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A LABOVIAN STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF WRITTEN

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE NARRATIVES*
Patrick K. Aligarbes and Lanny Merryl N. Gallarde, M.Ed.
Faculty Members, Languages and Literature Department
Cebu Technological University – Tuburan Campus
Tuburan, Cebu
________________________________________________

Abstract
This study uncovered the use and universality of Labov & Waletzky’s (1967) model
of the structure of narratives. This further investigated the presence of the types of
evaluations according to Labov (1972). This study is done locally and institutionally to
determine the individual intention and potential of the student-participants.
There were 114 written narratives collected from all the first year students enrolled
in English 1b (Grammar and Composition) subject during the First Semester of the
Academic Year 2015 – 2016. A 200-word fluency criterion was observed to determine the
final data to be included in the study. Out of 114, only 79 written narrative compositions
passed the criterion.
This research is qualitative-quantitative in nature and utilized the descriptive
method in presenting and discussing the data gathered. After the written narratives were
analyzed, the results were tallied, interpreted, and discussed. The results revealed that
the most commonly employed elements of the structure of a narrative by majority of the
students were evaluation, orientation and complicating action. The other elements
received a percentage of use, but the least employed is resolution. Moreover, evaluative
action was the frequent type of evaluation conveyed by most of the student-participants.
The universality of the elements of the narrative is evident, thus revealing that the
students employed these even if they do not have a background knowledge of the said
structure. Nonetheless, the analysis reflected the students’ potential in writing, which if
examined closely, would reveal avenues for development of English language and
literature instruction.
Keywords: personal narrative, structural analysis, evaluation, communication
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Introduction

Story telling has always been an integral part of our day to day living. Filipinos as

we are, our culture is intertwined with the magnificence of creating stories and telling

them. In fact, our history has been handed down from generation to generation through

telling stories, be it in oral or written form. Gordon Pradl (1984) says that the telling of

stories is such a pervasive aspect of our environment that we sometimes forget that

stories provide the initial and continuing means for shaping our experience. Indeed,

without stories our experiences would merely be unevaluated sensations from an

undifferentiated stream of events. Stories are the repository of our collective wisdom

about the world of social or cultural behavior; they are the key mediating structures for

our encounters with reality. In such functions, communication is being played well

according to its function (Pradl, 1984).

Telling stories creates a wonderful means of sharing our experiences and making

people know about them. By sharing, people narrate these stories to others. Stories and

narratives always come together. Scholes et al. (1988) cites Labov (1972) who defines

narrative as one method of recapitulating past experience by matching a verbal sequence

of clauses to the sequence of events which actually occurred. Within this conception of

narrative, we can define a minimal narrative as a sequence of two clauses which are

temporally ordered: that is, a change in their order will result in a change in the temporal

sequence of the original semantic interpretation. As a review of events in the past, stories

and narratives are greatly incorporated in people’s quest for knowing the unknown. The

words "narrative" and "story" can both be traced back to an original meaning of "to know."

It is through story telling that people quite literally come to know - that is, to construct and
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maintain their knowledge of the world. Through a story, an individual creates meaning out

of daily happenings, and this story, in turn, serves as the basis for anticipation of future

events (Pradl, 1984). Labov (1997) expounded that narrative of personal experience is a

report of a sequence of events that have entered the biography of the speaker by a

sequence of clauses that correspond to the order of the original events. Because of the

meanings within each story that is being told, people make use of them as a basis of

understanding the things that are yet to come.

The identity of the speaker and the meanings he or she wanted to convey are

defined in these narratives and stories. Analyzing them would mean delving deeper into

the processes of their minds. The textual and pragmatic richness of narratives follow a

certain structure when being told. Pradl (1984) says that it is not surprising that a great

deal of scholarly investigation has focused on both the nature of stories and their central

role in human affairs. Across many disciplines - including linguistics, literary criticism,

anthropology, psychology, and sociology - researchers have seen how the analysis of

story structure is fundamental to our understanding of individual intention and potential.

