CIICPD 2023

defined as “broader descriptions of events that can be self-experienced, retold, or even freely invented and passed on either in writing, orally or in pictures” 4 (p. 335). In addition to the difficulty of distinguishing between didacticised forms (Flanagan, 1954; Fiedler, Mitchell and Triandis, 1971; Brislin, Cushner, Cherrie and Yong, 1986; Thomas, 1991), it is noticeable that the term ‘critical incident’ is often used for situated events and the narration of said events. Although Groß and Leenen do not exclude the possibility that they could also be fictional narratives, it is generally assumed in intercultural teaching that CIs are factual (2019). Accordingly, when working with CI-narratives, the focus is usually on the content side (“story” as a chain of events) and not on the presentation side (“narrative” or “discourse”). Based on these observations, Fetscher (2022) defines the following conceptual complex: When it comes to the ephemeral event worth narrating, which is perceived as an event through a ‘break’ from the usual, I will speak of the CI event. A CI event can happen both physically (offline) and virtually (online), for example, mediated in an e-mail. […] If it is about the narrative reconstruction of the story worth telling and thus of the event, I will speak of a CI-narrative, and if it is about a post-edited didactic format of a CI-narrative, then I will use the term CI-application in parallel. In relation to CI-narrative, I will distinguish between CI-storytelling and CI-narrative. I refer to CI-storytelling as the oral, ephemeral narration of a CI event, as it often happens in training situations, but also in everyday life. I would like to use “CI-narrative” to refer to empirically usable, non-post-edited didactic data material, however made available (p. 17). 5 In this context, we have to state that we are aware of the fact that the didactic setting has a certain influence on the production of the narratives. It also makes a difference in which medium (e.g. blogs, instant messengers, the web application NiLS (see 4.1)) the CI-narratives have been formulated. However, neither of these aspects will be considered further in this paper: Since narratives are generally subjective and culture-bound reconstructions of events, the question of who wrote a CI-narrative or a CI-application in which format, at what time and for what purpose should always be made transparent, especially in training courses, and thus the discourse level should also be reflected (Fetscher 2022, p. 18). 6 3. CIs as Fragments of Autobiographical Narration In their book Rekonstruktion Narrativer Identität. Ein Arbeitsbuch zur Analyse narrative Interviews , Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann, work with oral narratives in transcribed form. A distinction from written narratives is only made with regard to literary narration. They define their field of research of life-stories or self-narratives as a research field where the narrator as an acting and suffering person is in the focus of attention (2004, p. 21). Citing Kinde (1993, pp. 20–21), autobiographical narration

Translated by the authors. Translated by the authors. Translated by the authors.

4

5

6

51