Summary: Unveiling Language Dynamics
Kumar, Pradeep. “A Discourse Analysis of Alice Munro’s “How I Met My Husband.” International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development, vol 2, no. 1, 2017, pp. 647-651.
The author Pradeep focused on the discourse perspective of the study of “How I Met My Husband by Munro. The preliminary part of the article focuses on defining what discourse analysis means before relating it to Munro’s story and how she applied it. From the many definitions drawn by Pradeep, discourse analysis entails studying how the language is used in texts and contexts as defined in the Speech Act Theory. In other words, scholars have defined discourse analysis as the relationship between linguistic expressions and their context, which involves choosing particular expressions depending on the situation. Having defined what discourse analysis means, Pradeep examines how it applies in the story “How I Met My Husband” by Munro based on two theories; Speech Act Theory and Politeness theory. Speech Act Theory is given propositional, Perlocutionary meaning, and illocutionary meanings based on Munro’s text. For example, the narrator says that they watched the plane’s landing across the road at the place where fairgrounds used to bring out the propositional meaning. Also, the article identifies some of the negative acts of face-threatening in the text by Munro, such as damage to the hearer, damage to the speaker.
Evaluation
The source is effective such that it helps to extract the language used in Munro’s story and establish how the language is expressively used based on the contexts. The article comprehensively examines the story’s meaning based on already existing theory to illustrate that his analysis is theoretically supported. Thus, rather than describing the actions and interactions of characters in the “How I Met My Husband” story in a vacuum, the use of Speech Act Theory, Politeness theory, and cooperative principle show how the writer of the story allows communication. The article’s contents are also reliable considering that the author, Pradeep is a researcher in the English department at the University of Allahabad. However, the article focuses significantly on the defining discourse analysis and can lose the reader on what the paper entails in relation to Munro’s story.
Relationship to Other Sources
The source was unique and distinct from other sources I used. Instead of focusing on the meaning, interpretation, characters, and themes of the story like the rest of the sources, it focused on the language used, its meaning, and how such language related to the context. However, in terms of context, the source reveals what other sources had indicated about the story’s content bringing some form of love the narrator shows towards the husband. Thus, it cannot be true that the article entirely disagreed or was independent of the rest.
Paraphrased Ideas or Direct Quotations to Use in Paper
The article was used to reveal the language used, its expression in the paper, and how it related to the context. The article was paraphrased three times:
- Alice Munro decided to write the short story adapting from a play at Blyth Festival, which was part of a 1988 film by Ruth, Martha, and Edie narrative by Cynthia Flood and Betty Lambert (Kumar 648)
For instance, setting the narrative to depict personal mailings, boarding of planes, settlement in a private compound, and other factors shows that people had started to change their lifestyle after the end of the second world war (Kumar 647)
However, the story revolves around the period of the second world war had taken place (Kumar 650).
Summary: Gale’s In-Depth Exploration of the Story
Gale, Cengage Learning. A Study Guide for Alice Munro’s” How I Met My Husband.” Gale, Cengage Learning, 2016.
The source is a book by Gale providing the study guide on the “How I Met My Husband” story by Munro. The book is structured into 13 sections which describe the plot summary, questions of the study, author biography, analysis of characters, the historical context, suggestions for further reading, and others. In the first section, Gale focuses on the author of the story, Munro, how she wrote her short stories, and how much the story “How I Met My Husband” has achieved from her. The section also describes the story itself, including the year of publication and a summary of it about a fifteen-year-old girl who met and fell in love in a romantic encounter with an older man Chris and eventually mailman. The second section is about the biography of Munro as the author of the book who was born in 1931 near Wingham, Ontario. The book describes how she grew up, attended school, and later published her first short-story collection in 1968 called Dance of the Happy Shades, the second one in 1971 before the subject story of “How I Met My Husband.” The subsequent sections of the book by Gale provide a guide to the story of “How I Met My Husband” by Munro, including its plot summary in section three.
Evaluation
The source is comprehensive and intensive in its description of the short story by Munro and its elements, including the author, plot, characters, and the historical context. The book provides more information on the aspects of the story that are not present in the text itself, including the author’s biography and the publication details. However, Gale exhibits a lot of repetitiveness in his guide, especially on the story’s contents. For example, Gale summarizes the story by Munro while describing the story itself and the author in section one; yet another summary is provided in section three. In general, the source is effective for providing all the needed information about Munro’s “How I Met My Husband” story.
