Abstract Overview and Contributions Fundamentally, identity is seen as a means and an end to communication.

(Lucy 1993), where the notion of identity as an achievement of narrative discourse is well established in the literature, but that identity can serve discourse functions is not. The major contribution of the dissertation is a model that maps out identity-images within narratives. The structure of the identity-images is juxtaposed with a Labovian narrative structure, i.e. Abstract, Orientation, Evaluation, Complication, Resolution, and Coda (1967/97). The analysis utilizing this model has yielded interesting results. For one, the internal identity structure of the narrative and the Labovian narrative structure run parallel to each other in each narrative. This parallelism creates reflexivity in the discourse whereby unfolding identity structures and unfolding narrative structures affect one another. This parallelism affords analysis a special opportunity to interpret the interactional achievements of the storyteller. This, first, opportunity is a metasemantic one, whereby the identity-images structures index the Labovian narrative ones, thus aiding in conveying the message. The parallel occurs most profoundly with the Complication and the Resolution, where problematic identity-images put the storyteller as a story-world figure at a disadvantage within the Complication, and empowering identity-images put the storyteller as a storyworld figure at an advantage within the Resolution. Complicating events go hand-in-hand with complicating identity-images, and likewise for resolving events and resolving identities; the identity-images aid in the construction of the narrative.

A further result is born of this parallelism; the complicating identity-images create the opportunity for the resolving identity-images to save the day in the story-world. Inline with Goffmans conviction that the role of expression is to convey impressions of the self as part of the interaction order, the resolving identity ascends from the story-world level to the interactional one. This is identitys second discourse function, the metapragmatic one, where the identity structure of narrative is built in such a way where the complicating identities index (point to) the resolving, ascendant identity. The indexicality here is an aid to guide listeners (and analysts) in-line with the speakers design. Thus, the irreducible element of this study is the identity-image elicited from the content of the text at the clausal level. These identity images are studied for how they are used in the clause as well as in the narrative. These uses are then studied for how they form patterns of talk called ways of speaking. These ways of speaking form the wider context within which each identity-image is grounded and can thus be understood and interpreted. And so, it is this process that bridges from the text as an artifact (an object) to the living and breathing socio-cultural history ever ongoing and ever in flux around it. The first four chapters of the dissertation put forth the model; the last three chapters embed the model in various other programs. Chapter 1 outlines the motivations and arguments for the model. Chapter 2 explicates the theoretical motivations for the design and nature of the identity structure of narrative, followed by an exploration of genre and ethnicity (in connection to identity structure). Chapter 3 is an explication of the Methods towards analysis of the identity structure of narrative. Chapter 4, then, is an analysis of three narratives following the methods delineated in the previous chapter.

Thus, a majority of this work focuses on establishing the notion of an identity structure of narrative as the major contribution of this dissertation. In embedding the model in other frameworks, Chapter 5 explores issues of genre in narrative, and how the various narrative genres influence and relate to the identity structure of narrative. Chapter 6 studies four ways of speaking when ethnic mentions are made and the implications for the model. Chapter 7 embeds the model in a metapragmatic analysis of the clausal grammar, as well as reviews the conclusions and implications of the dissertation.

Method and Analysis of The Identity Structure of Narrative The participants for this study were all Ethiopian Israelis enrolled in various academic programs at one of Israels private institutions of higher education. The criteria for acceptance into the program are: fluency in English, exceptional military service, and above-average matriculation scores. Six males and five females participated in this study (n=11). The participants were asked to tell stories from different periods in their life, for which they were given time to brainstorm. Each participant would tell a story, and only afterward each participant took a turn at telling a story the second round of storytelling would begin, and on and on until all the stories were exhausted. The stories were recorded on an MP3 recorder and later transcribed. The method of analysis of the identity structure of narrative is as follows: The first three steps to coding SCs are identifying, labeling, and consolidating; fourth, SCs are to be coded for attribution to self or other. Fifth and separately, the narrative is coded for the Labovian narrative structures: Abstract, Orientation, Evaluation,

Complication, Resolution, and Coda. Then the SC codings are juxtaposed to the codings of the Labovian structures. The relationship between the identity construct and the narrative one is now accessible for further exploration. This method informs the analysis and discussion in the dissertation. My task here is to explore not what storytellers think about themselves but how they use instances of self-in-talk for communicative and interactional purposes. In Chapter 4, three fight narratives are analyzed. The narratives were told one after the other consecutively, and outside of the more rigid methods outlined above. MA, the first storyteller (female), arrived late to the focus group sessions, did not have time to brainstorm, and took only one turn telling only one long narrative. The subsequent narratives (told by males) are a response to MAs narrative and thus also not brainstormed (pre-planned). For this reason, this data is seen as the most spontaneous of the data in the corpus. The results find that the identity structure of narrative model is salient across these three narratives, as it was across the narratives of the pre-test (from which is was born).