First steps in narrative analysis taken by Joshua Waletzky and William Labov were a by-

product of the sociolinguistic field methods that had been developed in the survey of the

Lower East Side (Labov, 1966) and in the works that engaged them at that time which is

the study of African-American Vernacular English in South Harlem (Labov, Cohen, Robins

& Lewis 1968). Labov and Waletzky laid out a framework which has proved useful for

narrative in general (Labov, 1997).

Different people are considered to have varied accounts of personal narratives and

stories. University students bear with them a variety of fields of experiences, from their
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childhood up to where they are now. Journeying through university mostly includes the

part where they communicate with each other; telling stories and narrating events which

have happened in the past. Therefore, in different ways and times, it gradually appeared

that narratives are privileged forms of discourse which play a central role in almost every

conversation (Labov, 1997). In this case, the researchers collected written personal

experiences narratives from freshmen students of the College of Education of Cebu

Technological University – Tuburan Campus and analyzed these narratives according to

its structure. This study is anchored on Labov and Waletzky’s Model of Narratives (1967)

and Labov’s Types of Evaluations (1972). The researchers looked at each written

narrative by the students through the elements of narratives by Labov and Waletzky,

namely 1) abstract, 2) orientation, 3) complicating action, 4) resolution, and 5) coda. After

which, the researchers analyzed the evaluative types in each narrative, through the types

of evaluation by Labov, namely, 1) external evaluation, 2) embedded evaluation, and 3)

evaluative action.

Table 1 provides information on the linguistic forms that each component in the

Labov and Waleztky’s Model of Narratives (1967) typically takes. According to this model,

the elements are arranged in the sequence in which they could occur in a typical oral

narrative. However, this could exclude evaluation which tends to sit outside the central

pattern because it can be inserted at virtually any stage during a narrative. Evaluation is

the most fluid of the narrative categories stylistically: it may take a variety of linguistic

forms depending on what particular evaluative job it is doing (Simpson, 2004). In addition

to this model of narratives, Labov (1972) presents three types of evaluations in narratives:

1) external evaluation, where the evaluation is considered overt and the narrator stands
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outside the action; 2) embedded evaluation, where the narrator describes feelings at the

time, thus staying within narrative; and 3) evaluative action, where the narrator reports

actions which reveal emotions.

Table 1. Labov and Waletzky’s Model of Natural Narratives

Narrative Category Narrative Question Narrative Function Linguistic Form

ABSTRACT What was this Signals that the A short
about? story is about to summarizing
begin and draws statement,
attention from the provided before the
listener. narrative
commences.
ORIENTATION Who or what are Helps the listener Characterized by
involved in the to identify the time, past continuous
story, and when place, persons, verbs; and adjuncts
and where did it activity and of time, manner
take place? situation of the and place.
story.
COMPLICATING Then what The core narrative Temporally ordered
ACTION happened? category providing narrative clauses
the ‘what with a verb in the
happened’ element simple past or
of the story. present.
RESOLUTION What finally Recapitulates the Expressed as the
happened? final key event of a last of the narrative
story. clauses that began
the complicating
action.
EVALUATION So what? Functions to make Includes:
the point of the intensifiers; modal
story clear. verbs; negatives;
repetition;
evaluative
commentary;
embedded speech;
comparisons with
unrealized events.
CODA How does it all Signals that a story Often a
end? has ended and generalized
brings listener back statement which is
to the point at ‘timeless’ in feel.
which s/he entered
the narrative.
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In a study conducted by Eagles (2011) where she attempted to analyze the

heartbreak narratives in terms of the Labovian model, the narratives appear to be

extremely appropriate for illustrating the six structural elements: abstract, orientation,

evaluation, narrative clause, result and coda. She said that as stated by Labov, the six

structural elements except for one, are not obligatory, but instead provide a tentative

framework for the personal narrative. Labov's definition of the 'minimal narrative' is that

which contains at least two narrative clauses. This feature which defines Labov's minimal

narrative is consistently revealed within the data.

