Synopsis
All adult speakers in Western cultures have life stories argues Charlotte Linde, and the ways in which these life stories are formed and exchanged with others have a powerful effect on all of us. Life stories express our sense of self, who we are and how we got that way. According to Linde, we also use these stories to show that our lives can be understood as coherent, and to assert or negotiate group membership. These life stories take part in the highest level of social constructions, since they are built on cultural assumptions about what is expected in a life, what the norms for a successful life are, and what common or special belief systems are necessary to establish coherence. The life story, illuminated by this engrossing study, is a form of everyday discourse which has not previously been precisely defined or studied. It is an oral, discontinuous unit, consisting of stories which are retold in a variety of forms over a long period of time, and which may be revised and changed as the speaker comes to drop old meanings and add new ones to parts of the life story. The life story is a particularly rich and important area for study, because it represents a crossroads of linguistic structure and social practice. Linde's analysis is of importance to linguistics, as well as having broader implications for anthropology, psychology, and sociology.
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About the Author
Charlotte Linde is at Institute for Research on Learning.
From the Back Cover
This sociological study explores how people create and exchange coherent life stories, and looks at the psychological and social purposes behind them.
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Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics)
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Paperback. Condition: New. This is a sociolinguistic study of how people create and exchange coherent oral life stories. Linde claims such stories serve a number of psychological and social purposes, including the development and expression of a sense of self and the solidification and definition of relationships and group memberships. Linde analyses a series of oral interviews with middle-class Americans who were asked to explain their choice of profession. She focuses on the means by which the speakers give coherence to their stories. The most basic level of coherence, she finds, comes from the structure of the narrative. The next level is that of causality and continuity. Linde identifies the ways in which speakers attempt to demonstrate an adequate chain of causation for their choice of profession and to explain apparent discontinuities. At the highest level, the stories are shaped by "coherence systems" - explanatory systems of assumptions about the world. Coherence systems used by Linde's subjects include versions of Freudian and behavioural psychology, astrology, feminism and Catholic confessional practice. The most pervasive coherence systems, however, proves to be "common sense": the set of beliefs which are assumed to be shared by any competent member of the culture. Common sense assumptions held by those interviewed include the belief that "You can be whatever you want to be," subject only to personal - as opposed to economic or class - limitations, and that personal desire, rather than obligations, family ties or tradition, should determine professional choice. Linde points out the peculiarly American nature of these assumptions and examines their history within ourpopular culture. systems, including `common sense' and its peculiarly American nature. Seller Inventory # LU-9780195073737
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