An Explanation of the Differences between Narrative and Non-Narrative Texts

Abstract

In everyday talk, we usually use the terms story and narrative interchangeably which is wrong. Not only story is different from narrative, but also there is a difference between narrative and non-narrative texts. Story is what happens while narrative is the way an event is expressed. For example, a single story can be narrated differently for children and adults using different rhetorical devices without any noticeable change in the general theme and message. By the same token, there is a difference between text and narrative text. While a text comprises of different objects such as images and words, a narrative text is a text telling the story. For example, the documents related to the Cold War are not a narrative text, but a short story is a narrative text because there are cause and effect relationships between its constructing elements. It can be stated that every narrative is a discourse, but all discourses are not narrative. The preset study, with use of an analytical approach and secondary research aimed at explaining the difference between narrative and non-narrative texts.

Keywords

• narrative
• text
• narrative text
• story