RESEARCH ISSUES

TESOL Quarterly publishes brief commentaries on aspects of qualitative and quantita-

tive research. For this issue, we asked two researchers to discuss narrative research in
TESOL.

Edited by PATRICIA A. DUFF

University of British Columbia

Narrative Research in TESOL

Narrative Inquiry: More Than Just Telling Stories

JILL SINCLAIR BELL
York University
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

n Narrative inquiry rests on the epistemological assumption that we as

human beings make sense of random experience by the imposition of
story structures. That is, we select those elements of experience to which
we will attend, and we pattern those chosen elements in ways that re ect
the stories available to us. Although the notion of story is common to
every society, the stories themselves differ widely—one of the deŽ ning
features of a culture is the story structures through which it makes sense
of the world. The shape of our stories, the range of roles available, the
chains of causation, and the sense of what constitutes a climax or an
ending are all shaped by the stories with which we were raised. A key way
of coming to understand the assumptions held by learners from other
cultures is to examine their stories and become aware of the underlying
assumptions that they embody. This makes narrative inquiry a particu-
larly valuable approach for members of the TESOL profession, though
narrative approaches to understanding are becoming increasingly popu-
lar in a wide range of disciplines.
Some useful introductions to the approach come from the Ž eld of
literary criticism, where narrative work originated (e.g., Mitchell, 1981).
Historians have made clear that narrative has an inherently temporal
thread in that current events are understood as rising out of past
happenings and pointing to future outcomes (Carr, 1986; White, 1981).

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 36, No. 2, Summer 2002 207

In psychology, Polkinghorne (1988) explores narrative knowing in
relation to the human sciences; Riessman (1993) offers a clear introduc-
tory methodology; and Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zilber (1998) draw
on individual case studies to demonstrate ways in which stories can be
deconstructed. Josselson (1996) provides a good review of ethical issues
in the use of narrative in therapeutic Ž elds, with strong implications for
education.
In the education Ž eld, the work has focused mostly on teacher
education, looking at the ways in which teachers’ narratives shape and
inform their practice. The recent emphasis on re ective practice (Schön,
1983) and teacher research has strengthened the focus on listening to
the voice of teachers and hearing their stories (Bell, 1997c; Gallas, 1997;
Jalongo & Isenberg, 1995). Connelly and Clandinin (e.g., 1987, 1988;
Clandinin & Connelly, 2000) have led the way in adapting narrative
inquiry for educational purposes, and their work offers an excellent
introduction to the Ž eld for teachers or teacher educators. A good
critique of the role of story in teacher education can be found in Carter
(1993).
In the Ž eld of language education, the tradition of providing narrative
accounts of patterns of language use is well established. Ethnographers
such as Heath (1983), Willett (1995), and Toohey (2000) do not claim to
be narrativists but nonetheless produce powerful narratives that have
helped inform the understanding of language use. Narratives also
feature in learner autobiographies (Davidson, 1993; Kaplan, 1993; Mori,
1997), diary studies (Lvovich, 1997; Numrich, 1996), life history (Hatch
& Wisniewski, 1995; Kouritzin, 2000), and case studies (Angélil-Carter,
1997; Lam, 2000; Spack, 1997). Of particular interest are narrative
accounts of language learning gathered from language educators, allow-
ing for explicit analysis and re ection (Belcher & Connor, 2001; Casanave
& Schecter, 1997).
In its fullest sense, narrative inquiry requires going beyond the use of
narrative as rhetorical structure, that is, simply telling stories, to an
analytic examination of the underlying insights and assumptions that the
story illustrates (Bell, 1995, 1997a, 1997b; Conle, 1992; Golombek,
1998). Narrative inquiry is therefore rarely found in the form of a
narrative. Hallmarks of the analysis are the recognition that people make
sense of their lives according to the narratives available to them, that
stories are constantly being restructured in the light of new events, and
that stories do not exist in a vacuum but are shaped by lifelong personal
and community narratives.

208 TESOL QUARTERLY

ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS OF NARRATIVE INQUIRY
Narrative inquiry involves working with people’s consciously told
stories, recognizing that these rest on deeper stories of which people are
often unaware. Participants construct stories that support their interpre-
tation of themselves, excluding experiences and events that undermine
the identities they currently claim. Whether or not they believe the
stories they tell is relatively unimportant because the inquiry goes
beyond the speciŽ c stories to explore the assumptions inherent in the
shaping of those stories. No matter how Ž ctionalized, all stories rest on
and illustrate the story structures a person holds. As such they provide a
window into people’s beliefs and experiences.
Narratives allow researchers to present experience holistically in all its
complexity and richness. They are therefore powerful constructions,
which can function as instruments of social control (Mumby, 1993) as
well as valuable teaching tools (Egan, 1988). Canagarajah (1996) argues
that narratives function in opposition to elitist scholarly discourses and
that their use in research offers an opportunity for marginalised groups
to participate in knowledge construction in the academy.
What value does narrative offer as a research approach, and what does
such an approach allow researchers to discover? To illustrate the ad-
vantages, I draw on a research project of my own, examining L2 literacy.
Baf ed by the disjunction between research claims that L1 literacy skills
are easily transferred and my own experience of the difŽ culties encoun-
tered by adult literacy learners, I sought a richer understanding of the
issues involved than seemed possible with most research methods. For
the reasons detailed below, I decided to study my own attempt to develop
Chinese literacy using a narrative approach (Bell, 1997a).
• Narrative allows researchers to understand experience. People’s lives
matter, but much research looks at outcomes and disregards the
impact of the experience itself. In my case, the narrative approach
highlighted the unexpected physical impact of the learning struggle.
• Narrative lets researchers get at information that people do not
consciously know themselves. Analysis of people’s stories allows
deeply hidden assumptions to surface. My efforts to develop Chinese
literacy allowed me to discover assumptions about the goals, pur-
poses, and methods of literacy that I had no idea I held. As
re ections of standard Western stories of literacy, these assumptions
had direct implications for teaching and learning.
• Narrative illuminates the temporal notion of experience, recogniz-
ing that one’s understanding of people and events changes. In my
work, this was demonstrated by my shifting interpretation of my
Chinese tutor’s actions and my changing notions of good teaching

