed with innovative new methods for conducting narrative research
• Includes coverage of the latest advances in narrative analysis, from work on social media to small stories research
• Introduces and exemplifies a practice-based approach to narrative analysis that separates narrative from text so as to broaden the field beyond the printed page

Back Jacket

"This Handbook provides a rich theoretical framework for working closely with narratives. While much of narrative inquiry focuses on texts, this collection and the work it builds on shifts the focus to an analysis of practice-based social interaction. Covering a wide range of topics, this book will make an important contribution to our understanding of how to analyze the socio-cultural and discursive contexts in which narratives are always embedded." Molly Andrews, Co-Director, Centre for Narrative Research, University of East London, UK

"The Handbook thoughtfully addresses both the internal structure and the external conditions of accounts, bringing the analysis of stories into the stream of everyday life. A major contribution to the growing interest in this important crossroads of narrative practice, it is interdisciplinary, accessible, and highly recommended." Jaber F. Gubrium, University of Missouri, USA

Featuring contributions from leading scholars in the field, The Handbook of Narrative Analysis is the first comprehensive collection of sociolinguistic scholarship on narrative analysis to be published. The collection includes chapters that exhibit the latest advances in narrative analysis, from work on social media to small stories research, as well as essays that address topics traditionally shaped and influenced by narrative inquiry, such as researcher reflexivity, embodiment, story ownership, and chronotopic configurations. Organized thematically to provide a guide for approaching the study of narrative without prescribing a rigid framework for analysis, the Handbook strikes an ideal balance between theoretical framing and the demonstration of specific analytical approaches.

Edited by two leading authorities on narrative research, and pioneers of the practice-based approach to narrative analysis, this Handbook will be an essential resource for anyone interested in better understanding the stories we tell and why we tell them.

Author Biography

Anna De Fina is Professor of Italian Language and Linguistics at Georgetown University, USA. She is the author of Identity in Narrative: A Study of Immigrant Discourse (2003), and co-editor of many volumes, among which Discourse and Identity (2006) with M. Bamberg and D. Schiffrin. She has published widely on topics related to migrant and transnational communities, superdiversity, identities, and narrative.

Alexandra Georgakopoulou is Professor of Discourse Analysis and Sociolinguistics, King's College, London, UK. She has developed small stories research, a paradigm for the analysis of everyday life stories and their role in the (re)formation of social relations of intimacy and in youth and gender identity politics. Her latest research is on the mobilization of small stories on social media as part of the ERC project, 'Life-writing of the moment: The sharing and updating self on social media'.

Anna De Fina and Alexandra Georgakopoulou are longstanding collaborators on narrative research. In addition to this Handbook, they have co-authored Analyzing Narrative: Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives (2012) and they are currently co-editing The Handbook of Discourse Studies. They are also co-editors (with Ruth Page) of 'Narrative, Interaction and Discourse'.