Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 1

The Labovian Functional Categories

in the Written Personal Narratives

Sherilyn Sia

Angelo O. Tubac

University of San Carlos

Cebu City
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 2

Abstract

This paper aims to determine if the students follow the functional categories of Labov in

their written firsthand narratives. Their written narratives are analyzed according to the Labovian

narrative structure to identify the present or missing categories. Also, this study tries to look at

the placement of the different categories of Labov in the narratives.

Thirty written narratives pertaining to their most unforgettable experience were randomly

selected from 69 Maritime students of Cristal e-College in Bohol. Thus, the participants are all

male aging from 16-18 years of age.

The researchers use the Labovian (1972) functional categories in examining the 30

written firsthand narratives of the students. The researchers have concluded that the written

firsthand narratives of the students follow the Labovian functional categories. However, these

categories are not all present in some of the students’ narratives. Furthermore, the Abstract and

the Orientation categories occur usually at the beginning of the narratives, the Complicating

Action, the Resolution and the Coda are at the middle and the Evaluation is spread from the

middle to the last part of the narratives.

Introduction
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 3

We have two ways of expressing our experiences: verbal or written. It is in written that

we freely express our thoughts, our happiness, our deepest regrets, or sometimes our sentiments.

It is because sometimes what is hard to be said are expressed through writing and what the

mouth cannot utter could be conveyed through our pens.

William Labov (1972) has examined the fight narratives of south-central Harlem from

preadolescents (9 to 13 years old), adolescents (14 to 19 years old), and adults to determine the

linguistic technique that could be used in evaluating the experiences of the Black English

vernacular culture. In this study, he found out the structure of the complete narratives and also

looked at the narratives as series of answers to underlying questions.

The study of Ozyildirim (2009) focuses on the discovering of variation in personal

experience narratives of Turkish university students in terms of the narrative structure and

evaluative language used in oral and written narratives. He found out that the personal

experience narratives of Turkish university students exhibit a similar organizational pattern in

both versions.

The researchers extend the study of Ozyildirim in the written narratives of the Filipino

students. In this study, our focal point is to examine the structure of the written narratives of the

Maritime students of Cristal e-College whether the narrative categories introduced by Labov

(1972) are visible. The objectives of the study are: (1) to determine the narrative structure of

Labov in the written firsthand narratives of the Maritime students of Cristal e-College; (2) to

recognize the existent and non-existent categories in the narratives; and (3) to identify the

placement of the Labovian categories in the narratives

Definition of Terms
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 4

1. Firsthand narratives are the most unforgettable personal experience of the Maritime

students of Cristal e-College.

2. Labovian Categories are categories introduced by William Labov (1972).

3. Narrative is the method of recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence

of events actually occurred (Labov, 1972:360). Further, Richardson (2009) defines

narratives as, “The primary way through which humans organize their experiences into

temporarily meaningful episodes” (1990, in Ozyildirim, 2009).

Framework of the Study

The functional narrative categories that the researchers used were originally propagated

by Labov (1972). He grouped the narrative structures into the following categories:

A. Abstract is one or two clauses summarizing the whole story.

B. Orientation identifies the time, place, persons and their activity or situation.

C. Complicating Action tells the main event or what happened in the story.

D. Result or Resolution informs the readers about how the Complicating Action was

resolved.

E. Evaluation is the point of the narrative that tells why the story is told or why the story is

worth telling.

F. Coda is a word/s that signal/s the conclusion of the narrative.

These categories divide the thoughts according to their functions. The categories also

provide an opportunity for the readers to carefully analyze the sequence of events in the

narratives.

Review of Related Literature

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 5

Labov (1972) examined the narratives obtained from south-central Harlem. His

participants are preadolescents (9 to 13 years old), adolescents (14 to 19 years old), and adult.

His objective was to determine the linguistic technique that could be used in evaluating the

experiences of the Black English vernacular culture. Labov cited full three fight narratives from

leaders of vernacular peer groups in south-central Harlem who were widely recognized for their

verbal skills. It had been found out in his study that a series of answers to underlying questions

can also be used in evaluating the experiences of the Black English vernacular culture. Aside

from the functions of the different categories, it is important to have another linguistic technique

that could be used in analyzing the written narratives of individuals. This study is beneficial to

the discourse analysts and the like because they can have more techniques to be used when

examining a narrative.

