Contrasts as a Narrative Technique in Emigrant Accounts

Contrasts contribute to the way in which we view the world. In folklore and in everyday narration, people use contrasts as a descriptive technique. The aim of this paper is to investigate this narrative technique by analysing the accounts of Swedish-speaking Finns who have emigrated to South Africa. As an analytical tool I use the three classical ethnological-folkloristic dimensions of time, place, and social setting when I examine how the emigrants construct contrasts and what they choose to contrast with something else. The contrasts used in emigrants' narratives may be complete, with the three components of the ideal contrast explicitly stated around a specific core: the base, its antithesis, and the explanation. They may also be curtailed, with the explanation left implicit. Finally, they may be wholly implicit, the comprehension based on a shared background in the interlocutor's pre-understanding

Antithesis · Comprehension · Construct (python library · Contrast (vision · Emigration · Epistemology · Folklore · Ideal (ethics · Linguistics · Narrative · Sociology · Anthropology · Computer Science · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Philosophy

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