Resumo

ALVAREZ, Luis. Improving the narrative discourse Of our students. Investigación y Postgrado [online]. 2008, vol.23, n.2, pp.89-118. ISSN 1316-0087.

The paper summarizes the structure and functionality of a research project that had as its main goal improving the narrative discourse of those participating in the application of this methodology. At the theoretical level, a model was developed to establish certain analytical conditions needed to produce narrative texts. The texts were produce in two different settings. In the first one, subjects were given a graphic sequence. In the second one, situations were brought about to induce the subjects to be creative and applied the structures learned. At the descriptive level, the intention was to find proof that the problem situation, found in the study groups, could be overcome by implementing what this study proposes. At the methodological level, it was considered that such implementation could be summarized in several rules which, used flexibly -depending on the participating group and its level-, could lead to the solution to those problems detected at institutions where writing, production and improvement topics are tackled. For the epistemological approach, we have started from a general theory, Parson and Shils’s (1961) General Theory of Action, since we considered writing to be a particular case of an action. At the same time, two intermediate theories were used: Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Actions (1987), and Padrón’s Theory of integrated Actions (1993). Finally, we have also applied, when appropriate, two specific language theories: transformational grammar (Chomsky, 1970) and text linguistics (van Dijk, 1989, 1990, 1994, 1998).

Palavras-chave : narrative text; action theories; understanding and producing texts; writing competence.