In the first quarter of the 20th century, the Czech teacher J. St. Kubín collected far more than 1000 folktales of Czech countrymen, especially in the Giant Mountains. Kubín comprehended the orally passed on folktale as the genuine cultural tradition of ‘unsophisticated’ people. The narrator is the bearer of this tradition, which Kubín defends as autonomous and native against modernism and civic society. Different from Václav Tille, who claimed the literary written origin of folktales, Kubín emphasizes the oral tradition of the folktales. His rich collection shows the internationality of the types of the folktale.

This thesis focuses on the notion of unreliability of a narrator. From the theoretical point of view, it challenges the category of unreliable narratorsas too broad and vague. It attempts to problematize the idea of a distinctive border line separating reliable and unreliable narrators via practical interpretative analysis of prototypes of narrators. Based on such analyses it claims that many of these narrators have been included in this category unjustifiably. Thus the category suffers from its expansive character and blurred meaning. The thesis perceives recognition of narrators based on binary opposition of reliable vs. unreliableas problematic; therefore the thesis also provides potential ways how to approach individual samples of narratives and their narrators. The thesis attempts to reduce growing the number of potential unreliable narrators via using other frames to describe their narrative functions.

I denna studie undersöks den känsla av författarnärvaro som präglar Asta Olivia Nordenhofs roman Penge på lommen. Genom att undersöka hur Nordenhofs ethos och persona förhåller sig till bokens berättartekniker, samt hur detta samverkar med berättarpåträngningar, är det möjligt att visa hur författaren, genom en paus i narrativet, förmedlar sin egen röst och sammansmälter sin litterära persona med sitt ethos. Detta resultat kontextualiseras genom att beskriva Nordenhofs litterära samtid i Danmark. Därigenom skapar uppsatsen förståelse för vilka etiska dimensioner som ryms i romanens berättartekniker, i synnerhet blickens ökande och minskande distans till romankaraktärerna. Avslutningsvis diskuteras författarnävaron utifrån blickens etiska aspekter.

This dissertation uses a functional systemic approach to language to examine the construction of the respective first-person narrators of nine of the most popular, commercially successful and therefore influential African American slave narratives published between 1837 and 1862 (Roper, Grandy, Douglass, Brown, Bibb, Northup, Ball, Jacobs, Picquet). This corpus of more than 410,000 words was scanned for various linguistic features such as transitivity of verbs, nominalizations, and several syntactic features. The texts chosen differ as to their methods of production. Some of them were written by the first person narrators themselves, while others were either extensively edited, dictated to an amanuensis, or in some other way controlled. The dialectics of creation and representation through language results in the leading question in this study: how do the first-person slave narrators identify and create a personality for themselves through their texts? This dissertation thus focuses on the linguistic means by which the first-person slave narrator creates what is defined as a “discoursal self”, which helped the narrators to achieve one of their most important goals, namely, to be accepted as reliable. The dissertation consists of six chapters. Chapter 1 introduces a sociohistorical account of slavery, resistance against slavery, abolition, and the development of the slave narrative. The chapter shows that the African American slave narrative was not a completely new and original genre but an amalgamation of a variety of preexisting white and black literary forms. The second chapter is more theoretical and deals with discourse, power, and ideology in the slave narrative. Chapter 3 approaches the language of the slave narrative. The small corpus of scholarly texts that tackle language and style in this genre is reviewed. As an alternative to these approaches, critical discourse analysis (CDA) according to Norman Fairclough is suggested. It eliminates the a priori categorization of specific linguistic features as stylistically significant, because it is based on a functional view of language that perceives linguistic expression as choice on various levels. Every choice is considered meaningful and, according to its presence, absence, or clustering in a given co-text, potentially stylistic. Michael Halliday’s systemic functional grammar is introduced as the basis for the ensuing text analysis. Chapter 4 introduces the first quantitative observations about the density and distribution of the first-person singular pronoun in the narratives. This characteristic is then placed in relation to syntactic condensation in the forms of ellipsis, finiteness and nominalization, all of which are reviewed quantitatively. Finally, this chapter introduces the system of transitivity according to Halliday, Matthiessen, and others. It explains the distinction between the individual process types and provides a quantitative overview of the individual transitivity profiles within each narrative. Chapter 5 represents the main part of this dissertation. Each of the nine narratives is analyzed individually as to the presence of the I-pronoun in the text and the use and distribution of process types. In this way patterns of foregrounded or favored usages against absences of others emerge and contribute to the discoursal selves that the individual narrators present/construct of themselves. These preferred usages in general as well as in their local distributions are examined in detail. The quantitative observations supply the basis for further qualitative analyses derived from a large number of examples from the texts. Thus it is possible to show that each of the narratives is linguistically unique, which results in an individual construction of the respective I-narrator. The use of pronouns, process types and syntactic reconfigurations reveals how control over the activities as well as over the text is constructed, which can be directly related to issues of power. The Summary provides a synopsis of the previous quantitative and qualitative analyses and associates the quantitative results with characteristics of written and oral texts in general. Finally, it thus becomes possible to rank the nine narratives on a cline between predominantly oral and chiefly written characteristics.

