NARRATIVE IN INSTITUTIONS (Charlotte Linde)
1. Narratives and Institutional Work
Because all accomplished, a whole lot of narrating goes in
advance in each organization. Although some of this account is recreational or
individual, an amazing way of computing it capacities to find the work of the
foundation done. This section surveys investigations of story's part in
completing work inside and also the limits of foundations.
Narratives help institutions do their daily work
The most crucial description of narrative during working hours
settings is Orr's research of the use of narrative in the work of copier repair
technicians (1990, 1996). He shows that narrative forms a major part of their
work practice, and that these technicians could not properly do their careers
without participating in a residential area which says endless stories about
copiers, clients, and repair technicians, as part of the work of maintaining an
ongoing community memory of difficult problems, unexpected and undocumented
solutions, and brave diagnoses.
2. Narrative
and Institutional Reproduction
We now turn from the use of narrative in the work of
institutions to the use of narrative in the work of institution-making: the
reproduction and maintenance of institutions, as well as contestations and
changes in the institutions’ self-representation.
3.
Nonparticipant
Narratives in Institutions
In studying narrative in corporations, it is equally important
to obtain the longterm narratives. Presently there are many ephemeral
institutional narratives: the stories in the lunchroom about this computer
crash, the awful traffic, or a manager's momentary fit of kindness or bad
temper, tales told during the course of the afternoon or perhaps the week, but
which will not survive the weekend. Such narratives also show something about
the ways through which membership and identity are manufactured through talk.
4. When
and How Are Narratives Told?
Having surveyed the media available for narration, we now turn
specifically to the question of how and when narratives are told. When we
consider the range of institutions, it appears that there are large differences
between how many narratives they maintain, and more generally, how intensely
they work their pasts. Thus, it is not enough to ask what narratives about an
institution exist; we must also ask what form of existence they have.
Narratives may be collected by a company archivist, or an external historian,
but if they exist only in a rarely consulted archive, they have no real life.
Rather, the key question is: what are the occasions that allow for the telling
and retelling of this stock of stories? An important way institutions differ is
in the kinds of occasions for narration they maintain, and the ways these
occasions are used. This section offers a taxonomy of types of occasions for
the telling of narratives.
5. Silences:
Stories That Are Not
Told
Having discussed how narratives are maintained and occasioned
within institutions,
it is now important to turn to the question of silences: what
stories are not
told. This
raises the methodological question of how it is possible to
give an account of what is
not said. Obviously, there are an infinite number of things
that are not said. However,
what is relevant is what is saliently unsaid, what could be
said but is not.
Different circumstances allow different forms of access to what
is saliently unsaid.
6. Who Speaks for the Institution?
Another important part of understanding narratives in
institutions is the question of storytelling rights: who may speak for the
institution, whose account is taken up by others, whose account does not count as part of the institutional memory (Shuman 1986).
Focusing on institutions necessarily means beginning with the official narratives,
and with the accounts of those whose position grants the right to speak for the
institution, whether it be the president speaking for the company, or an agent speaking
for her or his own agency. That is, institutions have levels, and each of these
levels has its history.
7. Conclusion
Within just sociolinguistics, and particularly within the study
of task, it has become progressively clear that linguistic varieties can only
be comprehended inside their context (Duranti and Goodwin 1992). This part has
attempted to show that one important situation for the analysis of narratives
is the establishment in which it is told, and the work the narrative performs
in and then for that institution. Many of these a report requires analysis of
the forms and mass media for narratives maintained in particular institutions,
the contact between these, the events for narratives, the incidents and
evaluations of such narratives, and the identity of preferred and dispreferred
audio system for given speakers (storytelling rights). These questions allow us
to map the work that narratives do in institutions: maintaining identity and
continuity, negotiating power relations, managing change, and marking
membership, as well as transacting the daily business of the organization.
Thus, research into narratives in institutions provides an empirical study of
one of the primary processes of social reproduction.
In addition, a narrative takes part of its meaning from its
location within an ecology of narratives. A given story in an institution has a
very different meaning if it supports or contradicts the story of the founder,
or the paradigmatic narrative available as a career guide. Thus, to understand
the telling of the story of old Bob down the street, we must understand whether
it is heard as an instance of the paradigmatic narrative, or whether old Bob is
a sad example of what happens when you do not do it the right way.
Finally, attention to narrative in institutions may be seen as
action of the ethnography of speaking. This kind of started out by asking what
sorts of speech situations and speech acts can be found within a speech
community (Hymes 1972). Newer advancements have focused on issues of
performance: not simply the speech event, but it is location and performance
within a stream of activity. I propose that considering institutions as an
device of interest gives an orthogonal account of community, and offers an
important device of study for modern, professional societies, in which the
speech community simply cannot be defined as similar to language, dialect, or
political boundaries. This part thus offers a paradigm for research in a
variety of sites, which are understudied and close to hand. Further research
through this paradigm could greatly enhance our understanding of the work of
narrative within social categories of all types and sizes.