Another study by Ozyildirim (2009) aimed at discovering variation in personal

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

evaluative language used in oral and written narratives. For this purpose, 60 fright

narratives of Turkish university students are analyzed. 30 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 are examined in terms of Labov's (1972) narrative

categories, and are 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). Written and oral versions are

also compared regarding the evaluative categories conveyed by the narratives. The

findings of the study suggested that although there are some differences due to the

narrative medium, the personal experience narratives of Turkish university students

exhibit a similar organizational pattern in both versions.

Another study conducted by Alcisto (2005) investigated the relationship of gender

with the use of politeness strategies and structure of a narrative which were identified in
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the written narratives of the students from Cebu Institute of Technology. She found out

that the elements of the structure of a narrative surfaced as the natural way of narrating

events and the type of discourse whether oral or written did not make any difference in

the presence and flow of the elements of the structure of a narrative.

Similarly, Magno’s (2011) study on the oral interlanguage in the L2 (English and

Filipino) of Education Communication Arts Majors evaluated the Bisaya-Cebuano

students in their competence in using two (2) second languages namely Filipino and

English. Twenty (20) BSED CommArts Majors were gathered to narrate a mini-film they

have seen. Using Labov’s narrative elements, she identified orientation, complicating

action, evaluation and coda from the student’s narratives. She further said in her

conclusion that the identified narrative elements are universally present on the two (2)

languages used.

These studies by Eagles (2011), Ozyildirim (2009), Alcisto (2005), and Magno

(2011) are presented in relation to the application of Labov and Waleztky’s (1967) model

of personal narratives, thus, they serve as helping ground in determining the structure of

the personal narratives of the students.

Following Labov’s works on analyzing the structure of narratives through observing

and listening to stories from different people, the researchers, too, became interested in

analyzing the way Education students construct the narratives they convey to others,

most specially that they are trained to become future educators. Consequently, instead

of having conversations and oral narrations, the researchers utilized the written narratives

of the students. The researchers intended to use writing as means of collecting data and

from there determined the structure of the narratives of the students and the elements
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that are found within them, since Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) research dealt mostly with

oral and conversational narrations, and see if these structures are present in the written

narratives by the students which is done locally and institutionally.

Accordingly, the researchers chose to analyze personal experience narratives by

freshmen students of the College of Education because as future educators, they should

be able to utilize verbal and written narratives in documenting the progress and

development of their students. Furthermore, Education students are trained to become

effective teachers in the future. The use of narratives in their teaching can help them

construct a well-arranged lesson. As future teachers, their responsibility affects every

child’s mind which they would touch. What they say is very important to the students; it

would either bring them growth or it would destroy them. Their narratives were chosen

because as Chafe (1990) puts, narratives are windows to both the content of the mind

and its on-going operations. Another reason is according to Emmott (1999) who cited

Hocket (1963) and Piaget (1955) that the ability to displace in time and space, including

seeing things from another’s perspective, is thought to be a key factor in linguistic and

cognitive development. Analyzing the written narratives of these students could determine

their ability to convey ideas, thus identifying their individual intention and potential. The

researcher further believes that analyzing the structure of narratives through Labov and

Waletzky’s (1967) model and Labov’s (1972) types of evaluation has a significant role in

both the areas of linguistics and education. To quote Chafe (1990), “In a variety of ways,

narratives provide evidence for the nature of the mind. I see narratives as overt

manifestations of the mind in action- windows to both the content of the mind and its on-

going operations.” Emmot (1999) also said that readers of narrative text manage to create
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a richly represented fictional world from mere strings of words. There is a significant

amount of inferencing involved simply in making sense which characters are being

referred to, keeping track of spatial and temporal information, and establishing causal

links between events.

