CIICPD 2023

A student wrote the first example “Food part”. Neither the title, nor the text gives any indication about the origin or gender of the narrator and the other actors. The narrated time is perhaps about 15 minutes, just the time to seat the dorm mates in the kitchen and to serve the prepared dinner. The first two lines can be considered as the orientation. According to Lucius-Hoene/Deppermann, the orientation has the function of introducing the listener/reader to the time, place, circumstances, people involved etc. of the narrative 15 (2004, p. 148). The title contains a typing error and should obviously read “Food party”. It functions as an abstract with an ironic potential, “[…] an announcement that provides a preview of the content of the coming narrative or marks its evaluative significance” 16 (Lucius-Hoene/Deppermann, 2004, p. 147). After the narrative sentences which describe the preparation and the dorm mates’ arrival (“After preparing our dinner and sat my dorm mates in the kitchen” (line 2–3)), which also has the function of establishing a shared scenic imaginative space, the student continues with a description of the complication organised towards a skandalon, (“pork schnitzel curry”, (line 4); “Ive noticed a weird look in thier faces. At that moment I have realized that some students were Muslims or vegan. I had prepared a pork schnitzel curry.” (line 3–4). In the complication, the narrator organises the sequence of events in the way that the listener or reader can follow its logic. This makes it understandable how the skandalon, defined as the outstanding, unusual and often contradictory event, comes about. Instead of giving a result of the actions described in the complication the narrator comes immediately to the coda. It has usually the function of a final evaluation, in which a quintessence or moral of the story is formulated, i.e. a lesson, generalisation or explanation that can usually be abstracted beyond the individual case” 17 (Lucius-Hoene/Deppermann 2004, p. 149). In “Food part” the coda consists of an evaluation, which is oriented towards the implicit pedagogical expectations of the workshop (“I have learned that I must not take for granted that what is normal for me, might not be normal for other people from another society.” (line 4–6)). After this first attempt to understand the main structure of the text, the analysis looks at the positioning activities of the author. From line one to three, the author presents him/ herself as a person with ‘high agency’. Even when the ‘plan break’ within the skandalon occurs, s/he describes him/herself as a person with the sensitivity to realise immediately that something has gone wrong and to recognise the reason for the irritation. The admission of error is first realised through the short statement (“I had prepared a pork schnitzel curry” (line 4)). In the coda, the narrator then positions him/herself explicitly as an active learner who is able to accept this experience of difference easily. The dorm mates are presented as an anonymous group whose only activity is the “weird look” (line 3). The author then categorises some of them as “Muslims” (line 4) or “vegan” (line 4), putting these two very different categories on the same level of “non-pork-eaters”. In doing so, s/he expresses implicitly the stereotyping assumption that Muslims do not eat pork. Further cultural or ethnic categories are not used in the text. As the result is absent, no picture of the interaction and further negotiation of the participants in this situation is known.

15 Translated by the authors. 16 Translated by the authors. 17 Translated by the authors.

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