Ecological Narratology: 7 Cross-Linguistic Narrative Ecologies: How Languages Realise Possibility

So far, we have seen how construal, relationality, perspective, and orientation interact to form a coherent narrative ecology.

Now we explore how these axes manifest differently across languages, showing that typology is not just grammar — it is a structured space of narrative possibility.

Liora’s forest episode provides a stable laboratory: same “event,” different semiotic systems, different narrative textures.

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1. English: Event-Centric Ecology

English foregrounds events and verb-driven sequences:

Liora bent over the pool. She saw the creature hover above it. Moss and dew glimmered in the sunlight. She reached toward the water, and a ripple spread.

• Construal: verbs foreground actions; participants serve as event roles.

• Relationality: minimal; interactions are linear.

• Perspective: tightly Liora-centered.

• Orientation: explicit spatial anchoring, moderate social and discursive framing.

The English ecology emphasises action and sequential causality, producing tension and narrative momentum.

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2. Salishan-Style: Participant-Centric Ecology

Salishan and related languages distribute eventhood across participants:

Liora, careful and attentive, hovered at the pool. Its shimmering surface, the moss, and the dew all responded to her presence. The creature mirrored her motion.

• Construal: events distributed across participants; verbs less central.

• Relationality: rich; participants are semiotic centers.

• Perspective: Liora-aligned but more multi-participant awareness.

• Orientation: environmental and participant relations richly encoded.

The ecology foregrounds interactivity, relational depth, and emergent causation rather than linear action.

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3. Japanese-Style: State-Event Fusion Ecology

Japanese often blends states and events, foregrounding experiential texture:

Liora leaned toward the pool. The water shimmered, reflecting dawn. She felt the quiet expectation of the forest, and the creature hovered, still, attentive.

• Construal: states and events integrated; temporal boundaries fluid.

• Relationality: moderate; relational markers embedded in honorifics, particles, and modifiers.

• Perspective: participant-centered, subtle awareness of social/phenomenal hierarchy.

• Orientation: spatial, social, and discursive anchoring encoded in context and particles.

This ecology foregrounds experience and awareness, producing reflective, immersive storytelling.

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4. Comparative Insights

Across these ecologies, we see:

• Same raw phenomena yield multiple narrative worlds.

• Differences are semiotic, not cognitive determinism.

• Typology licenses narrative textures: action-driven, participant-rich, or experience-focused.

Liora’s forest demonstrates how the same story is differently “possible” depending on the language’s semiotic affordances.

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5. Implications for Narrative Theory

1. Narrative is ecological: coherent stories emerge from the interaction of semiotic axes.

2. Typology shapes possibility: languages afford, constrain, and pattern narrative options.

3. Lived experience in story-worlds: the relational-ontological frame shows that narratives are not mirrors of reality, but structured actualisations of potential.

4. Cross-linguistic perspective: comparing ecologies reveals how languages cut, connect, and anchor phenomena differently, without invoking determinism.

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This concludes the core deep dive into ecological narratology, using Liora as a running example to illuminate how construal, relationality, perspective, and orientation combine in typologically varied semiotic ecologies.