Relationship to Other Sources
The source, like the rest of those I used, significantly focuses on describing the story by Munro, including plot, author, and character. The only distinction presented by this source is that it is arranged in sections subdividing each story element. Overall, there is a lot of similarity between this source and other sources as far as Munro’s story is concerned.
Paraphrased Ideas or Direct Quotations to Use in Paper
The book is paraphrased two times:
- Being naive, Edie falls in love with Watters, but later on, she discovers that the man has an engagement with another woman known as Alice Keeling (Gale section2).
- Dr. Peebles had frequently hired the services of Chris, meaning that that time was characterized by efficacy in traveling and exploring the world (Gale section4)
Summary: Decoding Munro’s Autobiographical Craft
Goldman, Marlene. “Autobiography in the Anthropocene. A Geological Reading of Alice Munro.” European Journal of Life Writing 9 (2020): BE75-BE92.
The paper by Goldman is an exploration of preoccupation by Munro to use her skills to present haunting moments and conventional tendencies where she tells stories that cover many years and even decades. These vast temporal arcs impact her through autobiographical fiction, which follows her decision to revise non-fictional works that have allowed the readers to make ancestral connections of her work. Thus, despite being a celebrated writer, Munro’s autobiographical stories are loosely written because she has insisted on differentiating accounts of factual autobiography and writing of personal life. She views her stories as quasi-fictional texts because they feature recurring characters and episodes. Thus, this journal focuses on the unique writings of autobiographical stories by Munro that focus mostly on telling life’s truth than being fictional.
Evaluation
The source is an excellent mirror of the works done by Munro in relation to what others are doing in the field of writing. Though it majorly focuses on Munro alone without mentioning other writers, it is elaborate enough in drawing the differences between the work of Munro and others. The author of this source works at the University of Toronto; hence the work meets the credibility question. However, since the area of focus of my critical analysis was Munro’s story of “How I Met My Husband,” Goldman fell short of capturing this to relate to others.
Relationship to Other Sources
The source is uniquely designed not to resemble others in terms of its content. It takes a rare trajectory to discuss the style used by Munro to do her writing. Most of the sources in the analysis focused on “How I Met My Husband” and its content, yet this is not significantly mentioned in this text by Goldman.
Paraphrased Ideas or Direct Quotations to Use in Paper
The journal is paraphrased two times:
- Munro’s work is sensitizing, and the strategy that she uses to capture readers’ attention is by use of forwarding and backward maneuver in time (Goldman 76).
- Thus, her work focuses on exploring human anatomy in real-life situations (Goldman 76).
Summary: Exploring Munro’s Artistry
Munro, Alice. Something I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You. New American Library of Canada, 1975, pp. 130-147.
The source encompasses the collection of the stories written by Munro in which the writer demonstrates her precise observation, use of prose style in a straightforward way, and mastery of technique. The demonstration of these elements has attracted criticism comparing the work by Munro and others. The collection involves characters that bear the titles of mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, and friends, as well as elements of lover, hope, reconciliation, and anger. The characters tend to reconnect between the histories and the present situations they experience as well as their future concerns. Thus, it is more of a family drama that has a lot of secrets.
Evaluation
The story is a typical demonstration of the writing works of Munro I which she makes the difference between autobiographical fiction and personal life. The story in this source elaborately narrates the family interactions bring out the clear scenario of the relationship between members. The source is considered reliable and credible when working on the story “How I Met My Husband” by Munro, considering is the same person.
Relationship to Other Sources
The content of this source does not have any direct similarity with Munro’s story of “How I Met My Husband,” considering that the plot flow is distinct from one another. Similarly, unlike the subject of discussion in my analysis, the initial part of the source seems to focus more on the style used by Munro in writing. However, the following and the context are almost similar to the works done by Munro hence relating the source to others.
Paraphrased Ideas or Direct Quotations to Use in Paper
The journal is paraphrased two times:
- Munro comes from Wingham, Ontario in Canada and her occupation is a short-story writer (Munro para1).
- Specialized in short stories, her stories have been regarded as one of the most exemplary literature in the current generation (Munro para2).