RESEARCH ISSUES 209

 practice (Bell, 1997b). Other research methods would have captured
understandings at certain points, not at the important intervening
stages.
Any research method, of course, has its limitations, and narrative is
not suitable for all inquiries. The time commitment required makes it
unsuitable for work with a large number of participants. It also requires
close collaboration with participants and a recognition that the con-
structed narrative and subsequent analysis illuminates the researcher as
much as the participant. Ethical issues are some of the most serious ones
to be addressed. Exchanging stories is often understood within a larger
story of friendship, so researchers may Ž nd disengagement difŽ cult at
the end of the research project. More seriously, when researchers take
people’s stories and place them into a larger narrative, they are imposing
meaning on participants’ lived experience. Although good practice
demands that researchers share their ongoing narrative constructions,
participants can never be quite free of the researcher’s interpretation of
their lives. The effects of this imposed re-storying can be powerful
( Josselson, 1996).
Stories are inherently multilayered and ambiguous, so the constructed
nature of truth and the subjectivity of the researcher (Peshkin, 1988) are
particularly evident in this work. This subjectivity raises the question of
what the criteria should be for the assessment of narrative research
(Carter, 1993; Josselson, 1996; Lieblich et al., 1998). Although this topic
was well explored during the 1990s, deŽ nitive criteria are still under
discussion. Connelly and Clandinin (1999) summarise the issue as
follows:

Narrative researchers are concerned with the representation of experience,

causality, temporality and the difference between the experience of time and
the telling of time, narrative form, integrity of the whole in a research
document, the invitational quality of a research text, its authenticity, ad-
equacy and plausibility. Currently in narrative inquiry, it is important for each
researcher to set forth the criteria that govern the study and by which it may
be judged. It is also the case that others may quite legitimately adopt other
criteria in support of, or in criticism of, the work. (p. 139)

CONCLUSION
As a new research method, narrative inquiry offers promise but also
pitfalls. For the Ž eld of L2 education, the promise holds particular
appeal. Elbaz (1983) has demonstrated that teachers’ knowledge is
largely held tacitly in holistic, often narrative, forms, suggesting that
narratives of teaching will allow new ways to understand the experience
of L2 classrooms. Narrative also offers teachers the possibility of under-

210 TESOL QUARTERLY

standing their students in new ways. Communicating through story is
arguably less linguistically demanding than setting out propositional
knowledge, increasing the chances of teachers’ being informed by their
learners. In addition, issues that directly affect the ways in which learners
experience immigration, settlement, and language learning are wrapped
in the stories they hold. For these reasons, narrative seems a natural tool
for the L2 researcher. However, the difŽ culty of assessing narrative
inquiry via traditional methods makes it unlikely that conservative
stakeholders, such as school boards, will easily embrace insights drawn
from such work. Finally, the deliberate attempt to seek out the voice of
women and other marginalised groups carries with it the inherent risk
that serious research will be dismissed for its failure to conform to
previous research standards. Furthermore, for ethical reasons, the voices
of research participants should be explored in a respectful manner.

THE AUTHOR
Jill Sinclair Bell is a professor in the Faculty of Education at York University, where
she teaches courses in language, literacy, and narrative inquiry. She has published a
range of books and articles on issues related to L2 literacy.

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Narrative Study: Whose Story Is It, Anyway?

ANETA PAVLENKO
Temple University
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

n In the past three decades, narratives and, in particular, stories people

tell about their lives have become the focus of the evolving interdiscipli-
nary Ž eld of narrative study (Bruner, 1990; Linde, 1993; Ochs, 1997;
Rosenwald & Ochberg, 1992; Sarbin, 1986), which posited narrative as
the central means by which people give their lives meaning across time:
“We dream in narrative, daydream in narrative, remember, anticipate,
hope, despair, plan, revise, criticize, gossip, learn, hate and love by
narrative” (Hardy, 1968, p. 5). Consequently, narratives have gained
increasing stature outside the Ž elds of literature and folklore, becoming
both a focus of research and a rich source of data in several areas of
linguistics, in particular L1 acquisition, linguistic anthropology, socio-
linguistics, and language education (e.g., Berman & Slobin, 1994; Chafe,
1980; Johnstone, 1996; Tannen, 1980, 1982, 1993). Recently, narrative
study, in particular language learner narratives, has also received in-
creased attention in the Ž elds of TESOL and second language acquisi-
tion (SLA). Researchers acknowledge that narratives elicited from the
learners, as well as published language learning autobiographies, are a
legitimate source of data in the hermeneutic tradition, complementary
to more traditional empirical approaches (Kanno, 2000a, 2000b; Kouritzin,
1999, 2000; McMahill, 2001; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko, 1998, 2001a,
2001b, in press; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; Schumann, 1997).
Whereas Bell (this issue) offers an introduction to narrative inquiry, I
focus on narrative study and discuss ways in which teachers and research-
ers can examine personal narratives, regardless of whether the outcome
is also a narrative or a more traditional academic article, or simply
enhanced understanding in the classroom.1 There is no doubt that
recent developments that legitimize personal narratives are extremely
important for the TESOL Ž eld, as they allow for both teachers’ and

1
Narrative inquiry is usually understood to be a an ethnographic approach to eliciting
understandings, whereas narrative study has a greater focus on narrative construction from a
variety of perspectives.

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