Abstract

When people engage in conversations and interact socially, they frequently convey narratives of interesting experiences. These narratives refer to event sequences that either the speaker experienced, another person experienced, or a fictitious character would experience. Listeners want to know what happened (the plot) and why it is important (the point). Narratives are designed to satisfy a number of communicative objectives such as making a point, entertaining the listeners, griping, provoking an argument, or preventing embarrassing silences. In contrast, conversations are rarely sustained by definitions, comparison/contrasts, logical arguments, and other forms of expository discourse.