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STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE POLICE‐TRACKER STORY GENRE IN GOONIYANDI
Author(s) -
McGregor William B.
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
oceania
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.356
H-Index - 25
eISSN - 1834-4461
pISSN - 0029-8077
DOI - 10.1002/j.1834-4461.1988.tb02285.x
Subject(s) - ideology , narrative , variety (cybernetics) , set (abstract data type) , sociology , history , aesthetics , literature , linguistics , law , art , computer science , philosophy , politics , political science , artificial intelligence , programming language
This paper investigates the structure and socio‐cultural functions of a class of narrative texts in the Gooniyandi language of the Fitzroy Crossing area (Kimberley, W.A.). These are ‘police‐tracker stories’: narratives relating actual incidents involving the police and police trackers; most are autobiographical accounts told to me by Jack Bohemia, a former police tracker. It is argued that the texts of this type constitute a genre, characterised structurally in terms of episodes: all the texts consist of a set of seven inherent episode‐types, six of which form two ternary episode‐sequences. A variety of other, optional episodes may also occur. The episodal structure of the texts reflects, in an iconic way, their socio‐cultural meanings and the narrator's ideology. It is argued that the texts represent an ideology of place as the organising principle for past experiences; and that they project a moral view of the world, in which ‘crimes' are ‘punished’. Some brief comments are also made rejecting the category label ‘oral history’.