Methodology

This research is qualitative-quantitative in nature. The descriptive method was

utilized in this study to present, interpret, and analyze the data gathered, as well as in the

discussion of the summary, findings, conclusions, and recommendations. This research

was conducted at Cebu Technological University – Tuburan Campus. Moreover, this

research used the purposive sampling technique, having all first year students of the

College of Education taking Engl 1b (Grammar and Composition) subject of the first

semester of academic year 2015 – 2016 as student-participants. Their written personal

experience narratives were the main sources of data for this research. A 200-word fluency

criterion was observed. All the students enrolled in the English 1b classes were given the

task of writing a narrative essay on their personal experiences during the Intramurals

2015. Each class was given the whole period or one hour to finish their narrative essays.

Since it is Grammar and Composition subject, the students wrote their essays in English.

After, the essays were collected and the 200-word fluency criterion was used to determine

the final number of essays included in the research.

The written narratives which passed the criterion were analyzed through Labov

and Waletzky’s (1967) model of narratives and Labov’s (1972) types of evaluation. The

unit of analysis was per sentence in each of the narratives. The analyzed data collected
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from the narratives were tallied and summarized, according to its frequency and

distribution. Afterwhich, the results elicited from the data were arranged from highest to

lowest in terms of the frequency of their occurence and with such, the results were

analyzed. No statistical treatment was applied to this study, only frequency counts and

simple percentages were utilized.

Results and Discussion

A. The Narrative Elements Used in the Structure of the Written Narratives by the Students

Table 2 shows the frequency and percentage of the occurrence of the narrative

structures as employed by the students.

Table 2. The Narrative Elements Used in the Structure of the Written Narratives by the
Students (N = 79)

NARRATIVE ELEMENTS FREQUENCY %

Evaluation 77 97.41

Orientation 76 96.20

Complicating Action 75 94.94

Coda 63 79.75

Abstract 50 63.29

Resolution 36 45.57

As can be derived from the table, the most commonly used narrative elements in

the written narratives by the participants are evaluation (97.47%), orientation (96.20%)

and complicating action (94.94%). The narrative elements less used are coda (79.75%),

abstract (63.29%) and resolution (45.57%). It can be observed in the written narratives of
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the students that the evaluation and orientation are scattered and dispersed in many

locations throughout the narrative. These two variables are very fluid in their occurrence

along with the complicating action which is considered as the most important part, since

it is considered the ‘narrative clause’. This implies that the student-narrators justify, in

many means, the actions happening in the stories; create an illustrative background for

the readers to know the setting of their stories through utilizing the orientation; and

proceeds with detailing the various experiences that have happened to them in the

complicating action. Moreover, though not all students utilized the abstract, resolution and

coda, the results still imply that a significant number of the participants are able to offer a

beginning or introductory statement for their narrative, make a conclusion on the details

that they have presented in the complicating action, and transmit their readers from the

world they have spun in their recalling of past experiences back to the reality of the

present world. Furthermore, the representation of the last three narrative structures

stands evident that the students, who wrote the narrative essays in their composition

classes, utilized these elements in writing a complete essay with an introduction, a body

and a conclusion.

The high frequency (77) of the occurrence of the evaluation structure in the written

narratives of the students goes with Scholes et al. (1988) who cited Labov & Waletzky’s

(1967) claim that it is perhaps the most important element in addition to the basic narrative

clause, with 97.47% of the students employing the structure. As mentioned in Magno’s

(2011) study, evaluation bespeaks the emotional side of the narrative and indicates what

the story means, which eventually highlights appealing and remarkable points of the story

because of the narrators’ personal input sometimes due to influences from the cultural
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background, physical surroundings or personal experiences. Furthermore, evaluation

refers to the comments made by the speaker on the events he/she experienced

(Ozyildirim, 2009). Ozyildirim (2009) also treated evaluation as personal remarks a

narrator has on certain events in the narratives. It can be noted that as stated in Magno’s

(2011) study, Squire (2005) mentions that Labov implied that the evaluation element, like

orientation, is scattered anywhere in the story. This result further goes with Alcisto (2005)

wherein evaluation is employed among most of the participants of her study who could

retrospect on how they performed in their experience and justified their actions. In the

essays, it can be observed that the evaluation structures by the student-participants are

inserted in various parts throughout the narrative which mentions and describes

participants, times and places. It can also be seen that the narrators illustrate these things

in the narration and evaluate them immediately. This element alongside with the

evaluative structure is the orientation.

