Narrative and Descriptive Texts: Features and Analysis

Narrative Texts: Events in Time and Space

These texts recount events within a specific time and space.

Elements of Narrative

• Narrator: First-person (hero or witness) or third-person (omniscient narrator).
• Narration: The structure can be linear (presentation, middle, end), circular, in media res (starts without introduction), or parallel (presents multiple stories simultaneously).
• Characters: Marked by physical, psychological, and social features.
• Space and Time: Can be internal or external, real or fictional. Two types of time are distinguished:
  • Historical or External: Refers to the time or era in which the action unfolds.
  • Narrative or Internal: Refers to the duration of the story.

Language in Narrative

• Lexical Features: Prevalence of verbs, including verbs of movement, thought, and language.
• Morphological Traits: Past tense verbs predominate, both imperfect and perfect. Historical present is also frequent.
• Syntactic Features: Use of narrative styles (direct or indirect). Predominance of declarative sentences and circumstantial adjuncts of manner, time, and place. Abundance of adverbial subordinate clauses of time, place, cause, and purpose.
• Textual Features: Use of discourse markers, most frequently concerning the time frame.

Descriptive Texts: Detailing Subjects

Consists of the description of someone, an animal, or a thing.

Types of Description

• According to the Point of View of the Issuer:
  • Objective or Scientific Description: Reflects reality as it is. Uses denotative and precise language.
  • Subjective or Literary Description: Has an aesthetic purpose; the issuer expresses their views and emotions about the subject.
• Depending on the Item Described:
  • Prosopography: Physical description of a person.
  • Etopeya: Refers to the character, habits, and actions of a person.
  • Portrait: A combination of prosopography and etopeya.
  • Self-Portrait: The full description by the issuer of themselves.
  • Cartoon: Involves the exaggeration or ridicule of a person's traits to create a distorted image, usually negative.
  • Esperpento: Exaggerated and deformed traits of a person, removed from reality, with intent.

Language in Description

• Lexical Features: Prevalence of noun phrases, which include the use of adjectives. Employment of state verbs. Presence of adverbial phrases (time, place, and mode).
• Morphological Traits: Use of verbs in the indicative mood; the present and imperfect indicative dominate in the third person.
• Syntactic Features: Predominance of simple sentences.
• Textual Features: Use of literary figures.