Identity Construction in Narrative Discourse: A Case for the Narrator or the Narrated

Jane Yorke Obuajo
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Jane Yorke Obuajo: University of Media Arts and Communication – Institute of Languages. (UniMAC-IL)

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, 2024, vol. 8, issue 6, 2485-2497

Abstract: This study explored how identities are constructed for deceased persons in the Akan community in Ghana through narrative discourse. Fifteen (15) biographies of Akan deceased persons aged seventy (70) or older were sampled from over fifty (50+) sourced biographies. The data were analysed using Labov’s six-stage narrative model and the social constructionist theory. The analysis showed that close relations of the deceased constructed identities for them through the biographies. These identities are enacted for the deceased in line with the socio-cultural practices of the community. In constructing an identity for the deceased, the narrators reflect on and choose events of the storyline of the decease that also construct their own identity; the narrator(s), being an in-group person(s), readily saw themselves through the story being narrated (for deceased) thereby negotiating identity for both the narrator and the deceased (narrated). This corroborates the Foucauldian assertion that (speaking) subjects (the narrator through the narrated) engages with their respective discursive communal practices to form their world. Practices and expectations of the cultural background of the subjects involved inform the foregrounding to major themes and identities.

Date: 2024
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