In his study “News Stories as Narratives”, Bell (1991) explored the pattern that the news

story follows in terms of the six elements of Labov’s narratives. He also tried to discover as to

where the news story departed from the six elements of the narratives. Bell (1991) used the press

stories in his research because they were generally longer and were more detailed compared to

the other broadcast news. He examined the news story based on the six elements of Labov. As a

result of this study, Bell (1991) asserted that the news story contains the core components of

news discourse. It also included some elements of the personal narrative, and their order and

importance were different. Bell (1991) had come up with a model of structure of news texts. For

him, a news text will normally consist of an abstract, attribution and the story proper. Personal

narratives are far different from the news story though they may be both considered as stories.

With this, it is such necessary to have a distinct model of structure to the news text which is vital

for the analysts of this kind of story.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 6

The gender differences in relation to the telling of first-person narratives with reference

to age, role relationship, topic, intimacy of interaction, familiarity of interaction, and number of

interlocutors was the focus of Mendiola’s (1995) paper. The aim of her study was to investigate

on the similarities and differences in men’s and women’s telling of stories. To test this, she had

60 participants all in all with 30 participants in each gender. She obtained the data through

participant and non-participant observation during the family encounters and social visits. After

this, it had been found out that there are really gender differences in the telling of narratives. The

narrative topic differs by gender. Also, the female has longer narratives compared to male. The

female has longer narratives because they tend to be more evaluative. On the other hand, men

focuses on the situational and miscellaneous orientation type. They go directly to the point. The

pointing out of the differences of men and women in the telling of narratives is important

because it gives us the idea of the nature of men. In having a conversation with the men, we can

understand them better why they expresses a little. It is because they go straightly to the point

and they are less evaluative.

Ozyildirim (2009) discovered the variation in personal experience narratives of Turkish

university students in terms of the narrative structure and evaluative language used in oral and

written narratives. He collected a sample of 60 fright narratives of Turkish university students.

Thirty personal narratives were collected orally. The other 30 narratives were elicited in a written

task. In the first part of the analysis, all 60 personal narratives were examined in terms of

Labov’s (1972) narrative categories, and were compared and contrasted in terms of written and

oral versions. In the second part of the analysis, evaluative language used in both narrative types

is examined using the evaluative categories presented by Shiro (2003). The findings of the study

suggest that the personal experience narratives of Turkish university students display a similar
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 7

organizational pattern in both oral and written versions although there are some differences due

to the narrative medium.

Methodology
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 8

The researchers used the qualitative and quantitative analyses in interpreting the data.

These data were interpreted by looking closely at the written narratives of Maritime students of

Cristal e-College using the Labovian (1972) functional categories. The written narratives of the

students were classified into the six functional categories based on the definition of the different

functional categories of Labov (1972). After that, a number of the categories that existed and did

not exist were tallied to determine if the structure of these narratives follow the Labovian (1972)

functional categories. Moreover, the frequency of the categories was also computed by getting

the percentage to identify the placement of these categories in the written narratives.

Out of 69 narratives, thirty of these were randomly selected for the purpose of this study.

These narratives were collected from the Maritime students of Cristal e-College, Tawala,

Panglao, Bohol. There are 46 students from English One Classes comprised of Bachelor of

Science in Marine Engineering (BS-MarE) and Bachelor of Science in Marine Transportation

(BS-MT) and one Maritime English (ENMR 3) class composed of 23 second year BS-MarE

students in the first semester of the school year 2009-2010. The age of the participants was from

16-18 years old.

Sixty-nine Maritime students were asked to write their most unforgettable experience, be

it the saddest or the happiest moment of their life as long as these were the narratives that they

could not ever forget. Through random sampling, only 30 firsthand narratives were selected for

the purpose of this study. These narratives were then numbered from one to thirty. Finally, these

were analyzed using the Labovian functional categories namely Abstract, Orientation,

Complicating Action, Resolution, Evaluation and Coda. Based on the definition of Labov for

each category, the researchers identified the categories used by the students in their narratives.

The researchers verified if these functional categories were present in the written narratives of
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 9

the students. The occurrences of the different categories were tallied to determine the categories

which were present or missing in the narratives. Then after tallying, the percentages of the

frequency of the different categories were also computed to identify whether the narratives of the

Maritime students follow the Labovian (1972) narrative structure.

Results and Findings

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 10

The following unedited extracts were taken from the written firsthand narratives of the

Maritime students of Cristal e-College:

Extract 1 (Abstract)

Narrative No. 5: My most unforgettable moment was when I decided to be here in bohol and to

be a BSMT student of “K” line.

Narrative No. 8: Nine years had gone since the last time I saw my father. Then, I had a big break

which has been given to me; I will have a chance to convene with my father.

Narrative No. 16: One of my unforgettable experiences was the first calisthenics here in Cristal

e-College conducted by Mr. Jose Lorete, our former dorm master.

