Narrative Voice as Applied to Dhaba Woyessa’s Godaannisa and Gurraacha Abbayyaa: a Comparative Study
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to analyze how a narrative voice is
manifested in two Oromo narratives: Godaannisa and Gurraacha
Abbayyaa, written by Dhaba Woyyessa. The intention is to show how
an author applies different styles from text to text in terms of narrative
voice. It is also attempted to indicate that the application of voice in a
narrative can be analyzed not only irrespective of the medium but also
irrespective of the language in which the narrative is presented.
When analyzed critically, as Genette (1980), Booth (1983), Phelan
(1996) and Bal (1997) among others would argue, a narrative voice can
help to understand the characteristics of a certain text. So to analyze
the narrative voice in each selected narrative, source, level, text and
time relationship, and degrees of conspicuousness and reliability of the
narrator are used as criteria. The study revealed that the narrative
voice in Godaannisa is a personified, extra-homodiegetic, overt,
retrospective and unreliable while the narrative voice in Gurraacha
Abbayyaa is unpersonified, extra-hetrodiegetic, moderately overt,
retrospective and slightly unreliable.
The paper is organised into four chapters. The first chapter introduces
the problem, objectives, research questions, limitations and significance
of the study. The second chapter contains review of related literature
where concepts related to narrative voice, an assessment of related
studies and a design of a theoretical framework are presented. In the
third chapter, an analysis of narrative voice in each selected narrative
is presented. The fourth and final chapter consists of comparative
summaries of narrative voices in the two narratives by way of
conclusion.
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Narrative Voice