Basing on the result of the first sub-problem, orientation comes next in rank to

evaluation with a frequency of 76 (96.20%). Though not employed by all the participants,

the result still goes to show that most of the narrators or writers provide necessary

knowledge so that the reader can have prior knowledge before the succession of events

happened in the complicating action (Alcisto, 2005). Alcisto (2005) further observed in

her study that in the orientations of her participants, the characters, setting and the current

situation are properly illustrated. The results of the study go with this observation, and as

such, Labov and Waletzky (1967) states that the orientation is a section of a narrative

that contains the statements that provide the setting or context of a narrative and it serves

to orient the listener in respect to person, place, time and behavioral situation. Magno
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(2011) mentioned in her study that a storyteller who allows the audience to create a

mental picture of the situation and captivates their attention based on the given

descriptions of what is involved in the story succeeds in presenting a good orientation.

Magno (2011) also found out in her study that all the narrators, regardless of the language

they used, helped the listeners identify the time, place, characters, and activities or

actions. Though Magno’s (2011) study dealt with oral narrations, the result in the written

medium used in this study reflects the universality of the orientation element.

Furthermore, Magno (2011) also mentioned Alcisto’s (2005) findings which signified that

even if the writer of the narrative is not exposed to Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) model,

the narrator’s objective of setting the parameter and adjunct of the narration for the

audience is unquestionably alive. The orientation is the element in a narrative that

describes the setting of the story. This description leads the narration into the most

important part of the narrative (Labov & Waletzky, 1967) which is the complicating action.

The result shows a high percentage of the use of complicating action by the

students in their narratives, with a frequency of 75 (94.94%). The recalling of events

coincides with Labov’s (1997) claim that the chronologically ordered clauses, or

complicating actions, provide the referential function of the narrative, reporting ‘a next

event’ in response to the potential question ‘what happened [then]?’. Labov (1997) further

said that this variable provides the backbone of the story and is the ‘most reportable

event’, and without the complicating action, there is no narrative. It can also be observed

that in the sample above, evaluative remarks are inserted in several locations. It is either

fused with the narrative clause or is provided in a separate statement after the actions. This

further proves that the student-participants provide the evaluation element in almost every
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way in their written narratives. The observation is also like Alcisto’s (2005) wherein she

commented in her finding that justifications follow each event in the writer’s actions to

provide an explanation of the certain action. The justifications made by the narrator

greatly takes part in the employment of evaluation in the narrative. There are, however,

some instances of written narratives by the students wherein the participants have not

made use of the ‘narrative clauses’. Instead of recounting and answering the question

‘what happened?’, the student-participants just made use of a series of orientations and

evaluations, and described only the settings of the stories and provided evaluative

remarks after each orientation structure. Furthermore, the evaluation element is inserted in

almost all the parts of the narrative structure. Thus, it can be viewed that these can be

classified under the orientation element since there was no progression in the event, only

a description of it, with evaluative remarks provided for each orientation.

Another element employed by the students in their written narratives is the coda.

This variable attained a frequency count of 63 (79.75%). This implies that the 79.73% of

the student-participants give a proper closure to their narrative essays. Labov (1997)

mentioned that the coda is a functional device for returning the narrative perspective to

the present moment. Technically, the coda can be easily located since it is, at most times,

found at the end of a narrative. As the end of the story, the coda transports the reader of

the narrative from narrative world to the present world (Wu, 1995). Alcisto (2005) further

supplied in her study that according to Labov & Waletzky (1967), the coda is counted

though it is expectedly the least in presence than any other element. This claim by Labov

(1967) that the coda is the least in presence compared to the other narrative elements is

being contended by the result of the study since an average percentage of the student-
 14

participants utilized this element in their written narratives. On another perspective,

Magno (2011) cited Labov (1999) who said that a coda serves not only to close off the

series of complicating actions but may also contain a general observation or explain the

effects on the narrator, which can be totally disconnected from the main narrative. Some

student-participants were not able to give a clear ending of their narratives. Instead,

descriptions were used to give an illustration of what they have experienced. In such

cases, the reader of the narrative is left hanging because there was no bridge provided

for them to be transported from the story or narrative perspective and back to the present.

