| Brief Explanation of Toolan Analysis |
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| In his introduction to Narrative,
Toolan describes Labovian structure of narrative. Toolan notes
Labov's six
parts of a "fully-formed oral narrative" (Toolan 148). The first
part of a narrative is the Abstract. In the abstract, the narrator
tells what the story is going to be about. A sentence such as "Let
me tell you about Marty's baseball game" indicates that a story about a
person named Marty is shortly to follow. The second part of the
narrative is the the Orientation, the who, what, where of the story
(Toolan 148). Orientations can describe the desires, history, appearance and other background information on a character or the story itself.
Lines in a story such as, "Ryan had a wife named Gayle," or "All his life Ryan
wished he could hit Marty's fastball" give background information about
the character Ryan. Complicating actions are the events of the story, or what happens.
A character being sent to the principal's office or a man buying groceries
at the market are all complicating actions and events. Evaluations, either external or internal, tell the audience the
significance of the story (Toolan 152). An internal evaluation is
usually done at the subconscious level. A speaker laughing while
telling a story, for example, is internally evaluating the story as
humorous and is encouraging the listener to continue listening because of
the humor his narrative entails. An external evaluation involves the
narrator stepping out of the text and making a value of its importance.
A narrator saying "now here's the important part" or "This
is hilarious" is
externally evaluating the story as he is telling it. Finally, the coda brings the narrative back to the
present. A Coda "signals the sealing off of a narrative, just as an
abstract announces the opening up of one" (Toolan 157). A
conclusion such as "Well, that's the story about George Bush. I
think you should vote for him in November," tells the listener the story is over and brings him back to the
present. Toolan's Labovian analysis of narrative pertains to written or spoken narrative. Complete narratives contain all of these elements which all combine to make a complete narrative. An analysis of the commercial verbal scripts shows that the words alone do not make up a complete narratives. However, when combined with the other elements of the advertisements, the commercials become complete and convincing narratives. The analysis of the commercials will therefore entail two parts. First, they will show how the combination of visual and verbal script combine to make the commercials complete narratives. Next, the site will explore the various subtle ways in which the commercials persuade the audience to vote a certain way.
Copyright Kevin Lessmann |
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