Construct · 5 fields · 6 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
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In narratology a narrative is the representation of a sequence of connected events, analysed by separating what is told from how it is told: the fabula or story, the events in their chronological order, and the sjuzhet or discourse, the arrangement and mediation through which they reach the reader. Genette's Narrative Discourse built a systematic grammar of this level, treating order, duration, frequency, mood, and voice as the machinery of telling, while Chatman's Story and Discourse mapped the same division across fiction and film. The referent is a formal object, a structured representation open to poetics and analysis, not a person's sense of self, a clinical skill, or a force in an economy.[1][2]
In personality psychology a narrative is the internalized, evolving life story a person constructs to integrate a reconstructed past and an imagined future into a self with some degree of unity and purpose. McAdams and McLean's Narrative Identity defined this construct and gathered evidence that how people tell their stories, whether they find redemption in adversity or cast themselves as agents, tracks their mental health and maturity. The referent is a psychological structure internal to a person, elicited as autobiographical accounts and coded for theme, not a formal text, a bedside practice, or a market rumour.[3]
In clinical practice narrative medicine is medicine practised with the competence to absorb, interpret, and act on the stories of illness that patients tell, so that care is more attentive and more just. Charon's Narrative Medicine: A Model for Empathy, Reflection, Profession, and Trust argued that skills of close reading and reflective writing let a clinician follow a patient's account, honour its particularity, and build the trust that treatment depends on. The referent is a practised professional capacity exercised at the bedside, not a formal property of a text, an inner life story, or an idea spreading through an economy.[4]
In economics a narrative is a contagious popular story, a simple account that spreads from person to person and, by changing beliefs and behaviour, drives real economic events such as booms, recessions, and panics. Shiller's Narrative Economics proposed studying these stories with the tools used for epidemics, tracing how a narrative goes viral and feeds back into spending, investment, and confidence. The referent is a circulating idea treated as a measurable causal force in aggregate economic activity, not a literary structure, a private identity, or a clinical skill.[5]
In musicology, narrative refers to instrumental music heard as following narrative archetypes of rising and falling fortunes. This meaning comes from Almén (2008) in A theory of musical narrative.[6]
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