The power of our own rhetorical narrative guides the process of healing for those who have lived side-by-side with us during our existence of life on Earth.
I just happen to be studying Narrative as Rhetoric and Walter Fisher (communications theorist and scholar of the 70s) argued that: "audience members check and test story material to see if it
"rings true" with
"stories they know to be true in their own lives" - describing this connection as
Narrative Fidelity (Pierce, 2003: p. 199).
In addition to the above, Dan Pierce (2003) summarizes 6 key functions that narrative, in all of it's forms, does for us (p. 197):
- Narrative helps us to organize information, places, people, and events into understandable messages.
- Narrative helps us evaluate information, places, people and events.
- Narrative helps us form indirect knowledge about things, places, peoople and events about which we have no direct experience.
- Narrative helps us to reduce uncertainty about information, places, people and events.
- Narrative helps us to work out conflict.
- Narrative helps us to make decisions.
The process of our own spoken and written narrative facilitates cohesion and fidelilty of the story of the life we have lived and it warms my heart that Kobi made this forum thread as a way for us to be cognizant of our own rhetorical power.
Thank you to all the prior members who have posted about their own experience in aiding and preserving the memory of those who are no longer with us! (side note: SuperFemme? I miss you here! Sending big hugs and lots of Femme love to you today, where ever you are!)
~D