Embedding the Model in Various Frameworks In Chapter 5, I argue (following Bauman 2004) for a more gradient revision of the spectrum outlined above (big-prototypical-small Georgakopoulou 2007). I suggest the terms: bigger, more prototypical, and smaller. The influence of narrative gradient on the identity structure of narrative is tremendous. Recall that how tied the model was to the Complication and the Resolution of narrative (more prototypical ones). When one of these Labovian structures is missing, the identity structure works differently, i.e. there

can be no ascension out of contrast. The five analyses presented in Chapter 5 expose the inter-generic complexity across oral narratives. Stories are seen to be working together towards narrative and interactional ends. In some cases, a smaller story would rely on a more prototypical story to fill in the gaps created by its incompleteness. Some of the smaller stories were seen to also be bigger stories as they focus on a broader range of story-world time, illustrating the gradient, fuzzy nature of genre. Further, the gradient nature of genre is most explicitly made apparent in three ways: inclusiveness, indeterminacy, and focus. Inclusiveness occurs when one narrative is constituted of several narratives. Second, an accurate assessment of all the narratives referenced by the speaker is impossible to achieve, which is the indeterminate aspect of intertextuality leaving the generic nature of the text unfinalizable and full of creative potential. Third, focus has to do with the degree to which speakers zoom into a particular event, i.e. some of the smaller stories were seen to also be bigger stories as they focus on a broader range of story-world time, illustrating the gradient, fuzzy nature of genre. Moreover, narrative gradient of genre oversees the intertextual relationship across narratives (cf. Hanks 2000 for intertextuality), i.e. the type of relationship formed between the narratives. For instance, in some cases, a smaller story would rely on a more prototypical story to fill in the gaps created by its incompleteness, i.e. one narrative can call up (reference) another narrative, and use it to build a Complication, thereby efficiently doing without having to develop its own Complication. Second, a narrative can be told within the bounds of another narrative, and thus framed by it. Third, whilst telling a narrative, another narrative can briefly be drawn upon to increase the tellability

of the primary narrative. Thus the three intertextual relationships found in this study are: reliance, framing , and amplification. Storytellers can calibrate the generic character of their discourse, mixing from the various regiments, taking advantage of their respective conventionalized expectations, to tell several stories that combine to produce extra interactional force. In other words, the gradient and intertextual nature of genre is a resource of the storyteller towards interactional accomplishments, as much as it poses problems for the analyst in coding and categorizing the data (i.e. it is an emic resource and an etic problem). This has implications for the identity structure, where the form/structure of the narrative has a direct correlation to the form/structure of the identity.

In Chapter 6, the focus is on mentions of ethnicity (and some religion mentions), and more particularly how the participants make use of these mentions. This is based on literature that sees it necessary that participants make relevant the categories studied by the analysts (Schegloff 1997). The analysis of this chapter finds that identity work is the playing with boundary lines of collective associations by both widening the boundary lines to associate oneself with a larger version of the group (ingroup association), or narrowing it to dissociate oneself from members of the group (ingroup dissociation). The storytellers have the option to position themselves as totally on their own (ingroup/outgroup dissociation), as well as in opposition to the other (outgroup dissociation). All the options create the potential for creativity and change in ones identity (i.e. collective associations), by either relating to more people, or to other people, or to less people.

Four ways of speaking were extrapolated from the data. The first section looks at narratives where the mentions serve to isolate the speaker, i.e. the storytellers create a sense of themselves as alone. The second section looks at narratives where the participant dissociates from ingroup members. The third section looks at narratives of outgroup dissociation or narratives of discrimination. The final section analyzes narratives of association with members of the larger Jewish community (a broader notion of ingroup than that used in the second section, herein). In terms of Labovian narrative categories, the ethnic mentions occur in various places across the narrative. Yet for the most part, ethnic mentions served as framing devices of the narrative, especially they are found in the Abstract or Coda. Even when the ethnic mention is part of the Complication or part of the climactic event, it can still maintain the same framing, exegetical function. In terms of the identity structure, the ethnic mentions usually serve to convey identity images that function as the disadvantageous identities to be negotiated and aid in the ascent of the interactional efficacious identity for impression management. This is the case in more prototypical narratives; in some of the smaller narratives, the identity is simply not negotiated with any sort of closure, thereby leaving the Complication (problem) unresolved. Ways of speaking serves this analysis at a meso-analytic level in studying ethnic identities as they are made relevant by storytellers explicit mention, which is necessary in bridging the mentions that occur at a microgenetic level and a more macro conception of the identities as social structures, thereby allowing for the discussion of Ethiopian-Israelis with its generalizations operating at a macro-social level. Therefore,