This is because no coda has been used thus leaving the reader of the narrative

suspended in the space of the narrative.

In the result, 50 (63.29%) of the student-participants provided the abstract in their

written narratives. Alcisto (2005) cited Labov (1967) who claimed that a narrative is still

considered complete even without the abstract since it is an additional element that

encapsulates the orientation, complicating action, and evaluation in a summarized form.

It can then be inferred that though the abstract is the second to the last in rank of the most

commonly used narrative structure in the written narratives by the student-participants,

some still present an introduction to pre-empt the happenings presented in the story. As

mentioned by Magno (2011) that before a story unfolds, it is not unusual for narrators to

provide a summary of the story to give the audience a sneak peek of the main event(s).

Though a significant number of participants utilized the coda in the beginning of their

narratives, some student, however, only immediately started their narration through

providing information as to when and where the event happened, who the participants

are and how did the characters act in the story in the first sentences of the narrative. This
 15

is just like what Magno (2011) found in her study that majority of her participants recount

the state of being of the character (in the video she used to be narrated) without supplying

further information. Most of the responses of her participants concern clauses with the

prompt of ‘about’. Going along this finding by Magno (2011), some of the student-

participants only described right away the setting of the story.

The narrative element which was least likely used by the student-participants in

their written narratives was resolution. In here, the narrator of the story gives closure to

the series of events established in the complicating action (Magno, 2011). Based on the

finding presented earlier, only 45.57% or a frequency of 36, of the student-participants

utilized this narrative structure. It can be observed in the written narratives of the students

that mostly the resolution element is not utilized due to the recurrence of orientations and

evaluation. Since these two goes along with the complicating action, no resolution is

usually presented. Instead, the narrators immediately make a ‘timeless’ statement of their

whole experience during the Intramurals 2015, thus making it directly the coda, which

eventually contains evaluation of the whole experience.

B. The Types of Evaluation Most Commonly Conveyed in the Students’ Written Narratives

Table 3 shows the frequency counts and percentage of the types of evaluation

most commonly conveyed by the students in their written narratives.

Table 3. The Types of Evaluation Most Commonly Conveyed in the Students’ Written
Narratives (N = 79)

TYPES OF EVALUATION FREQUENCY %

Evaluative Action 55 60.62

Embedded Evaluation 24 30.38

External Evaluation 0 0
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As revealed in the table, the most commonly conveyed type of evaluation in the

written narratives by the students is evaluative action, with 60.62%. This type of

evaluation is identified when the narrators report actions in their narratives which reveal

feelings and emotions. This is followed by embedded evaluation with 30.38%. Embedded

evaluation is signaled by the narrator through describing his or her feelings during the

time the event happened and thus, staying within the narrative. The non-presence of

external evaluation could be because of the medium wherein the narratives are

positioned, which is in the written form. Nonetheless, external evaluation is determined

when the narrator interrupts the flow of the narrative and turns directly to the listener to

tell him or her “what the point” of the story is, which can obviously be done in a verbal

narration of a story.

Evaluative action was obviously the most commonly conveyed type of evaluation

by the students. It can be clearly inferred that the students are able to report events,

happenings and actions which bring with them emotions. Mason (2008) said in her study

that evaluative action is where the narrator describes “what people did rather than what

they said”; in other words, the evaluation is dramatized. This includes “actions that reveal

the tensions of the actors” as well as any less serious but reportable emotions.

