Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences If the word “text” is understood in the broadest sonse—as any coberent complex of signs—then even the study of ait... deals swith texts. Thoughts about thoughts, experiences of experr ences, words about words, texts about texts, ‘ments, and question and answer exchanges.* ‘Among serious scholars working in the socal sciences with personal (first person) accounts for research purposes, there isa range of definitions of nar- rative, often linked to discipline. Readers will find major differences, but all work with contingent sequences. Phil Salmon pue it wisely: “A fundamental criterion of narrative is surely contingency. Whatever the content, stories demand the consequential linking of events or ideas. Narrative shaping ceails imposing a meaningful pattern on what would otherwise be random Sand: dliconmiceod Waa eyond, chia; commenaliy: the vacrative coneaierts operationalized differently. ‘On one end of the continuum of applications les the very restrictive def- inition of social linguistics. Here narrative refers to a discrete unit of dise course, an extended answer by a research participant to a single question, topically centered and temporally organized. The instructions that Sage’s teacher wrote on the board were designed to elicit this kind of narrative in written form. William Labov provides classic examples in oral discourse: he analyzed tape-recorded answers to a question about a violent incident (pre- sented in Chapeer 4)" ‘Ontthe other end of the continuum, there are applications in social history and anthropology, where narrative can refer to an entire life story, woven from threads of interviews, observations, and documents. A creative exam ple is Barbara Myerhof’s ethnography of Aliyah Senior Citizens? Center in Veniee, California. From raped conversations of Living History elasses,