Notes for studying narrative

Abstract

The text presents, briefly, a few ideas that have significantly increased the interest for the study of narrative in the past two decades. Such interest has not been limited to the traditional field of studying literary genre. On the contrary, more and more human cognition researchers have been looking, in the study of narrative, for elements that lead us to understand and uncover the mechanisms that are intrinsic to human thought. This has led specialists in all areas (psychology, neurology, literature, linguistics, semiotics, communication) to dedicate themselves to the systematic study of narrative, both written and oral, produced by children, young people or adults. The publication of research papers that associate narrative to forms of thought, considering it as responsible for the process of constructing and representing human thought, has demonstrated there is a lot to be known about narrative thought. The new perspective opened by such studies puts narrative studies on the order of the day and brings new meaning to their social value.