Here the abstract serves as the bird’s eye view of the whole narrative in [Narrative No. 8]

it tells about the student’s meeting with his father, the whole part of the narrative simply

elaborates the summary he provided in the first paragraph. It is notable that only few of the

participants deploy abstract as a jumping point in writing their narratives. Thus, confirming

Bell’s (1991) belief that an abstract is not obligatory in narrative writing. The writer has the

option whether to include an abstract or not in writing his narrative.

Extract 2 (Orientation)

Narrative No. 2: This happened not so long before I graduated high school.

Narrative No. 14: During the month of October, I was informed that there is a test for all who

want to be the scholars of K-LINE.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 11

Narrative No. 17: Last March 22, 2009, my high school friends and I planned to conduct an

overnight swimming.

Orientation in personal narrative sets the scene e.g. who the actors are, where and when

the events take place, and the initial situation (Bell, 1991). In [Narrative No. 17], the participant

specifically points out the date of the activity, the people involved, and the plan to conduct the

stated activity. While in [Narrative No. 2], the same introduction was made. It mentioned about

what was going on, and the people involved in the situation. While in [Narrative No. 14, it now

talks about the initial situation that dictates the flow of the entire narrative as it further tells us the

time structure of the story.

Extract 3 (Complicating Action)

Narrative No. 1: The examination day came and I went to school with my requirements on my

bag, looking for my friend, I told myself, and made a speculation that no more than 20 students

will show up in the school (since the exam was held at our school, INHS, at the HMT Bldg.) As I

was about to enter the bldg. premises, the jaw dropped looking at the vicinity full of students and

parents, as I looked at the attendance, I was again shocked to see the 200+ student signed up for

this offer. I said to myself again, maybe this isn’t bad at all. I entered the room (still students

keep on coming) and took a seat, I saw my friend and we seated together. Before the exam, there

was an orientation about the shipping company; others were “tulo laway” hearing the salary

offered.

Narrative No. 3: When I was urinating, I accidentally hold an open wire and I was electrified. I

shouted and my cousin quickly kicks me away from the electricity.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 12

Narrative No. 8: I traveled by air and stayed in my aunt to wait until we had retrieved my

father’s address. In God’s grace, we were able to recover his residence. We chased the given

address and finally…

Perhaps, the most interesting part of the narrative is the complicating action because it

gives us the substance of the story. According to Bell (1991), the complicating action is the heart

of the personal narrative because it sequenced the occurrences of the events and to Ozyildirim’s

(2009) point of view; he considers this section as obligatory for the formation of the narrative

because it contains the climax or high point of the story.

In [Narrative No. 1], the participant decided to take the K-Line scholarship examination.

All the while, he was expecting that there will be only few students to take the examination but

then he was wrong. In [Narrative No. 3], the participant was urinating when he suddenly held a

live wire that had almost cost his life. In [Narrative No. 8], the participant was heading to the

most awaited part of the narrative, which is meeting his ever-longed father after nine years of

missing him.

Extract 4 (Result or Resolution)

Narrative No. 1: After the exam, series of letters were sent to me that I passed the scholarship

program. The memorable part is that, the whole interval of taking the tests, interviews, and

medical examinations. It started my career of being a seafarer, and hoping someday, I’ll have my

dreams and goals fulfilled.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 13

Narrative No. 4: We enjoyed the whole day bonding with my family, playing with my cousins,

and of course, spending the whole 2 days with my gf.

Narrative No. 8: We had my father’s residence. It has been a longtime since I last saw him.

The result or the resolution functions to inform the audience about how the complicating

action was resolved. This section indicates the termination of a series of events by releasing the

tension (Ozyildirim, 2009). In personal narrative, this indicates how the battle is won, and how

the accident is survived.

[Narrative No. 1] shows how the participant surpassed all the hardships from falling in

line for several hours, taking series of academic and medical examinations, series of interviews

from both Filipinos and Japanese representatives of Kawasaki Kishen Kaisha Limited. In

[Narrative No. 4], after the struggles of the participant, he is about to reap the fruit of his labors

as the Class Valedictorian. The participant in Narrative No. 8, delineates how he finally arrived

at the main point of meeting his father.

Extract 5 (Evaluation)

Narrative No. 9: I felt a surge of happiness because that was my first relationship with a girl.

This is the reason why I cannot forget that moment.

Narrative No. 10: At least we were able to go on with our party, and reach out to last goodbyes

with my friends.

Narrative No. 11: This was once in a lifetime experience in my life.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 14

Evaluation according to Bell (1991) is the means by which the significance of the story is

established and in personal narratives, evaluation is what distinguishes a directionless sequence

of sentences from a story with point a meaning.

