| This study examines the ways in which Japanese speakers use temporal suffixes (i.e., non-past/imperfective aspect RU and past/perfective aspect TA) in oral narratives. Switches between RU and TA reflect the narrators' different perspectives. These perspectives, in turn, fashion the narration, which both results from, and imparts different metamessages about, the narrators' epistemic stance and affective relation to the narratee and the narrated events and characters.;An examination of first-person oral narratives shows that RU is used when the narrator reenacts the scene from the point of view of the character-I. There is a skewed tendency for mental phenomena to be given in RU, as they were presumably formulated in the senser's (the character-I's) consciousness. In contrast, TA is given when the narrator recollects the scene from the point of view of the narrating-I. The mental processes that report mental phenomena are exclusively given in TA, as are the temporal/spatial orientation of the events and the reports of the character-I's actions.;An examination of elicited third-person narratives shows that the interpersonal relation between the narrator and the narratee apparently affects the frequency of RU and other features. I use the concept of involvement and considerateness to account for what appear to be two styles of narratives that differ in the frequency of these features. Interestingly enough, however, this concept is related to the two subjectivities of character and narrator. What RU marks in the involved narratives is the evaluations and commentaries of the contingent, experiencing narrator. Further, the involvement features, including RU, move the narrative end-product away from the narrative prototype toward theatrical performance. The study suggests that Japanese monogatari or narratives reflect an epistemology that asserts that knowledge founded on personal experience is the only kind of knowledge worth relating. |
