The narrative structure and ideational meaning of Malay short stories

Abstract

Short stories are structured in a way to engage readers to the stories being told. This paper discusses the compatibility between Narrative Structure of Malay Short Stories and Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) Narrative Structure of Casual Conversation. The narrative analysis was conducted on the literary works of a prominent Malaysian Female Writer, Zurinah Hassan entitled “Catatan di Meja Makan” (Notes at the Dining Table), “Anita” and “Perjalanan Sendiri” (Own Journey). The findings suggest that the narrative structure of Malay Short Stories has the same stages as outlined by Labov and Waletzky’s, and the stages are Orientation, Complication, Evaluation, Resolution and Coda. Following that, the Orientation stage was further analysed using Transitivity analysis as introduced by Halliday’s SFL (1994). The analysis shows that the most frequent process found in the Malay short stories is Action Process with 63 occurrences and followed by Mental Process with 24 occurrences. These two process types connote the active actions of the characters of the short stories either physically or mentally. In relation to the process types, participant types of Action process which are Actor and Goal have the highest occurrences, 46 and 44 respectively, whilst participant types of Mental process, Senser and Phenomenon with 20 and 17 occurrences. The findings suggest that the main aim of Orientation stage in Malay short stories is to foreground the characters, as doers and sensers, and and highlight their physical and mental activities.