La Narracion: Usos y Teorias = Narration

This handbook offers a concise introduction to narratology, the study of narrative structure. Contursi and Ferro, lecturers at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, adopt an eclectic approach; they analyze narrative from the perspectives of linguistics, cognitive psychology, and communication theory. Given the construction of many different theories with dissimilar focuses, forming more of a collection than a single coherent system, the authors present ""a selection of theories from the second half of the twentieth century."" They draw upon the work of Teun Van Dijk, Umberto Eco, Mieke Bal, Girard Genette, and Paul Ricoeur, among others. Part 1 gives an overview of narrative's structural and functional aspects (e.g., plot, episode, temporality), as well as examining what they term ""narrative discourse"" (i.e., the connection between narrative and some of the contextual aspects of its production, such as the relationship among a story's narrator, author, and reader or the relationships among narrative, time, and subject). Part 2 discusses narrative's different uses in fields such as history, folklore, and ethnography. Although reminiscent of Jonathan Culler's work-and Spanish translations exist of two of his principal studies, La po tica estructuralista (Structuralist Poetics, Anagrama, 1978) and Sobre la deconstruccion (On Deconstruction, C tedra, 1984)-this book is useful for its brevity and currency. Specialized terminology (e.g., conexidad, narratario, refiguracion receptiva mim tica) is italicized in the text; however, a subject index would have been welcome. Recommended for academic libraries. David Pardue, Univ. of Kansas Libs.,