인간의 원초적 의사소통으로서 이야기의 진화과정과 보편성

Abstract

Narratives exists all around the world at all point in the history of humans. Everyone, regardless of race or class, is constantly exposed to stories and narrate throughout their lifetime. Narrating is considered a fundamental and universal act of humans. The aim of this article is to investigate the motives behind the emergence of narratives, and its evolution and establishment among humans. In the first half of this study, we will discuss why stories began to be used during the hunting and gathering ages, and how it influenced humans to the extent that it became a fundamental and universal human activity. Narrative seems to have emerged during the prehistoric ages of mankind due to its unique and useful nature of being able to acquire, transfer, and store various informations for human survival and cooperation. Competent storytellers were revered and preferred in societies, for they brought more information, productivity and thus, success. With Narrative and humans mutually affect oneanother to the extent in which narratives seems to have developed into a fundamental communicative method among humans. In the second half of this study, we will discuss why narratives are still favored in the present, even though there many other convenient modes of communication and it is no longer essential for human survival in the sense of hunting and gathering ages. There are at least two reasons narrative is currently preferred among people: its simplicity and the various benefits it brings for the storyteller. Narratives are defined as ‘the reconstruction of one’s direct or indirect experiences’. This means that the subject of narration is always already known to the storyteller. Futhermore storyteller is able to subjectively change or alter the story. These make the practice of the narrating convenient to the teller. Narrating seems to be beneficial to the listener because the storyteller can share useful and valuable information. But narrating also carries many benefits to the teller. Firstly, storytelling provides an opportunity for the teller to restore mind balance disturbed by experiences of weird and surprising events. Secondly, storytelling enables the teller to sort and understand the confused experiences related to the story. Thirdly, the self identity that the storyteller aims to position can be ratified and confirmed by the listener throughout the narrating process. These are the reasons why narratives are still fundamental and crucial to humans in the modern time.