CIICPD 2023

is then defined as “the narration of self-experience that has biographical significance beyond the narrative situation and in which the narrating person expresses something important with regard to him or herself, his or her experience and world view” 7 (in Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann, 2004, p. 21). With regard to autobiographical narration, written and oral narratives are thus not categorically distinguished from each other, although of course the interaction processes underlying the respective text productions are completely different. A clear demarcation, on the other hand, is made in relation to fictional literary texts. A corresponding distinction is also made in literary studies. Autobiographies, diary entries, school essays and the like, in contrast to literary, fictional art forms, are referred to as utility texts or utility forms. This would then also include the written CI-narratives that were created for training purposes in an appropriate context. In this context, however, Fetscher (2022) mentions the proximity of ‘typical’ CI-applications to the literary form of the ‘Schwank’ (farce, merry tale), which may be of interest for the derivation of the culture-bound nature of the form. Let us not forget that CI-narratives and CI-storytelling in training courses or sessions always possess great entertainment value, and the expectations that the audience has of a good story or that the narrator imposes on the audience or readers naturally influence narrative production. In this sense, Vogt (1973, p. 286) gives the following definition: [a Schwank is] [t]he short narrative (especially in prose) of a comic incident from folk life, which is usually structured as a playful, combative confrontation between two differently situated or qualified characters (Servant and master, layman and cleric, clever student and simple-minded peasant, seducer and ingénue etc.). In terms of material, the focus is on crude conflict situations linked to reality […], the comedy in question is material-situational, hardly ever intellectual (in contrast to the joke and the anecdote). Linguistically and structurally, however, the Schwank, like these two forms, is characterised by the linear, taut intensification of the action with a witty, surprising – often sudden – ending (punch line). 8 Based on this definition, it can be assumed that in the core of the European context, the format of the Schwank is widespread. The main characteristics of the format, e.g. the punch line, reappear in the categories developed by Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann (2004). 3.1 Representational Aspects of Scenic-Episodic and Reported Narrative Form 9 The question arises whether the following categories of scenic-episodic and reporting narratives developed in a German-speaking research context can be applied to the lingua franca corpus examined in this study.

Translated by the authors. Translated by the authors.

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9 Lucius-Hoene and Deppermann (2004, pp. 156–157) developed a third set of categories for the chronicle like presentation. The chronicle-like presentation, which also plays an important role in autobiographical interviews, does not apply to CI-narratives.

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