Research On The Narrative Style And Intention Of Obituaries In Southern People Weekly

Southern People Weekly is among the earliest media in China to focus on obituaries.By paying attention to the deceased-a special group,obituaries not only expand target audience's emotional experience,but also affirm and reflect the diversity of values in today's society.In this respect,obituary is of great research significance.For this reason,this paper aims to analyze the reports of “the deceased” in Southern People Weekly by virtue of theory of narratology.130 samples out of plenty of reports were selected from issue 416 to 565,and content analysis and other research methods are used to study the narrative style and intention of obituaries so as to explore the merits and problems existed in obituaries.First,when it comes to narrators,it is found that obituaries tend to use multiple narrators and narrator interventions to shape a round character.Second,in terms of narrative time,narrative time order such as flashback and flashforward,and narrative time span including summary and pause are applied to render the report more expressive and bring out the beauty of rhythm in the news;whereas in the narrative structure,it can be found that such reports mainly form a narrative structure with a single event or multiple events to connect the dead's whole life;the proper selection of narrative prototypes helps the audience resonate,and the use of story and function prototypes exemplified by “hardship” and “struggle”,excellent traditional thought prototypes like “filial piety” and “kindness” as well as character archetypes of “hero” serves to close the gap between the report and audience psychology.The analysis of the content and form of the text contributes to a deeper understanding of the intention behind it.The obituary's idea of putting people first is made tangible by constructing ideology.Nevertheless,problems including emotional expressions,a tendency towards modeled narration and so on appeared in some of the reports can not be ignored.It is hoped that new thoughts and enlightenment could be brought to the writing of obituaries from now on.