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Description
One of the fundamental elements of social interaction and speech is the narrative. Regardless of the culture or language, hardly a conversation goes by between two people without one or more of the speakers recounting a story. The subfield of linguistics that is concerned with analyzing these stories or "narrative discourses" as they are technically called, is the field of narrative discourse analysis. A narrative discourse can be defined as an account of events, usually in the past, that employs verbs of speech, motion, and action to describe a series of events that are contingent one on another, and that typically focuses on one or more performers of actions. The present work is entitled "The New Orleans Narratives: A Discourse Analysis of American Survival Stories" and is a work inspired by this fundamental pillar of human interaction. The narratives contained within this thesis reflect the struggles of a diverse group of native New Orleanians with the natural catastrophe and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Five individuals representing three dialect groups volunteered to share glimpses of their journeys with the researcher and the stories that resulted from these conversations were recorded, transcribed, and qualitatively/quantitatively analyzed with the goal of answering the following three questions: 1. What are the major dialects of New Orleans and some of their characteristics? 2. How do storytelling methods differ from dialect group to dialect group within New Orleans? 3. Is the success of a narrative contingent upon the inclusion of certain forms of evaluation, and if so, what forms are they? The purpose of this study is to provide documentation of the dialects of New Orleans, with reference to phonology, morphology, syntax, and lexicon, but with more attention to narrative discourse methods. The speech of New Orleans residents is unique to their region and merits study as a distinctive American dialect. Storytelling techniques of the varying population of New Orleans are evaluated and interpreted with the motive of better understanding what makes some stories engaging and others not so much. This study not only provides narrative data of the dialects of New Orleans, but it also shares the stories of those affected by the greatest natural disaster in recent American history.