What is shown in [Narrative No. 10] is the claim of the participant that meeting his long

lost father is a memory which will forever be treasured. Thus, it simply speaks that the reason

why the narrative is worth telling is because he found his long-lost father. While [Narrative No.

9] tells that he got all the reasons to share his narrative because he felt a surge of happiness since

that was his first relationship with a girl. Whereas in [Narrative No. 11], the participant tells that

the story is worth telling because he considered it as a once in a lifetime experience.

It is worth mentioning that out of the 30 written firsthand narratives, only very few

include the evaluation. Thus, in the researchers’ analysis, out of the data gathered from the

narratives of the Maritime students of Cristal e-College, it is possible to say that evaluation is not

a requisite in writing the firsthand narratives. The researchers understand that the result of this

analysis is isolated only to the narratives submitted by the Maritime students of Cristal e-

College.

Extract 6 (Coda)

Narrative No. 1: “as you can see sir, I cannot make a good essay due o my illness that

overwhelmed me last Saturday.”

Narrative No. 19: This is what I have experience that I can share because this only happen one

time in my life that I was separated ti my family and thank you for reading this even thougt this

is only a short part of my unforgettable moments.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 15

Narrative No. 21: At this point my taught didn’t failed me because my friends is helping me to

reach my ambition be success and also vice versa so that we can all graduate and March at the

end.

Some of the narratives used coda to signal the conclusion of the story and is intended to

return the tense from the narrative time to the present. [Narrative No. 19] signals the end of his

narrative by stating “this is what I have experience”. It means that the participant cuts the

enthusiasm of the readers. As a result, signaling the end of his narrative. While in [Narrative No.

21], “At this point my taught” creates an impression that the writer returns to the present time. In

[Narrative No. 1], the phrase “As you can see sir,…” does not have any significance to the

narrative and logically it signals that the writer had finished writing his own story.

However, the researchers noticeably identified that like the research conducted by

Ozyildirim (2009), Labov’s narrative categories do not occur in equal numbers in the written

firsthand narratives of the Maritime students of Cristal e-College.

To clearly show the variation of the written narratives in terms of the existent and non-

existent, total number of occurrences, and the rank (in terms of the most commonly used

category) of the Labovian functional categories, a table below is provided for that purpose.
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 16

Table 1

Labovian Functional Category Existent Non-Existent Total Rank

1. Abstract 16 14 30 4
2. Orientation 28 2 30 2
3. Complicating Action 29 1 30 1
4. Result or Resolution 21 9 30 3
5. Evaluation 15 15 30 5
6. Coda 21 9 30 3

The table shows that the Complicating Action ranks first in its existence in the written

narratives of the students. This means that this category is really an essential part in the written

narratives. As what Bell (1991) said, the Complicating Action is the heart of a personal narrative.

The written narratives will be clearly understood if it presents the Complicating Action.

Next to the Complicating Action is the Orientation. According to Bell (1991), in news

story, the Orientation category is obligatory for it is where the basic facts can be found. Not only

in news story, it is also important in the personal narratives of the students for it sets the scene of

the event so the readers will have a bigger picture why certain actions happen.

The Result or the Resolution ranks third in the written narratives of the students. This

category is the part where the steps in resolving the complicating action were explained. It is

enumerated in this category how the action has been resolved. Same rank with the Result or

Resolution is the Coda. This category is the part that signals the conclusion of the narrative. For

Labov (1972), the Coda is maybe present or not in the narratives. However, it is amazing that the

students employ this in their written narratives. This is due to the reason that the Codas contain

general observations and show the effects of the events to the narrator. Presumably, the students

connect their experience in the past to the present to serve as their guiding principle in their daily

living. Thus, observing the dictum “experience is the best teacher”.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 17

Labov (1972) defines narratives as “… sequence of events”. It is no wonder why

Complicating Action, Orientation, Result or Resolution and Coda are the most commonly used

Labovian functional categories. All these categories concentrate on the events that happened in

their experience. The students tell us the background of the action, the action itself, the resolution

and how this action affects their lives at the present. This also substantiates the claim of

Mendiola (1995) that male narrators display preference for situational and miscellaneous

orientation types.

Abstract and Evaluation occupies the last two rank. Abstract gives the summary of the

whole story. On the other hand, the Evaluation tells why the story has been told. According to

Mendiola (1995), male narrators tell the events directly and they also just mention enough details

about the people and events to leave out some things for the listeners to figure out for

themselves. Male narrators do not attach much meaning to their experiences. These are the

reasons of the non-existence of the Abstract and the Evaluation categories in half of the students’

narratives.

