The narrative - a frequently used buzzword in a new context
More and more, the "narrative" as a mere word is gaining importance in political discussions: a search for traces.
Time and again, there are words in language usage that shine like a brief flash of light in daily use, only to be used again in a different context or to fade into obscurity when they appear worn out.
One such buzzword today is narrative, which is frequently used at present, especially for political discussions. Its use is fashionable. Thus, it is used in a new context without the speaker having to be or being aware of this context: but of which everyone thinks they know what it means.
Speaking about language presupposes language: without being able to grasp its genesis; and so it is with a single word.
What is a narrative today? Before it appeared in its new context a few years ago, in literary studies it was considered identical with the word "narrative." Narrative, then, initially means a narrative, a concocted story.
But what does the word narrative mean in its new context, in its new, colloquial use?
First of all, it should be said that it is now also used in its new context in written language, for example in the press.
The narrative in its new context is, according to the Digital Dictionary of the German Language, an
found or constructed meaningful connection between a sequence of events or facts (usually spread with a certain goal, such as the integration of a group, the legitimisation of a certain behaviour, the creation of a certain self-image or the like.
And it also means
Without a clear boundary to the main reading. In political, social or similar discourses In political, social or similar discourses, it is often used either to relativise other beliefs or representations and characterise them as artificial and arbitrary, as mere fiction, or to lend persuasive force to one's own (manipulative) representations.
The location of the speaker
It is used as a catchword. A catchword does not just use the information it conveys. It goes beyond conveying.
The speaker who uses the catchword identifies himself as part of a group or means a group whose information it is. This also explains the incredible and silent agreement in the use of this word.
However, being part of a group is not only a marker, but an unspoken prerequisite for using the word. This is true not only for the word narrative, which is used in a particular context at the moment, but in general for all buzzwords that are part of the public discourse, the formation of public opinion.
What is criticised in many respects: that the discourse is formed in a simple-minded way, with little depth or without diversity of views, is nevertheless at the root of the matter; for public opinion not only conveys the mass of individual opinions, but also forms and conveys an attitude to life, a "constructed context that gives meaning". A context that is conveyed with buzzwords. Each catchword conveys information of the opinion group (which often run counter to each other).
The meaning of the catchword
Where words are the content of information of one or more opinion groups, comprehensibility for outsiders reaches its limits. This is an unusual process for language, since it is in its nature that everyone participates in it and understands it.
In the workplace, for example, there are a wide variety of abbreviations for a wide variety of processes, which are assigned catchwords and are not comprehensible to outsiders. Buzzwords are, so to speak, a prosthesis of information to indicate a process. What does this pointing out mean?
Quite simply. The word itself is not (any longer) the carrier of meaning but the place of reference.
This is not complicated: the meaning of the keyword lies outside the word. Isn't it like that with all words?
Here the Aristotelian definition from the Nicomachean Ethics of potency and act helps. A builder retains the ability to build potency even when he is not building.
It is the same with the spoken word. In the act of speaking, the word does not pass away. In speaking, therefore, there remains a stable connection between potency and act, word and speaking. More precisely: the place of the meaning of the word remains the word.
In catchphrases, this potency is missing: the word itself, its meaning, is not decisive for the catchword, but its context; the context is the carrier of meaning and not the word.
Thus the word is used as a sign of the context.
This is a bad thing and may sound like splitting hairs at first glance, but on closer inspection it is more reminiscent of the Orwellian use of language in 1984. Language is destroyed there, all words become catchwords.
If only language signs, or catchwords that themselves mean nothing, are put in the place of words, the words that mean something disappear; that is the directive of the rulers in 1984: that one can no longer express oneself and only uses catchwords that refer to processes and themselves mean nothing.
It is very easy to do this for procedures; for example, the police use such linguistic abbreviations, codes, so that what is said is not recognised; doctors and lawyers define terms to refer to different procedures with catchwords. This seems necessary in our working world.
The word plays no role in these contexts, only the context, which is to be equated with a certain process.
The process thus becomes the place of meaning, the word plays no role. Thus, any word, any sign, any series of numbers can be set for a process. But that does not mean that the word itself is arbitrary. It is not.
Back to the word narrative
It is also remarkable in this context that the word narrative has replaced the word myth in everyday usage. The language community has correctly replaced it, because a myth, while having overlaps with narrative, is something quite different.
To summarise: The word narrative today joins the daily discourse filled with buzzwords. The word refers to a context that lies outside of itself.
In 1984, destruction is being planned; we do this today more or less unconsciously because we are all in some way parts of society and its language; we cannot help it.