Open Access

Willy Viehöver

• Der Beitrag geht im Anschluss an Paul Ricœur davon aus, dass wir als handlungsfähige, verkörperte Akteure nicht nur mit Worten etwas „tun“ (Austin), sondern dadurch, dass wir jemandem etwas über etwas in der Welt erzählen. Dass wir im Akt des Erzählens immer auch Welt inter- pretierend zur Sprache bringen und sie gegebenenfalls reinterpretieren, ist dabei eine zentrale Annahme. Aus diskursanalytischer Sicht muss bei der Analyse narrativer Diskurse, neben den semiotischen Aspekten des Erzäh- lens und seinen semantischen Dimensionen, auch eine Pragmatik des Erzäh- lens mitgedacht werden. Damit wird, neben den Sprechern (Erzahlern) und den narrativen Texten, immer auch ein interpretierendes Publikum in den Blick genommen, das sich aktiv wieder in den Strom des narrativen Diskur- ses einschalten und ihn verändern kann.
• The paper follows Paul Ricœur’s discourse on narrative and narrativity, by considering storytelling a central way of worldmaking. Accordingly, embodied and capable human actors do not only do things with words as Austin suggested, but by telling somebody something about something occuring in the world. Furthermore storytelling is considered an act of interpretation. By telling stories, we not only follow (changing) rules of narrativizing events and (human) action by forming them into a comprehensible story. By providing them with a plot as well as by appropriating stories already told, we do not only make sense of the world but we interpret and refigure it at the same time. From a discourse analysis point of view the analysis of narrative discourses, besides focusing on structural semiotic and semantic aspects, it also needs to take a pragmatic perspective into account. Hence, narratives always face a public able to actively and creatively enter the streams of ongoing narrativeThe paper follows Paul Ricœur’s discourse on narrative and narrativity, by considering storytelling a central way of worldmaking. Accordingly, embodied and capable human actors do not only do things with words as Austin suggested, but by telling somebody something about something occuring in the world. Furthermore storytelling is considered an act of interpretation. By telling stories, we not only follow (changing) rules of narrativizing events and (human) action by forming them into a comprehensible story. By providing them with a plot as well as by appropriating stories already told, we do not only make sense of the world but we interpret and refigure it at the same time. From a discourse analysis point of view the analysis of narrative discourses, besides focusing on structural semiotic and semantic aspects, it also needs to take a pragmatic perspective into account. Hence, narratives always face a public able to actively and creatively enter the streams of ongoing narrative discourse thereby providing future readers with possible worlds.…