Similarly to the claim of Ozyildirim (2009) that the Labovian categories seem to exist in

a non-western language like Turkish irrespective of the oral or written versions in the narrative,

the researchers have also found out the occurrences of the different narrative categories of Labov

(1972) in the written personal narratives of the Filipino students specifically the Maritime

students of Cristal e-College, Panglao, Bohol.

The second thing that the researchers want to observe is the placement of the categories

in the written narratives of the Maritime students. For this purpose, a table below outlines the

frequency of the arrangement of the narrative categories according to percentage.

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 18

Table 2

Labovian Functional
First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth
Category
f p f p f p f p f p f p

1. Abstract 1 62% 6 38% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0
2. Orientation 2 71% 8 29% 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0
3. Complicating Action 0 0 1 48% 1 52% 0 0 0 0 0 0

4 5
4. Result or Resolution 0 0 0 0 1 57% 8 38% 1 5% 0 0

2
5. Evaluation 0 0 0 0 2 10% 6 40% 4 27% 3 23%

6. Coda 0 0 0 0 2 10% 1 57% 7 33% 0 0

2
Legend: f = frequency; number of occurrence in the narratives
p = percentage, no. of occurrence total number of existent category

As evident in Table 2, the Abstract and the Orientation categories are usually placed by

the students at the first or second part of the narratives. These two categories serve as a jumping

board before starting with the events that happened. These two categories provide background

information about the whole story to make it more comprehensive to the reader.

The Complicating Action is at the second or at the third part of the narratives. After

providing the background information of the story, the series of events that happened will now

be laid.

On the other hand, the Result or Resolution and the Coda are found at the third to the

fifth part of the written narratives. After the Complicating Action, next to it would be how the

complicating actions will be resolved and fixed, and that is the result or the resolution. Likewise,
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 19

the Coda tells us the conclusion of the narrative. It gives the connection of the experience to the

present situation.

The Evaluation occupies the third to the last part of the narratives. According to Bell

(1991), the Evaluation may occur throughout the narratives but are typically written near the end.

It is commonly written at the end because it tells the significance of the story.

Conclusion

The Labovian functional categories are present in the written firsthand personal

narratives of Maritime students of Cristal e-College. However, not all of these categories are
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 20

present in a narrative. There are missing categories in some of their narratives. Generally, the

Orientation, Complicating Action, Result or Resolution and the Coda are the categories present

in the narratives of the Maritime students. This supports the study of Mendiola (1995) on the

claim that male narrators tend to focus directly on the events. Men go straightly to the point,

thus, the common categories that exist on their narratives are the categories that lead to the

events such as Orientation, Complicating Action and the Result or Resolution. Likewise, Coda is

present because men tend to connect their past experiences to the present to guide their daily

living. Adhering to the principle, “Experience is the best teacher”. Because of this, men give

general observation on the events and show the effect of these in them.

The researchers have concluded that the result of the study is comparable to Labov’s

research. The Maritime students usually placed their Abstract and their Orientation at the first or

second part of the narratives. These two categories serve as the introduction before the students

start narrating the events of their experience. Next to these categories is the Complicating Action.

After the background information has been laid, the events are now being introduced. After the

events have been established, there will be resolution to the complicating action that will happen.

And subsequently, the general observation to these events will be given in the form of Coda. On

the other hand, Evaluation is the category found at the middle or at the last part of the paragraph.

According to Bell (1991), the Evaluation may occur throughout the narratives but are typically

written near the end. The evaluation tells why the story is being told. One can tell that the story is

worth telling when certain events already happened. That is why, evaluation is commonly found

at the middle or at the last part of the narratives.

This study limits on the personal narratives of male students aged 16-18 of Cristal e-

College, Panglao, Bohol. Thus, the researchers suggest for future studies to obtain narrative from
Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 21

the female students with the same age and compare these narratives to that of male students. It is

also possible to get some narratives from elementary or high school male students and compare

them to the narratives of college students to see their similarities and differences in terms of the

Labovian functional categories.

References

Bell, A. (1991). The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.

Gonzales, S. (2005). Isolated Linguistic Mantra Using Verbal Narratives. University of San

Carlos (unpublished thesis).

Running Head: Labovian Functional Categories in Narratives 22

Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Mendiola, C. (1995). Do Filipino females tell narratives the way Filipino males do? Philippine

Journal of Linguistics. Volume 26 (Numbers 1 and 2). Philippine Normal University.

Ozyildirim, I. (2009). Narrative Analysis: An analysis of oral and written strategies in personal

experience narratives. Elsevier B. V.

Tanner, D. (1990). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York:

Ballantine Books.

Appendix