Masters of Art / study analyses the concept of al-Karāmah al-Sūfīyah (the Sufi Saintly Miracle) in both its religious and literary dimensions. The researcher will shed more light on this genre of narrative literary phenomena by developing its definition and placing it in the social and historical context of the Sufi thought as a whole. Many communities in the Islamic world embrace and practice the Sufi doctrine and also believe in the Ṣūfī Sheikhs’ saintly miracles and its paranormal aspects, which they also consider to be parallel in its sacredness to the miracles of the Prophets. Furthermore, in this study the researcher will not only focus on the religious significance of the saintly miracle but also on their literary approach and aesthetic dimensions. In fact many of the contemporary Arab scholars and Litterateurs categorize this narrative discourse to fall under the cloak of al-Adab al-‘ajāibī (miraculous literature) due to the nature of its narrative style and structure from which it achieves its goals, such as: Myth – Legend – Superstition – Storytelling, etc. The study will be mainly qualitative. It is a content analysis study in the sense that the researcher will analyse the stylistic, formal and rhetorical techniques of the saintly miracles’ discourse with specific reference to extracts taken from al- Sheikh al-Hassan al- Shadili and al-Sheikh Abdelssalam Bin Machich. The study will use an eclectic theoretical and conceptual framework which combines the historical approach with the reception theory.

According to Skolverket, the Swedish school has two missions: conveying knowledge and teaching values. These values are taught through the common principles (värdegrund) and instruct students about democratic values and human rights. However, Skolverket also reports that students lack such knowledge. Therefore, this essay aims to create a module with the main purpose of formulating and teaching the common principles, by using Phaswane Mpe's Welcome to Our Hillbrow, a text with the ability of presenting ethical issues whilst also making the reader respond to them. To achieve this, the values of the common principles will be extracted with the help of virtue ethics, which creates a conjunction with the book, where three topics are selected: sexism, gender identity and societal transformation. Virtue ethics, representing the common principles, together with Adichie’s definition of African feminism inform the analysis of sexism and gender inequality in the book and show how they are prevalent and extensive. Societal transformation is conceptualised and investigated through the use of narratology. Sexism and gender inequality are located in the horizontal plane of an arena, where the vertical expansion of narrative levels creates the urge for societal transformation. Such an expansion is made possible by an implied author, which provides the effect needed for reader inclusion. As such, Welcome to Our Hillbrow is described to entail an ethical challenge, that forces a responsible reader to emerge. Issues of sexism and gender inequality are then used together with the arena of societal transformation to construct a module in English 7, where students may themselves become reasonable readers through a process of critical self-reflection, a vital part of virtue ethics. This is done by employing Socratic and deliberative dialogue and an affective-humanistic approach, which together promote democratic values and human rights.

(in English): The focus of this thesis is on the narrative strategies of Mario Vargas Llosa in two selected novels: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (Tía Julia y el escribidor, 1977) and Captain Pantoja and the Special Service (Pantaleón y las visitadoras, 1973). Selection of the books is based on the richness of their formal techniques. In the analysis, the most important aspect is the narrator, the composition of the work and the structural schemes used by the author in his narrative strategy. The stylistic experiments and variations of language based on the type of speaker and genre are also part of the analysis. Vargas Llosa works very well with a wide range of narrative means, trying to capture the inexhaustible diversity of reality and reflect it in the structure of his works. Vargas Llosa's books draw reader's attention to the form, forcing them to reflect and to constantly re- evaluate their interpretation of the text. Construction of the novels is complicated and well elaborated. The reader must be active. The aspect that distinguish Mario Vargas Llosa's work from the rest is the abundant range of narrative techniques and the high level of rationality. Mario Vargas Llosa uses very innovative methods, he experiments with form and the structure of the work. The goal of this thesis is not a...