identity is reconceptualized here (and within the limits of the exogenous identities of ethnicity and religion) as the playing with ingroup and outgroup boundary lines by strengthening and/or broadening them on one hand, and/or dissolving them on the other. This conclusion has implications for the whole study. Ways of speaking is a useful meso-analytic device (in-line with Georgakopoulou 2007a). The way identities are inhabited as part of the microgenetic construction of the identity structure of narrative is a form of playing with the boundary lines of the identities, which is a process constrained by genre (Chapter 5).

In Chapter 7, I embed the model (identity structure of narrative) in Silversteins metapragmatics where the structure of discourse is indexical of the wider context and the speakers own linguistic ideology (1979, 1985, 1992), which is necessary to understand the indexical ground upon which the model rests. A parallel structure was found between the identity structure of narrative and the grammatical construction the narrative clauses. In the analysis, the participant presents herself as powerful in her storyworld through the imagery at the representational/denotational level, but she also exhibits herself as powerful at the storytelling event through her use of clausal constructions. In terms of the clausal grammar, the other dominated the agent position of action verb clauses in the Complication, and the storyteller dominated that position in the Resolution. Her linguistic ideology, which she states explicitly in her narrative is that language can garner strength, and this ideology bears its influence on the clausal grammar of her narrative, which influences the identity work accomplished in the narrative.

Thus for the current study, the main indexical origo (that presupposed referent of the indexical sign, Hanks 1992) in which all the surface forms are grounded are ways of speaking that position the speakers in regards to the identities they would claim for themselves (i.e. positioning one identity to another). These identities are not physical objects in the world (or in the brain); they are socio-cultural norms found and developed in actual discourses. Any particular collective is physically embodied by the people associated to it, but first those people need to imagine themselves as a unity, which is a process that can only occur in discourse. So, the ways of speaking are indices of the playing with the various identities enriching them with moral value in various ways as they are made a part of daily social life: burying interactionally disadvantageous identities or ascending the advantageous ones, associating with a collective or dissociating from it, expanding or reducing the ingroup, etc. This wider context is the dynamic boundary line of potential identities storytellers can invoke and inhabit. Each identity relevant instance in the corpus is a discursive play with that identitys boundary line, presupposing its rich socio-cultural historicity. It is the creative potential in each new instance of use allows for the playing of the boundary lines of identity and the taking up of nuanced positions that are always never perfectly aligned with previously established positions. Thus, discourse analysis can straddle the microprocesses of the text and larger socio-cultural context, whilst straddling the presupposed and the creative character of talk.

The Major Results and Conclusions of the Dissertation The biggest conclusion of the study finds that identity serves two discursive, narrative functions metasemantic and metapragmatic.
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Metasemantic - Narrative structure and identity structure are parallel and thus index one another. Metapragmatic Identity structure is constituted by multiple consolidated identity-image threads, where all the identities contrast with (and thus index) one ascendant identity, i.e. the antithetic parallelism of poetics.

The gradient nature of narrative genre takes three forms. Inclusiveness One narrative is constituted by two or more narratives therein. Indeterminacy The generic category of a narrative is never finalizable. Focus The degree of zoom of into an event is a problem of indeterminacy, i.e. what counts as a specific event (how big or small?).

Intertextuality between narratives takes three forms. , framing , and Reliance Smaller narratives may be allowed their incompleteness due to their dependence on another narrative. Framing One narrative guides the interpretation of another narrative. Amplification Amidst the telling of a narrative, another narrative is referenced (invoked) to increase tellability of the former narrative.

Ethnic mentions in the narrative serve four ways of speaking ingroup/outgroup dissociation, ingroup dissociation, outgroup dissociation, and ingroup association. Identity is reconceptualized as the play with identity boundaries in forming new nuanced positions to inhabit. The identity structure of narrative is amenable to Metapragmatic research of the indexical relationship between linguistic ideology and grammatical structure. The identity structure of narrative is an iconic index like a map of a desert island drawn in the sand of that island, it too draws a map of identity in the very stuff of which identity is constituted.

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