Dialogue, Narrative and Textual Varieties in Spanish: Types, Features and Examples

Dialogue, Narrative and Textual Varieties in Spanish

Description

The description is a discourse variety that verbally reproduces the reality, highlighting its characteristic traits. Its topic can be any object, place or the physical reality of an animal or a person. When abstract realities are described, the text seeks to evoke sensations and experiences in the receiver.

Types of description

Technical

• Purpose: informative (to inform the receiver).
• Structure: rigid.
• Morphosyntactic level: use of verbs in the imperfective aspect, conferring a sense of permanence.
• Lexical-semantic level: non-subjective adjectives, denotative lexicon, use of technical terms and enumeration.

Literary

• Purpose: aesthetic.
• Structure: flexible.
• Morphosyntactic level: use of verbs in the imperfective aspect, conferring a sense of permanence.
• Lexical-semantic level: explanatory and evaluative adjectives, connotative lexicon, careful selection of details and use of literary resources.

Dialogue

Dialogue is a discourse in which two or more speakers alternate the use of words.

Dialogue in narrative

The voices of the characters are inserted into the narrative to reproduce dialogue through three modalities:

• Direct style: the words or thoughts of the character are literally reproduced in the first person.
• Indirect style: the character's own words are not reproduced exactly; they are reconstructed in the third person.
• Free indirect style: the narrator's thoughts and the character's sensations are reproduced, integrating them into the narrator's speech, in the third person.

Narrative

Narrative discourse consists of an ordered succession of real or imaginary events in time.

Topic and structure

Narrative tells events of real life or plausible fiction. Its structure is closed and organizes the traditional story into introduction, nucleus and outcome, following a chronological development.

• a) In the middle of the matter, the narration begins with the events.
• b) At the end of the narrative, the structure is open.

Characters

• Creation: they represent the first round in their own form, sometimes expressing their thoughts or removing the reality from the outside.
• Function: depending on the work, they can be main, secondary or fleeting.
• Characterization: defined by their personality.

Setting, time and point of view

• Setting: the scenario where the action unfolds and the characters live.
• Time: the moment in which the action occurs.
• Point of view: the angle of vision or perspective from which the story is told, which determines the degree of knowledge the narrator has of the story, giving rise to multiple narrative techniques. Third person: objectivity and distance; the narrator is omniscient or observer. First person: the narrator is the protagonist or witness.

Linguistic characterization

Narrative texts predominate in action, while in descriptions the details are made explicit through the use of verbs in the past tense.

Theatrical dialogue

Theatre uses dramatic dialogue, monologue and aside. Stage directions are the playwright's notes about how the action unfolds and the circumstances in which it takes place.