When a narrative conveys an embedded evaluation, it is posited that the narrator

describes feelings at the time of the happening, thus staying within the narrative. To quote

again Mason (2008), she said that embedded evaluation involves the narrator describing

his or her sentiments as if they occurred at the time of the happening, rather than at the

time of the telling, or attributing them to a third party who acts as observer. Furthermore,

Mason (2008) cited Labov (1972) who found out that the narratives of personal
 17

experience of his subjects imagined themselves back in the experience they were

describing.

It can be noted that one type of evaluation presented by Labov (1972) has not

been utilized by any of the students in their written narratives. The absence of external

evaluation could be related to the medium wherein the narratives were elicited. Since the

students wrote their narratives according to ‘what’ their personal experiences were, they

stood within the parameters of their own recalling of this experience and each one

personally experienced what they have narrated in their writing.

Conclusion

Labov & Waletzky’s (1967) model of a narrative is proven useful in analyzing and

examining written narrative compositions. Even though the medium of gathering the data

is different than that of Labov (1967 & 1972), the narrative elements are still proven to be

present in whatever mode of communication is used. It is worth mentioning that the

narrative elements in the structure of a narrative by Labov & Waletzky (1967) were not

introduced and discussed in the subject of the participants, yet the elements are evident

and structurally present in their written narratives. Therefore, it can be said that the

structures come naturally in the narratives and are “universally present”. The high

percentage of the occurrences of the evaluation, orientation and complicating action

elements signified that majority of the student-participants could justify, set and narrate

well their personal experiences.

Since a significant percentage of the student-participants conveyed evaluative

action in their narratives, this means that the narrators, in justifying the points in their
 18

narrations, were able to create an illustration of the emotions depicted in the actions

presented in their narratives; the essence of reporting well the actions were evident. The

absence of one of the types of evaluation which was external evaluation could be related

to the medium wherein the narratives were elicited. Since the student-participants wrote

their narratives according to ‘what’ their personal experiences were, they stood within the

parameters of their own recalling of this experience and each one ‘personally

experienced’ what they have narrated in their writing.

Recommendations

Based on the findings and conclusions of the study, the researchers recommend

that using this research, a comparative study could be done through having other

students in the university as respondents. Second, a comparative study could be done

through utilizing the same framework in analyzing narratives in the Filipino and Cebuano

languages. Third, a qualitative research can be done on the number of written narratives

that follow the syntactical order of the structure of narratives presented by Labov &

Waletzky (1967). Fourth, other researchers can make a sociolinguistic’ analysis on the

relationship of narratives and other social variables, like age, ethnography, and social

class. Fifth, future researchers can do a stylistic research through the same manner to

reveal the writing styles, for example, of students, teachers and others. Lastly, language

and literature teachers could make use of this study and of the Labov & Waletzky’s (1967)

model of the structure of the narrative to develop and enhance the teaching of Engl 1b

(Grammar and Composition) subject to Education students. This can also be used in

teaching and discussing effective writing in English language and linguistics subjects,
 19

such as Writing in the Disciplines, Pedagogy of Expository Other Forms of Writing, and

other subjects. Furthermore, this can also be used in analyzing genres of literature in

literature subjects such as epics, short stories, and novels in the Filipino, Cebuano, or

English language.

References

A. Books
Dita, S. N. (2011). Issues and trends in applied linguistics in the Philippines. Mandaluyong
City: Anvil Publishing Inc.
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B. Published Materials
Magno, J. (2011). The oral interlanguages in the L2 (english and filipino) of education
communication arts majors. Published masters’ thesis, University of San Carlos,
Cebu City, Philippines.

C. Unpublished Materials
Alcisto, C. F. (2005). Gender and politeness in narrative writing. Unpublished master‘s
thesis, University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines.
Bontuyan, A. B. (2010). Composition writing of associate in hospitality management
freshman students of cebu technological university, tuburan campus: Proposed
writing skill exercises. Unpublished Masters’ thesis, Cebu Technological
University-Tuburan Campus.
Congreso L. C., Escoton, B.M. (2012). Linguistic features of governor Gwendolyn garcia’s
political speeches. Unpublished Undergraduate thesis, University of San Carlos.

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