(in English): Śaratcandra Caṭṭopādhyāẏ is one of the most beloved Bengali authors, but has so far received only a very limited academic attention. The thesis briefly introduces the author's life and subsequently analyses his work using the terms and methods of contemporary narratology. Its primary goal is to contest traditional critical views of Śaratcandra as an overly emotional author for bored housewives. Śaratcandra intriguingly uses various literary devices (especially his narrators and focalisation) to enhance intimacy between the reader and the characters which finally leads to the reader's greater emotional involvement in the presented events. His usage of types of characters also innovatively combines ancient Indian types, real-life observations and western literary forms. The author juxtaposes characters in order to introduce a critique of social, religious and gender inequality, and to add an emotional argument to Īśvarcandra Vidyāsāgar's intellectual and legal endeavour. It is also possible to interpret Śaratcandra's work and the author himself - in contrast to Rabīndranāth Ṭhākur and Baṅkimcandra Caṭṭopādhyāẏ - as one of the most important modern descendants of the Mahābhārata tradition of Indian literature.

This essay identifies a type of narrative dissonance in the depictions of working-class conditions within Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life and George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. In this thesis, the dissonance is argued in part to be the effect created when an author belonging to one social class attempts to portray a class separate from their own. According to Marxist views, class constructs are well-defined and exist in opposition to one another. As such, there is a distinction between describing circumstances while viewing from outside and portraying conditions from within a class consciousness one does not share. The contrast between these perspectives introduces a discordant element into the narrative which interferes with a reader’s immersion. Furthermore, instances of both intranarrational and extratextual unreliability exacerbate the peculiar sense of dissonance when those elements conflict with the experiences of the reader. Understanding and sympathizing with the experiences of the Other, while beneficial in many regards, should not be conflated with knowledge of their lived experience. In order to establish this distinction, a close reading of the books, highlighting examples, is utilized. Additionally, by way of further explanation, Althusser’s concept of “internal distantiation” is used to define conflicting class viewpoints as a contributing factor to the dissonance perceived.

Магистерская диссертация посвящена зачинам новелл Э. А. По как малоизученной области поэтики писателя. Цель работы – типологизация зачинов новелл Э. А. По на основании их лингвостилистических маркеров, характера предоставляемой в рамках зачина информации и мотивной наполненности. Актуальность исследования определяется отсутствием в науке общепринятой дефиниции зачина, критериев его делимитации, четкого понимания смыслового наполнения зачинов. Проанализировав существующие концепции теоретических описаний зачинов художественного текста, автор приходит к выводу об их недостаточности и конструирует собственное определение и собственную типологию зачинов для новелл Э. А. По, опираясь на эмпирические материалы исследования. Под зачином понимается первый абзац как содержательно-тематический блок, выделенный в соответствии с экспрессивно-образной авторской установкой. Проводится анализ нарративной субъектной организации зачинов, выделяются экспозиционные (интродукция персонажей, места и времени действия), композиционно-стилистические мотивы (апелляция к читателю, рассуждения), вариации приема «вырезанное начало». В результате исследования зачины были дифференцированы, на основании 1) способа сюжетно-композиционной организации рассказа (3 класса); 2) функции мотивов, преобладающих в зачине (11 подтипов). Отдельно рассматриваются особенности новаторской модели зачинов Э. А. По, где связь зачина с сюжетом условна, и сюжетная история служит иллюстративным материалом к изложенным в зачине тезисам. Материалом для исследования служат 66 новелл Э. А. По на английском языке из двухтомной антологии ‘The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe’. / The master's thesis is devoted to the opening fragments of E. A. Poe's short stories as an understudied area of the writer's poetics. The aim of the study is to classify opening fragments (the beginnings) of E. A. Poe's short stories based on their linguistic and stylistic markers, the information provided within and the motif content. The relevance of the study is determined by the lack of a generally accepted definition of the opening fragment, criteria of its delimitation, a clear understanding of the concept and semantic content of the opening fragment in the literary and linguistics approaches. Having analyzed the available concepts of opening fragment’s theoretical descriptions in fiction texts, the author concludes their insufficiency and constructs his own definition and typology of opening fragments for the E. A. Poe’s short stories, based on the empirical research materials. The opening fragment is understood as the first paragraph of the work as a conceptual and thematic segment, allocated in accordance with the expressive and imaginative author's attitude. The analysis of narrative subjective organization of beginnings is carried out, and expositional (introduction of characters, place and time of action), compositional and stylistic motives (appeal to the reader, reasoning), variations of the ‘cut-off beginning’ technique are distinguished. As a result of the study, the opening fragments were differentiated: 1) according to the method of plot-compositional organization of the story (3 classes); 2) according to the functions of the motives prevailing in the opening fragment (11 subtypes). Separately, the features of the innovative model of E. A. Poe's opening fragments are considered, where the connection of the beginning with the plot is conditional, and the plot serves as illustrative material for the theses set out in the opening fragment. The material for the study is 66 original short stories by Edgar Allan Poe from the two-volume anthology ‘The Complete Poems and Stories of Edgar Allan Poe’.