Prior2019

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Prior2019
BibType ARTICLE
Key Prior2019
Author(s) Matthew T. Prior
Title “I am an adult now”: Re-storying an ‘abuse’ narrative through categorization
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Narrative, Abuse, MCA, Membership Categorisation Analysis, L2, Interviews, Immigrant
Publisher
Year 2019
Language English
City
Month
Journal Pragmatics and Society
Volume 10
Number 3
Pages 423-451
URL Link
DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.17032.pri
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

This narrative-based study employs membership categorization analysis to address the following question: How does a victim of abuse formulate and manage various categories and related descriptive details to story past trauma in ways that bring about new endings or insights in the present? Drawing on data taken from a larger research project on immigrant identity, the analysis centers on a Cambodian-Vietnamese man’s narrative of childhood abuse and adulthood confrontation. It shows how the teller, by recalibrating person (e.g., ‘father-son’, ‘victim-abuser’), age (e.g., ‘young-old’), place (e.g., ‘North America-Vietnam’), and other categorial resources, re-stories people and events and their psycho-social and moral inferences and outcomes. By tracing how this narrative teller reconstitutes himself from ‘victim’ to ‘hero’, this study offers insight into how a local interactional event (e.g., a research interview) may be transformed into a therapeutic exchange. Insights for therapeutic (re)storying, narrative research, and second language (L2) research are discussed.

Notes